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Benny Lewis | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6700 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 73 of 164 24 April 2012 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Polyglots or polygloats?
Polyglots - Jacks of All Trades? Edited by translator2 on 24 April 2012 at 4:10am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6724 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 74 of 164 24 April 2012 at 5:23am | IP Logged | ||
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One of the cited articles uses the word "hyperpolyglot". Mezzofanti used to be called a polyglot, but nowadays we have hyperpolyglots. This is but one example of the trend of inflating the worth of lower levels of accomplishment, ultimately facilitating distorted self-assessment.
Edited by frenkeld on 25 April 2012 at 1:36am 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5450 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 75 of 164 24 April 2012 at 10:17am | IP Logged | ||
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This thread seems to be turning a bit mean spirited. Sure, it is probably true that Benny is putting an overly-positive spin on his accomplishments, and the speed at which he achieves them. It is also true that he is selling an e-book, which seems to irritate some people.
At the same time, I would like to bring some positives: If you can ignore the hype, then Benny does show it is possible to talk to native speakers early on. Sure, those conversations may not be perfect, but at least it starts the process of getting words out of your mouth. Now, I know that many people advocate a long silent-period before speaking, but I think Benny's message that speaking early can be beneficial is an important one. Many people complain that they struggle to speak, and hope that one day they will feel ready, but that day does not come. Benny's constant message is that you just have to start speaking, since you will never feel ready, and once you have started your conversations will improve. The other thing that I get from Benny is that it is OK to dip your toe into a language, even if you never intend to continue with it. Benny tried Hungarian and Czech, for example, found they didn't click with him, and decided not to carry on. Three months with a language seems enough to make that decision, and he had learned something about these languages. Certainly I have, in the past, looked at various languages, and later dropped them with a feeling of guilt. Benny's language hopping has, to be honest, made me feel less guilty about moving on. In terms of Benny and his Mandarin, we can indeed all say "told you so" since his C1 ambitions were totally unrealistic. At the same time I do want to congratulate Benny on one thing: Rather than running away from a hard language after three months, he is spending several more months building on his Mandarin. I guess Mandarin "caught" him in a way that Czech and Hungarian did not. Now we will see how far the next three months takes him. This is an important example to his followers: that after three months, there still remains a long journey ahead. Edited by Splog on 24 April 2012 at 10:19am 18 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4772 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 76 of 164 24 April 2012 at 11:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Splog. And I will add some personal thoughts...
Benny is being criticised for things he is said to have "claimed" and he is being criticised for the fact that he wants to sell a book. Nobody seems to bother about the fact that other polyglots sell books too (Randy, Steve [selling a platform too], etc.). I am not pro or contra someone. I just don't get it, why people are always turning every serious discussion into a sort of mud-slinging. These catfights between people who should know it better... disgust me!!! Nobody is "better" than someone else. There are just different people learning different languages with different methods. If someone wants to buy a product from another person, well... it is his/her own free decision. If person A thinks that persons B has a bad accent, or is not so good at language X, or whatever... well, then he/she can have the opinion he/she wants, and keep it. Don't share negative criticism! Stick to the principle that you can take whatever helps you, and let the rest be! If you don't like the person in a video you're watching, then try to figure out what he/she did well, and appreciate it. Not everything is 100% bad. If you don't like what you're reading on a blog, then you are free to close your browser. I don't agree with everything neither, but I try to keep negative criticism to myself. I personally admire Richard Simcott for never sharing mean words. I try to stick to that principle too. That's why I really felt sorry when I lately wrote an inappropriate expression in the thread about LingQ (due to the fact that I am not a native English speaker!). The fact that my apologies have not been taken into consideration made me leave the thread. Back to the topic: If anything, I prefer to share contrary ideas in a roundabout way. Furthermore, we all should ask ourselves, what's behind our criticism: Jealousy? Envy? EDIT: When saying to keep negative criticism to oneself, I am talking about criticism towards a person. If the subject of discussion is a book or a film, of course we can say that it is crap... Edited by Mae on 24 April 2012 at 11:26am 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Midnight Diglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4420 days ago 54 posts - 111 votes Speaks: Czech*, English | Message 77 of 164 24 April 2012 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the valuable input Splog and I wanted to thank you for your blog, since it's pretty inspiring. I've been studying English for several years and I think it's going all well, but still I struggle at times when I'm talking to native speakers and it doesn't really matter if it's over the internet or in RL. My speaking skills are not bad, but compared to my writing, listening and reading ones I feel like they are. The funny thing is that I admire people who can hold a conversation going at above-the-average pace even though making some mistakes in grammar, since I'm not able to do so. I always correct myself, when I accidentally use past simple instead of present perfect, even though I wasn't that wrong (Americans tend to use the 1st one more). My active vocabulary to my passive one is at ratio which I find unacceptable for me and therefeore I find myself looking for the RIGHT word even though I could use a synonym and let it flow more naturally. I can get by with my German for example, but if I were to have an argumetn with a native speaker of German I'd probably choke on words (I did in past) lacking the much neeeded vocab. But I really like your idea of language glue.
And eventually that's why I despise some of the parrots (no names) which just learn a few phrases and put them together at nativelike speed with nativelike pronunciation, but couldn't probably order a coffee outside the 10 yd range of their webcams. Yes Benny is a great "chap", but I still don't get how can he claim to teach a language in 3 months if he's never achieved it that way. I hope I wasn't too OT. "Back to the topic: If anything, I prefer to share contrary ideas in a roundabout way. Furthermore, we all should ask ourselves, what's behind our criticism: Jealousy? Envy?": Yes I am a bit envious of Glossika's achievements, but that isn't going to make me believe that he's able to learn 18 aboriginal languages in 4 months. Take it as you will. I might not be as skilled as some of you guys, but still I can talk out of my own experience of how difficult can any language be. Edited by Midnight on 24 April 2012 at 11:22am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6700 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 78 of 164 25 April 2012 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps a change in the website name would help.
For example: you can't have a website called "free-gas dot com" and then get upset when people complain because there is actually no free gas, but rather what you meant by free was almost free or at a discounted rate... URLs should not require asterisks... How about journeytofluency dot com Edited by translator2 on 26 April 2012 at 3:06pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4496 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 79 of 164 26 April 2012 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
Great idea, actually! If I ever start a website about language learning, it already has a name (if you don't charge me for royalties or anything =P) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5414 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 80 of 164 26 April 2012 at 11:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Great comments Mae and Splog! :)
I'll ignore requests that I change my blog title, as I've explained ten zillion times by now why it's called that :P But for those who missed it: http://fi3m.com/fi3m-faq/ [Bad link fixed] Anyway, China is great! It's way easier to live here than I imagined it would be, and Chinese people (young ones at least) are very easy to relate to and chat to. Had a fascinating chat with the girl I was sitting next to on the train to Chengdu, and we'll be hanging out while I'm here. Look out for a video on the blog probably next week, showing some of the interesting people I met on my train rides. I'll be highly recommending more people visit! Edited by irishpolyglot on 27 April 2012 at 2:36am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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