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Ziad Fazah - does he exist? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6714 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes  | Message 65 of 377 12 December 2005 at 8:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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In the opening post it says that Mr. Fazah claimed that he could learn all of the worlds languages if he wanted to
I don't know to be honest as I hadn't heard that quote. I'll ask about it but, keep in mind he started when he was 14 or so and he was already bilingual to start so maybe at that time it seemed like the perfectly natural thing to do. Ziad is actually trying very hard to find an application for all his knowledge and he has future hopes of doing more television appearances on being tested on his skills. We have also thought up a few ideas of courses we would like to produce which are a long ways off but their are some ideas being bandied about. He has already written 3 books in Portuguese to learn Italian.Spanish and French but the Brazilian market is saturated and overwhelmed. As for hubris Ziad is a very very down to earth guy with a good sense of humor. He is typical of an unrecognized genius however. For a guy who has appeared on a ton of television shows, having demonstrated his abilities and having published 3 books threads like Does Ziad Fazah Exist? are still common and if you type his name into google maybe 8 links come up, mostly to message board forums debating his very existence. I get the impression of an overwhelmingly talented man trying very hard to make his mark and having oodles of talent but few people who want to listen. That is one of the reasons I am hoping to get some projetcs started with him. I have become competent in Mandarin Chinese in about 5 weeks with him and I'd like to publish something on his methods. This unfortunately requires time and money so in the meanwhile I am puttting the word out that he is around and by the time we publish something I will be a fairly accomplished polyglot myself(English,Portuguese,Spanish,Italian,Hebrew,Mandarin,Hi ndi/Urdu are my current languages and by the end of the year I will hopefully add 3-4 more) This year I am dying to get rolling in French and Arabic among others. Ziad has urged me to kick the sh*t out of Mandarin before anything else so thats what Im fixin to do before I take up the other stuff as well. So thats the current state of affairs. If you want to help spread the word and help create the buzza and as soon as we can we will have something for everyone God willing 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 6979 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 66 of 377 12 December 2005 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You became competent in Mandarin in 5 weeks? Pardon my skepticism.
Even studying around the clock there are only 840 hours in a five week period of time. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6714 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes | Message 67 of 377 12 December 2005 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Able to carry on a decent enough conversation over basic things, order my food in a restaurant, say where Im from, talk about basic subjects etc.....
I didn't say I gave a dissertation on 15th century French literature in Mandarin. Why are the people on this board so skeptical? Where is your self confidence? Mandarin is not that hard to speak. Its a time consuming language to speak,read,and write but frankly I find Hebrew more complicated to speak than Mandarin. Anyone motivated enough with talent should be able to gain some competence in most Asian languages that don't have some sort of exceptionally difficult grammar (Japanese) or insane tone system (Cantonese 8 tones)For cripes sakes their is no real grammar and if you don't let the tones frighten you 3 months should be enough to become pretty conversational Maybe we should have a Tony Robbins seminar. If you don't believe in yourself enough to do something like that why bother trying. People who go out and learn 10,20, or 30 languages aren't interested in knowing that they "shouldn't" be able to do those things, they are more interested in doing them. Anyone who has ever decided to learn a foreign language deserves a tip of the hat because most people will try to discourage you. I dont buy that. So thats right I've been studying 5 weeks and I can carry on a decent enough conversation. I go to the chinese restaurants in Rio where I live and I speak and lots of words I dont know but I get better every day. I think in 2-3 months I will be somewhat fluent speechwise and in 6 or so I will have a good reading and writing ability as well 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Walshy Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6730 days ago 335 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German | Message 68 of 377 12 December 2005 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
Good luck with that. If anything comes about, I will definently check it out.
Even reading through this thread, one can see that information on the internet about Ziad is unreliable, contradictory, and seemingly impossible. It seems understandable to me, that unless you live in Brazil, there is no way that you can know for sure what is truth and what is fiction. Just look at that one source that claims that he learned most of his languages in a 3 or 4 year period, working out to 1 new language every 3-4 weeks. Based on unreliable sources like that, its understandable that many people are skeptical of his existence. Now that we have someone who knows him, and who is actively posting on the forums, the pool of skeptics may start to dry up. Good luck to Mr Fazah in whatever he decides to do from here. I hope he is one day able to produce some language courses, and I don't doubt that they will be extremely effective. If Mr Fazah's name is ever recognised in a place like the USA or UK, he will be a guaranteed success. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| KingM Triglot Senior Member michaelwallaceauthor Joined 6979 days ago 275 posts - 300 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 69 of 377 12 December 2005 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't say I didn't believe in myself. I just said I didn't believe a guy could learn Mandarin in five weeks and I don't because I do believe in myself. I'm a pretty smart guy with above average memory and a good ear for accents and I know how much time I've put in to learn the languages I've studied (which, incidentally, were "easy" European languages) and I find myself wondering about the veracity of a statement that says you can learn a language in five weeks. On second thought, there probably are people out there who could do this, but they're a lot more gifted than I am. Maybe you are one of these people. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6714 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes | Message 70 of 377 12 December 2005 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you. I appreciate the post. I'm doing what I can and its nice to finally have soome peers in languages with whom I can discuss these matters.
