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Ziad Fazah - does he exist?

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
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morphy
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 Message 289 of 377
01 October 2007 at 4:04pm | IP Logged 

I don't know about the website, but this is probably the TV show where Ziad Fazah didn't do well at all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8FXzkwZhE

Looks like he thought in advance all the questions were going to be same. Weird...
I thought Farsi was one of the languages he spoke best...?!

Anyone ever saw the TV show where he did well?
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 290 of 377
01 October 2007 at 4:29pm | IP Logged 
I watched the clip and although I didn't understand everything of the Spanish to begin with, my main thought was that the sound in general was very bad synchronized - almost as if somebody had dubbed it.

So I don't really know what to say about the clip.
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lloydkirk
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 Message 291 of 377
01 October 2007 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
He looked like he was about to sweat blood...
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translator2
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 Message 292 of 377
01 October 2007 at 10:01pm | IP Logged 
Thank you so much for that link. It totally proves everything we have been saying all along!

He was asked VERY VERY BASIC questions (of the What did you do today? type) in Finnish, Russian, Farsi, Chinese, Greek, etc.) and then asked not to respond, but simply to repeat what they asked him (albeit in Spanish - which was also pretty bad). He is asked to read a text written in Farsi (whose alphabet is very similar to his native Arabic), but the speaker was not satisfied with his accent and when he asked Ziad a question, Ziad made up a response and the Farsi speaker responded, no, I'm sorry, that is not what I said. He was only able to understand one word of the simple Russian question that any first year Russian student would know (and could not even repeat the question back to the speaker). He told the panel that the Chinese guy asked him "Where did you learn Chinese? Where did you learn to speak Chinese so fluently." to which the Chinese speaker shakes his head NO! He did not even understand the Greek speaker who asked him THE SAME QUESTION as a previous speaker.

Earlier, Dave M claimed that he was "taken by surprise" and unprepared for this program (where did he think he was going - to the circus?). I can understand this, but sorry, anyone who claims to speak these languages (fluently or otherwise) should be able to understand such basic sentences and phrases as these without the need for any "preparation".

True, these languages are difficult, but he has more difficult ones (with less available resources) on his "list". The sad part is that he seems to genuinely believe that he can speak these languages (as I explained in a previous post on December 13, 2005 - he probably read an introductory grammar, learned a few phrases, and believes or believed that was all he needed).

It is also great that this clip shows that the program was recorded in 1997.

The Emperor has no clothes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8FXzkwZhE


morphy wrote:

I don't know about the website, but this is probably the TV show where Ziad Fazah didn't do well at all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8FXzkwZhE

Looks like he thought in advance all the questions were going to be same. Weird...
I thought Farsi was one of the languages he spoke best...?!

Anyone ever saw the TV show where he did well?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8FXzkwZhE

Edited by translator2 on 02 October 2007 at 1:45am

2 persons have voted this message useful



FSI
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 Message 293 of 377
01 October 2007 at 10:24pm | IP Logged 
Yeah, that definitely didn't look good. On the other hand, it felt pretty cool being able to understand the Spanish. I'd be interested in seeing any other videos of him that pop up.

Edited by FSI on 01 October 2007 at 10:25pm

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edwin
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 Message 294 of 377
01 October 2007 at 11:19pm | IP Logged 
The Chinese guy simply asked him what man-made object was visible from the moon.

Anyone contacted the guy lately?
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translator2
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 Message 295 of 377
02 October 2007 at 1:44am | IP Logged 
AND - Instead of just saying - I don't know, he tried several times to make up some crazy answer (as if no one would know). Did he just hear one or two words and try to guess or did he really believe he could understand them?
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Walshy
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 Message 296 of 377
02 October 2007 at 1:51am | IP Logged 
His case certainly looks weak now, you can see the hosts double-checking the Guinness Book of Records.

Also, what did the Persian guy say at 1:52? It really seemed to upset him.

For that matter, would anyone fluent in Spanish be so kind as to translate the Spanish in that video for us (or Portuguese, whatever it is)? I'm dying of curiosity here.

DaveM wrote:
As for Renike. Im starting to get a bit offended here. All of his middle estaern languages are native perfect or near it. All of his romance lnaguages too, all of his Germanic langauages and his German are near perfect and all at least of the level of an educated foreigner and his russian, japanese and many other languages are excellent. His Mandarin is excellent, truly truly excellent

Apparently, his Persian, Russian, and Mandarin are actually quite poor. I'm sorry, but the evidence this video provides is far more solid than your word.


Edited by Walshy on 02 October 2007 at 2:45am



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