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Fluent in Mandarin in 3 months? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4697 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 69 05 January 2012 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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So for those of you who don't follow Benny Lewis at fluentin3months.com his new "mission" is to try and learn
Mandarin in 3 months... To conversational fluency. Now I am actually a huge fan of him, and of his method, and I follow his blog and love his posts and enthusiasm, but I just don't see this happening. It has worked for German in the past, but that's German, an entirely different animal than Mandarin!! So you people out there who know 10x what I know about this stuff, What do you think!? has he set the bar too high? http://www.fluentin3months.com/mandarin- mission/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4915 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 69 05 January 2012 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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A three-month mission is a three-month mission. I expect the outcome will be the same as any of his other three-month missions.
He's aiming high, something we all tend to do when we set out to learn our languages. He may end up revising his goals mid-way through his "mission", as he's done with other missions. R. == 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5166 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 69 05 January 2012 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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The "social fluency" he talks about is much closer to B1-B2. Still, it's no doubt a huge task when it comes to Mandarin.
But it doesn't matter whether he succeeds or not. I know some people are all up in a knot because he's making claims and selling a product, etc., but he gets out there and starts learning right away, in a way most people would never dare. I'm sure he's motivated lots of people to go ahead and give'r and you at least have to give him credit for that. I always advocated that speaking from day one is the way to go if your intention is to actually speak the language, and he's showing us that it works. Whether it works to a specific degree within a specific (excessively short) time frame is not that important. There are so many learners out there that never, ever reach the level he reaches in 3 months, and most of them would be happy to do it in twice the time if they could. He's showing us that with the right motivation, you can do it too. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5047 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 69 05 January 2012 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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When we sit here in front of our computers and think about learning languages, we tend to think in terms of our own approaches. Benny really does make it his "mission" to learn the language. Of course, he has advantages that those of us who have chosen to live a more conventional lifestyle- job, family, other hobbies, other interests, etc., don't have. He is immersed in Mandarin by living in-country. Still, many others live in-country and never do what he does because they cling to the expat community. Benny avoids the expats, refuses to speak English, socializes with native speakers and lives the language. Somehow, he still maintains his language-related blogging business simultaneously. How many of us are that dedicated? How much more efficiently and quickly could we learn languages if we were? My hat's off to him.
It is indeed a difficult challenge he has set for himself. He may succeed or may not but there is no shame in aiming high and not reaching your goal. I think it is important to aim high. Making it public, as Benny does, gives him that much more incentive. I am really looking forward to watching his progress and wish him the best of luck! Edited by iguanamon on 05 January 2012 at 4:41pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4500 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 5 of 69 05 January 2012 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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As he said, he doesn't want to be a professional writer, or even write at all. He wants to get conversation fluent (level C1) and be able to read things in Traditional Mandarin (level B1 or B2, maybe?).
I doubt that either, but I really like his methods and his approach to languages. Let's hope for the best! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5454 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 69 05 January 2012 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Yet I often hear many others on this forum saying that it is important to set realistic goals. There is a big difference between stretching yourself, and deluding yourself (and others). Three months to Mandarin C1 is unheard of. The best languages learners I know have spent at least a couple of years to even approach C1 in Mandarin. If Benny achieves zero to C1 in three months it would make him perhaps the greatest language learner in history, and his talents would be so distant from those of mere mortals that all we could do is stare in amazement, rather than emulate his miraculous achievement. Edited by Splog on 05 January 2012 at 4:52pm 15 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5166 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 7 of 69 05 January 2012 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
It's important to set realistic goals only if doing otherwise may lead to disillusionment and discouragement. If you know what you're doing and are a seasoned learner, who cares. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4697 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 69 05 January 2012 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree! I'm actually really excited to watch this thing unfold as I am a huge fan of his!
and it's true, regardless of what happens he continues to inspire people, and the way I actually found out about the whole language community was through his blog, which in turn has inspired me to keep learning more languages! So I hope the best for him, I just wanted to see what you guys thought 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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