I walk around all day with vocabulary cards reciting words out loud in supermarkets and on the street and people just generally think I'm insane. Its good to be able to talk to other people about these things. I will be starting a few posts up soon and Im elated to finally have some people to exchange ideas with. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6803 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 71 of 377 13 December 2005 at 6:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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I was actually going to ask you how you learned your languages, but it appears as if you've partly answered the question in your most recent post. Anything else that you do, apart from the "insane" things :) ?
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| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6707 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 72 of 377 15 December 2005 at 10:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have been learning languages on my own and in school for the past 18 years and I have been a professional translator for the past 11 years.
The problem seems to be with the definition of what it means to “speak a language”, not to mention the word “fluent”. As I mentioned, I have been studying some of my languages for over a decade and there is always something more to learn – you are never finished. I think that if this person exists, he is or was perhaps somewhat misguided. Maybe at first this was out of naivety and later his reputation grew to the point where when he finally realized the truth, he could not admit it or maybe he is still unaware. I am sure that his English, Arabic (native languages) and Portuguese (language of his country of residence) are adequate as well as perhaps one or two of his other foreign languages, but what most likely happened is that he completed some “Teach Yourself Javanese” book and maybe learned some additional vocabulary and genuinely believes or believed that this means you can “speak the language” not realizing that there are still years of studying to go beyond a simple “Learn to Speak Japanese in 30 Days” textbook. I have a library of thousands of foreign language textbooks and materials. What resources did Mr. Fazah use to acquire his languages, especially the more “exotic” ones where such materials are not only scarce, but expensive as well? To me, I would not say I can “speak a language” until I can understand at least 85-90% of what is being said on satellite television and movies and can readily engage in conversation with native speakers about a variety of topics with little or no difficulties or gaps in communication or knowledge. I believe this is what the average person would expect from someone who claims “I speak Russian”, for example, rather than someone who knows basic greetings, how to count to 100 and how to ask where the train station is. This cannot be done in five weeks or even a year. Others may claim that they can “speak” French after finishing a textbook simply because they do not realize how much more “French” there actually is to learn. This is not their fault – it is quite logical to believe that after reading a book about something (especially those that claim to be comprehensive) that you are finished. Instead, you have only scratched the surface. Would I read one textbook on World History and claim that I am a history expert? I have been making a very comfortable living as a translator for the past 11 years with languages much less exotic than those Mr. Fazah claims to “speak”. Therefore, a man with all of his supposed knowledge who claims that he is still searching for an application for his knowledge does not make much sense to me unless his reputation far exceeds his actual ability. After you learn one or two foreign languages thoroughly and you understand just how much time and knowledge is involved beyond the surface level, you will be less apt to so quickly pronounce your fluency to the world when studying a third language. For example, I thought I spoke decent Spanish after completing two semesters in high school and I confidently used my Spanish with native speakers in my hometown – until I took an intermediate Spanish course in college and realized just how ignorant I was. This is not to discourage anyone from becoming multilingual or from learning as many languages as they wish. I too hate it when I hear someone say that you cannot learn more than four or five languages fluently, etc. and like Mr. Fazah, I unfortunately have a reputation for “speaking” more languages than I actually do because people love to exaggerate at parties, etc. “He speaks five languages” quickly becomes “he speaks seven languages”, etc. etc. While it may certainly be possible to learn 58+ languages, it is not possible to do so without many, many years of continuous effort, tons of resources and the understanding that you cannot retain constant fluency in all of these languages at once. If you understand Portuguese (ironically, this story is written in Portuguese), you should definitely read the short-story “O homem que sabia javanês” by Lima Barreto: http://www.releituras.com/limabarreto_javanes.asp It tells the story of a man who reads an advertisement placed by an elderly gentleman seeking a tutor in Javanese. He reasons that not many people would be applying for this job and believes that he has a good chance of getting hired even though he does not speak a word of Javanese. The protagonist goes to the library and looks up Javanese in the encyclopedia and quickly commits the alphabet and a few words and phrases to memory. He gets the job, but soon discovers that his student is not quite so adept at languages and he is able to keep a few lessons ahead of his student. The story goes on and the rumors about his “knowledge” of Javanese spread until he is ultimately offered a diplomatic position based on his knowledge of this language he still does not speak. The safest response when someone asks you how many languages do you speak is to reply “I am studying xxx languages”, but I speak a little xxx, xxx, xxx and then let them find out later that your “little” is actually a great deal more. Edited by translator2 on 15 December 2005 at 12:01pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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