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Ziad Fazah - does he exist? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| konrad Newbie Poland Joined 6653 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes | Message 121 of 377 08 February 2006 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||
I believe in the possibilities of our brain and I'm sure it's possible. As I said the only condition is to learn regularly and to have contact with the languages you learn. There are two big problems. The first is that you forget if you stop studying the language - even for some days. The other is that you can't learn two similar languages one after another - here is also my question concerning Ziad Fazah: how did he manage to have no problem in using two similar languages. The only solution to avoid this problem is to use these languages all the time. If you want to learn Spanish and Portuguese together, it can be more difficult than learn only Chinese. If you, for example, stop speaking Spanish, when you would like to do it after some months, you'll see that you use Portuguese words all the time... Of course, you won't learn these 20 languages in 3 months. It will take years of hard work, but if you're patient, you're able to do it. Imagine that you learn only 3 words a day of each of these languages (which is not much). Even if you forget half of them, after one year you'll know 1000 words in every language you learn. Of course you'll be learning grammar, expressions and other things, too. But it's important to learn every day, even for 10 minutes for every of these languages. I managed to do it with 15 languages for two months, but it took a lot of my time and I had to stop it (of course for some time). And I feel that I made some progress - of course now I have to refresh a lot of things... That's why I think it's possible to speak so many languages, but only if we have a lot of opportunities: time, money (or books and other material) and a possibility to use these languages. From the history of Ziad Fazah we know that he could have used these languages with sailors, but it's probable that for the majority of languages he learned, it was his only ressource. As I know, to learn well a language, you need to have access to its vocabulary used in different contexts, and if you don't have a grammar book, you have to listen or read a lot of sentences to be able to create the grammar rules in your head. I'm sure Ziad had the possibility to talk with sailors, but did these sailors talk with him all the time? No, he could have spoken to one or another for one hour or two, but that's all... And it's not sufficient to understand grammar of any language (ok, for esperanto it could work :)) I would believe in the story of Ziad Fazah if I knew that he spent a lot of time learning all these languages, but also - which is more important - if he had sufficient ressources. And if somebody tell me that we can learn a language without books, only talking with foreigners from time to time, I won't believe. You can learn only by talking with foreigners, that's true, but you have to spend a lot of time doing it (imagine now doing it for 20 languages). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6804 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 122 of 377 08 February 2006 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems to me as if you're describing maintaining a language rather than learning it from scratch.
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| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6679 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 123 of 377 08 February 2006 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I personally find this whole thing a little hard to believe. While I don't doubt that someone can learn that many languages (some people are gifted in that way), why he stopped learning new ones is beyond me. After all, there are still so many more he could have learnt.
Also, if he's supposedly the 'greatest living polyglot', then why is there so little information about him? It's hard to find much about him on the Internet and the Internet *is* a pretty good (though sometimes unreliable) source of information. Not living in Brazil, I've never seen this man on TV or had access to his book but I'd rather have some real proof of his abilities before I can have faith in this man. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6657 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 124 of 377 09 February 2006 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||
When I talked to him, he mentioned this, and merely said that wanting to study languages was a phase in his life that changed as he grew up. Simple as that: one's interests or hobbies naturally change through the course of a lifetime. He said it the same way someone would say they used to watch a TV show, and now they prefer to read, or play basketball instead. There didn't seem to be any kind of alternative motive whatsoever. To many, that might be hard to imagine, how could a person who has such a gift want to stop? I wouldn't say that his love for language has dissipated, indeed he was very enthusiastic about helping me with his advice, and he works as a language teacher in Rio; I would venture to say that his interest now is manifesting itself in different ways than in learning them for himself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| arnz Newbie United States Joined 6994 days ago 38 posts - 44 votes | Message 125 of 377 09 February 2006 at 10:07am | IP Logged | ||
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For those of you that havent contacted the guy, if you are all really that curious, and want to put the guy to the test, his phone number has been given out on this very thread.
Post after you've talked to him, then I'd really be interested in what you have to say. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vinz Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6672 days ago 55 posts - 56 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Vietnamese, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 126 of 377 10 February 2006 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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To all the messages that were discrediting him, I just spoke to Ziad Fazah in English, French and some Vietnamese. We talked about all different kinds of topics in French. Mr Fazah has a very sharp sense of humor. Topics included his methodology, Oriental languages, politics, etc...
Any questions just ask, vinz. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6715 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes | Message 127 of 377 10 February 2006 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is asinine. He is my teacher who I see several times a week. I check in periodically to see how this is shaping up.. Thank you Vinz.
Their are a lot of schmucks around. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6657 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 128 of 377 11 February 2006 at 2:46am | IP Logged | ||
I'm curious, how was his Vietnamese? I ask, because the last time him and I spoke, I asked him about this, and he said he indeed could speak it, but also talked about the difficulties of learning fluently an Oriental language without being in the country...I wasn't sure what he meant by this, though I assumed he was referring to idiomatic expressions, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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