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Clugston challenges polyglots to debate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5137 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 73 of 132 30 September 2013 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Linguistics and language learning, though related, are distinct pursuits. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, its nature and features, conducted in a detached manner and not involving its living practice. A linguist might be able to catalog and distinguish the morphological features of different language families but not say hello in any tongue other than her or his own. Though certainly preferable, knowing multiple languages is not necessary in order to practice linguistics and in fact as professor Argüelles laments most linguists inexplicably do not feel drawn to learn them.
The reverse is true for language learning. Linguistics is no prerequisite to learning foreign languages anymore than a degree in physiology for doing bicep curls or mastery of quantum mechanics and relativity in order to build a bridge, however it can be a useful aid. Just like there is no science of good literature or art, so much that is involved in learning languages well is not subject to scientific formulas. Regarding the insistence on credentials, it is but an attempt at disabling his "opponents" through an exercise of power and authority rather than argument and substance. And it is peculiar that such a recourse to "academics" should come from an individual who is constantly making veiled physical threats of the crudest kind. I doubt many of an intellectual disposition would regard him as their peer. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Maralol Nonaglot Newbie France Joined 4810 days ago 35 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Spanish, French*, English, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Polish, Danish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 74 of 132 30 September 2013 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
According to this conversation on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/116itl/has _anyone_here_heard_ofworked _with_linguist/ "Chris's military records indicate he washed out of Arabic class and didn't complete the full Thai class before he was discharged from the army, 10 months into his enlistment." "Doing a Google search for "Payap University Clugston" yields his academia.edu page. According to that page, he's currently a graduate student there. I can't find references to any work that Mr. Clugston has actually published, though." And no, we've never seen a video of him speaking foreign languages in a conversational setting. 14 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5222 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 75 of 132 30 September 2013 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I would vote for a debate if it were truly multilingual. That is to say all participants could switch at will between any shared languages; let's say English, French and Spanish. Wouldn't that be the best way to for everybody to show their stuff? And to make it easy, let's say you could stay in any language if you are not uncomfortable switching.
I know that people like Richard Simcott, Alex Rawlings and Luca would have no problem with this and could talk circles around our blowhard here. But to come back to our four participants, I suspect Steve Kaufman could pull it off very well. Then Benny and finally Moses who would probably struggle a bit in other languages. Just how Clugstone would do is anybody's guess. Edited by s_allard on 30 September 2013 at 9:32pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5222 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 77 of 132 01 October 2013 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Based on this information, it would be tempting to make all kinds of conclusions about the personality of this individual and the propensity for anger and agressive behaviour. But, as @emk has pointed out, we should not be discussing this individual's personality but his ideas. In this department and in my assessment, there is nothing original and nothing of interest for us here at HTLAL. When you peer under the layers of pseudo scientific jargon in search of substance there is none to be found. For someone who is constantly referring to academic standards, the language is definitely unacademic and reminiscent of a street thug. It is lightyears away from the very elegant prose of a Professor Aguelles. Any attempts at some semblance of scientific discourse in linguistics are confusing and trite. All things considered, there is nothing to be learned here. In French there is a wonderful but rarely used word psittacisme that refers to the use of words without understanding their meaning. This is what we have here. A lot of smoke and mirrors and nothing else. Edited by s_allard on 01 October 2013 at 2:18pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4036 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 78 of 132 01 October 2013 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wish to swing the pendulum back around, if I may? I've watched a few of Clugston's
