Glarus Girl Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4578 days ago 50 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swiss-German
| Message 1 of 21 23 September 2014 at 8:34pm | IP Logged |
Some of you may be familiar with Michael schmitz of Smarter German who says it is
possible to get to B1 in German in a month or with his last experiment in 14 days! Well,
he has set himself a challenge this time using his own techniques to get himself to B1 in
Greek in 30 days! I'm sure this will be very interesting...
Greek in 30
days
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robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5062 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew
| Message 2 of 21 24 September 2014 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
I would be wary of falling too hard for this guy. He's promoting his system pretty hard on his site, offering
"Guaranteed success" for 4990 euros (which is expensive, but includes a large package of one-on-one lessons).
As far as I can tell the program itself consists of instructional videos and personal tutoring, in other words
nothing revolutionary, nothing that you would expect to work faster than what everyone else is doing. Of course I
can't speak to the quality of his videos and tutoring. It's possible they are top-notch, and with intensive study
and some focus on learning to the test it seems plausible that a talented learner can get to something resembling
B1. I would be wary though; this guy is playing the salesman and there's nothing on his site that really suggests a
meaningful advance in language learning.
On his site he clarifies his zero-to-B1 German track:
"You can reach B1 in just ten weeks or even less if you work according to my system. We will work three or
five times for one hour per day and later that day you will have to do another two hours of homework. "
In other words, a total of about 420 hours to reach B1. If you compare this to the FSI's estimate of 750 hours of
instruction to reach level 3 (roughly C1) in German, this is a reasonable claim.
So yeah, if he's talented maybe he can do it. But this is not the next big thing.
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Glarus Girl Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4578 days ago 50 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swiss-German
| Message 3 of 21 24 September 2014 at 12:22pm | IP Logged |
I just like watching anyone that claims to do these things! To me it's just cramming for
an exam and all the info will probably be lost quite quickly afterwards.
With regards to getting to B1 in German so fast, in my opinion, it's more to do with
people that need it for citizenship rather than for the actual knowledge as I think you
need to be that level to apply for it. People that learn to drive in a week may have
done everything correctly on the day of the test but it doesn't mean they can drive
properly! :o)
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tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4050 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch
| Message 4 of 21 27 September 2014 at 2:24pm | IP Logged |
The quicker you learn something, the faster you forgot it.
I studied for an exam (not language related) 40 minutes before and with 0 previous study, I managed to have a
decent vote but one week after I didn't remember anything.
also, for personal experience, aiming to reach a result in a very tight schedule leads to frustration and burnout.
EDIT: I misread, you're not going to do it.
Well, still depends of what he wants to do after the month. Even if he can do it, then I has to maintain it (or not, if
it's just to show that his technique works).
Edited by tristano on 27 September 2014 at 2:29pm
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Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4311 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French
| Message 5 of 21 13 October 2014 at 11:33am | IP Logged |
The lack of transparency is starting to annoy me. His latest video, and in fact all the
videos, are him talking entirely in English. I believe he is a superbly talented teacher,
but he's also a spin doctor. This is a series about learning Greek? Where's the damn
Greek? Where's the footage of him using his Greek with an increasingly B1-like ability?
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drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4471 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish
| Message 6 of 21 19 October 2014 at 12:24pm | IP Logged |
I agree.
It looks like a showcase for his German teaching/tutoring than a journey through Greek.
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s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5433 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish
| Message 7 of 21 21 October 2014 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
drygramul wrote:
I agree.
It looks like a showcase for his German teaching/tutoring than a journey through Greek. |
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This is so true and extremely annoying. I've just watched Days 25 and 26 and there's hardly a word of Greek. The
ramblings on language learning are OK, but that's not what most of us are interested in. This is just marketing fluff.
Edit: corrected a very important omission: "...but that's not what most of us are interested in."
Edited by s_allard on 21 October 2014 at 10:02pm
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drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4471 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish
| Message 8 of 21 21 October 2014 at 6:00pm | IP Logged |
s_allard wrote:
This is just marketing fluff. |
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Day 29, basically: I didn't go so far because I hadn't guidance, and I didn't get guidance because I have trust issues with teachers [...]blablabla mix of triviality and obviousness about trust (as I would put it in Italian) [...] my students trust me (didn't see that coming) [...] Essence of "Greek on my own": get a teacher (I'm shocked again).
Not a single word in Greek.
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