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schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5373 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch
| Message 81 of 91 18 March 2014 at 7:20pm | IP Logged |
Gemuse wrote:
That is not what your TLDR says.
t1234 wrote:
TLDR: Don't buy, just read his blog.
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Internet blogger caught out using snappy catch line which may give readers misleading
impression of content. I am shocked, I tell you.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3895 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German
| Message 82 of 91 18 March 2014 at 7:26pm | IP Logged |
irishpolyglot wrote:
Practically nothing. I think my contract is 8% of the retail price. |
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Wow, that is low!
But as you said, hopefully it will open up other opportunities, while also helping
people who might not have known about your blog, and HTLAL, and other resources.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6410 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 83 of 91 18 March 2014 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
Gemuse wrote:
t1234 wrote:
I recommend they buy it if they can afford it. |
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That is not what your TLDR says.
t1234 wrote:
TLDR: Don't buy, just read his blog.
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I fully realize there are people who cannot afford to spend $10 on a book; but it is a
bit misleading to imply that book reviews are for this impoverished class. Any
book published in a developed country is not priced for this class. |
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Because the TLDR is for HTLAL, not for the target audience. Most HTLAL users don't need to read the whole blog, but just individual articles on topics they struggle with, like grammar or pronunciation or learning a new writing system.
Also there's a lot of gradation in the "can't afford it" camp. Some people are quite well-off in their country but the exchange rates mean the price is too high for them. Others might need to save/earn extra money, which also takes time, so that in this case t1234's advice makes perfect sense.
Many people who say they can't afford something could literally afford it, but they just know that it's not worth it.
edit: just want to clarify that I didn't mean it ironically about "bookdepository's awesome free shipping". as a Russian I would totally rather wait a couple of months than pay 20 € or more for FedEx/DHL delivery.
Edited by Serpent on 18 March 2014 at 7:59pm
5 persons have voted this message useful
| t1234 Diglot Newbie South Africa Joined 3951 days ago 38 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Turkish, Polish
| Message 84 of 91 18 March 2014 at 9:38pm | IP Logged |
Exactly what Serpent said, the TLDR was for HTLAL members and not a review for Amazon. A reasonable analogy would be trying to sell Golf for Dummies to PGA tour members. The content of the book would probably be very good for beginners, but completely useless for pro golfers. It doesn't mean it's a bad book or the advice and techniques bad, it's just the wrong audience, pro golfers would already know all of it. For the majority of HTLAL members I believe the book will not be helpful, there is no silver bullet which suddenly make you fluent in 10 languages in there.
I haven't read any reviews on Amazon, but I bet there'll be quite a few 1 and 2 star negative reviews which will either state:
A) This is a rehash of his blog
or B) I've been learning languages for a while and I already knew all of this stuff which I learnt for free on the internet.
At that is unfair, because Benny gives good advice and I don't think you'll go wrong by following it. This is how the reviews will eventually turn out.
5 persons have voted this message useful
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4528 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 85 of 91 18 March 2014 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
t1234 wrote:
Exactly what Serpent said, the TLDR was for HTLAL members and not a review for Amazon. A reasonable analogy would be trying to sell Golf for Dummies to PGA tour members. The content of the book would probably be very good for beginners, but completely useless for pro golfers. It doesn't mean it's a bad book or the advice and techniques bad, it's just the wrong audience, pro golfers would already know all of it. |
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I would say: not quite. That is correct maybe for the first 60% of the book, but there's pretty useful stuff for anyone (except maybe for very experienced polyglots such as Luca, Richard, Iversen, sprachprofi, etc.) from that point on. The chapter about taking yourself from mastery to fluency really stands out here. It may not be all new stuff for you or even myself, but I found some tips there very useful.
Its focus is on beginners, there's no discussion about it. However, even more experienced learners can find useful tips in the book. I haven't finished it yet (I'm around 90%), but it's a nice, easy and very informative read.
Edited by fabriciocarraro on 19 March 2014 at 5:25am
2 persons have voted this message useful
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4524 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 86 of 91 18 March 2014 at 10:52pm | IP Logged |
It is such a charming book cover. It is a shame that when I end up getting it, it will
likely be in ereader format (I would buy now as I have the funds, but I promised myself
no more new books until I whittle down the list of those I already have). Anyway,
congratulations, Benny! I think it is quite an honor, and quite cool, to have a book
published.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6363 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog
| Message 87 of 91 21 June 2014 at 6:15am | IP Logged |
A critique of his book can be found
here
3 persons have voted this message useful
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5345 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 88 of 91 21 June 2014 at 2:17pm | IP Logged |
leosmith wrote:
A critique of his book can be found here |
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This thread was flagged for moderator attention, so I'm taking a quick break from French immersion to follow up.
Leosmith has published a detailed review of Benny's book, and it definitely contains some interesting comments. However, the thread with the review contains several personal attacks from other contributors that would be against the forum rules here on HTLAL. For those of you who'd like to read just the review itself, I recommend the following posts: Start of review / Contents, Pros, Cons.
Leosmith, I like your forum, and I wish you success in your endeavors. But I would personally appreciate it if you would please take HTLAL's rules into account when linking to offsite threads. In particular, personal attacks, politics and religion remain off-topic here.
Everybody else: Please do not import offsite fights into HTLAL. The moderators appreciate your aid in this matter.
UPDATE: I am letting this link stand, because it's a detailed, on-topic review. But this thread is about Benny's book. Any further posts to this thread should be about the content Benny's book, not about leosmith's forum, HTLAL's moderation policy, Benny himself, etc. I've just deleted three off-topic posts in an effort to avoid locking this thread.
Personally, I have no problem with people linking to on-topic, off-site posts. But whether you post something here, or you post it on another community site and just link to it from here, the forum rules are the same: no personal attacks, no religion, and no politics.
Edited by emk on 21 June 2014 at 3:46pm
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