more recent videos and whilst I still think his tone is off putting and not at all meet for Youtube and the general internet environment there is still something of worth there. If he's right and some of these polyglots are charging $250 an hour for a private lesson...well then that is to be castigated. You can literally, LITERALLY, get world experts in a language for less. The price of a few lessons can get you a trip in a target country in many cases. This is dishonorable practice. Especially because as Erenko says above, many of these polyglots tend to overrate their own skills. On the other hand, capitalism, free market, yadda yadda, if they want to burn money let them etc. Here's me as an idiot teaching languages for free etc. Secondly re: anti-intellectualism. It doesn't matter if Kaufmann admits it or not, he's wrong. First off its offensive to suggest that those without academic training can't understand ideas as simple as noun cases. Good for him something else seems to work for him but in an area where motivation is a serious issue he's only putting people off. Moreover he is deliberately misrepresenting and denigrating whole fields of linguistics. This is not on, especially because there is a lot of interesting stuff out there the community in large could utilise. The thing I hate the most, though, is this attempt at forcing a dichotomy between those who study languages (linguists) and those who speak them (polyglots). This is a typically bland example of lionising oneself by denigrating one's "enemies". A sad attempt to accrue personal authority. I've pointed out many times that this is not the point and even given examples of academics like Streven's who could easily, easily, run rings around any of these people (I mean, seriously, being a reader for OUP in just one language is DIFFICULT, let alone some 30 or whatever it is). There is a lot more in academia than K suggests. People should explore a bit. You can't expect everything to be given to you or laid out, after all language study is in itself an intensely personal pursuit anyway... There are other aspects to he's right on, like the tendency to be almost worshipful towards certain figures. Anyway I'll stop, I'm not really a fan of his but I don't think we should sweep him totally under the carpet. I do think he's right on a few issues, no matter how unpopular such an opinion inevitably will be here. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4499 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 79 of 132 01 October 2013 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Benny charges $250 for A PRIVATE CONSULTATION. This isn't a private lesson - it is a
business consultation for aspiring internet bloggers. If Clugston criticises that, he needs to learn to read. Edited by tarvos on 01 October 2013 at 12:35pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5324 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 80 of 132 01 October 2013 at 1:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I just went and found the buried Consultation link on Benny's site
So he's offering a hybrid consulting service, where you can ask him about Internet marketing or language learning, and he's selling a "few hours per month". His rate is $249 for a one-hour, one-time consultation. If you've never been self-employed, this probably sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Assuming he sells 3 consultations/month, that an extra $750, which is certainly quite nice by US/European standards. But I'm guessing he's lucky to earn even that. The problem with charging an outrageous rate is that you're only going to work a couple hours per month, and your total monthly earnings will be a lot less than you might earn working at the gas station. I guarantee that my occasional (and excellent) language tutor earns far more from teaching than Benny, even though she charges 10% of what he does, because she fills her hours. I'm guessing Benny knew all of this before he posted the page, and decided: (1) He gets dozens of emails a day asking for advice, (2) He can't possibly answer them all, (3) He needs a polite way to say "No", and (4) Pointing people at his consulting page will either make them go away, or maybe he'll occasionally score some money. If he makes them pay in advance, and if he includes the income with his book profits when doing his taxes, then it won't even be that much extra work. Honestly, I wouldn't pay it, because I bought a copy of Benny's book way back when, and I didn't find it especially useful. (Too much beginner stuff, with no concrete details for somebody who's already reached B1.) But there's probably somebody out there for whom it's an excellent deal. Let's imagine a working professional who's budgeted $15,000 and 6 months to move to another country and learn a foreign language for the first time, but who's still kind of clueless. I'm almost certain that spending $250 and an hour with Benny would be an excellent investment. He'd tell them to do some Skype lessons and some studying before leaving, to avoid the expatriate community at all costs, and to stop using English. And because he's a popular blogger, our hypothetical student will probably even listen. And Benny's advice could easily make the difference between success and failure for the whole $15,000 trip.
Two questions: Are those world experts offering regular lessons or one-time-consultations? If they're offering regular lessons, then they'll absolutely charge a lower hourly rate, because they want to work a lot more hours. If the world experts are offering one-off consultations for, say, $50, then let me offer them some free business advice: They need to raise their rates dramatically, or they'll never even cover their grocery bills. 10 persons have voted this message useful |
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