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Benny’s Book | ||
Tags: Youtube Polyglot | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3811 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes  Speaks: Spanish | Message 9 of 91 11 January 2014 at 3:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Those Chinese forum guys were independent learners, by the way. Classroom methods aren't "fast" because they have like three hours of class a week. If you study three hours a week by yourself you won't improve much either. A lot of people are comparing three hours of classroom traditional didactics with 20 hours of self-study which is an unfair comparison. Just like you, I was one of the very best students in our large language university immersion program full of GUNG-HO language learners and I worked about as much as my colleagues. The first test I had in college I slept through the alarm clock and took the intense grammar test 20 or 30 minutes after it had started and finished with time to spare, getting one of the top marks. And I was not amazing after my first three months of 100% immersion abroad even with a very, very good head start when I arrived. Unlike Benny I didn't have to write a blog and respond to language forums--both in English. I had never read a thread online when I was abroad for the first time, although it wasn't too long ago. Ergo, I was most likely more immersed than he was. I've done the exact same Benny method and I know that progress isn't 3 months and you are done rapid--like. You learn a lot, yes. But there is even more to learn yet. Nothing wrong with being optimistic, but you have to realistic. Let's say you are a Chinese teacher and the best progress you've ever seen in 30 years of teaching Mandarin is learning X characters sustained, without forgetting them, per day. Well, you should probably tell the students that X characters/day is possible if they work very, very hard since it is the best ever in 30 years. But telling them that 3X is likely is very very misleading. Edit: darn typos. Edited by culebrilla on 11 January 2014 at 3:30am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jpmtl Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 3816 days ago 44 posts - 115 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 10 of 91 11 January 2014 at 3:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Shame on HarperCollins for using the name of his blog as the title of his book? That doesn't make any sense. If there's any issue, then it comes from Benny, not the publisher who's obviously going to use the same marketing tactics as the blogger. They would be pretty stupid not to. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4529 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 11 of 91 11 January 2014 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I assumed they were classroom students, but the same applies if you're an independent student with lots of grammar and Hanzi guides, but that don't focus on the living part of the language. I assume that was Benny's main criticism about their methods. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Sure, there's always room for improvement!
Definitely, but a Chinese teacher with 30 years experience teaching Mandarin is someone who knows everything about Mandarin there is to know. I think the thing with Benny is quite the opposite. I feel that he doesn't really know exactly where he's going into, but he does it anyway, making a lot of mistakes, which is great. I find it very motivating to "discover" the languages together with him by reading his blog posts or videos, and also, to see him struggle at the beginning, evolve video after video, and be able to maintain a conversation after 3 months or 6 months or whatever. I didn't know jack about Mandarin or Arabic before his "challeges", and I find it very interesting. Also, maybe this is a thing only in Brazil (I guess it's worldwide), but here there's the thought that being able to converse in a language is something that takes many many years, sometimes decades. One of my best friends gave up on learning Mandarin because "it would going to take about 10 years to learn it". Some of my friends gave up on Japanese for the same reason. They are exactly the kind of person that could benefit a lot from Benny's blog and videos. I completely see your point about his attitude, and I even agree sometimes, but I just don't think it's a good reason to invalidate all the good job that he's been doing for years. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5447 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 91 11 January 2014 at 4:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks for the support everyone! :)
Don't take one comment on a Chinese forum I wrote 2 years ago as reason to overreact - I was under a lot of pressure back there and quite lonely and stressed in a very different culture. It kept me very wound up, and it didn't help that people in that forum are incredibly discouraging. Many of them are as blunt as I am, and this was a retort (that's being taken out of context) rather than something I just announced willy nilly. It's easy to criticize but try to remember we're all human. ;) I'm so pleased not just that my book gets out there but that I took this chance to promote the hell out of many of our favourite polyglots - quoting them and referring to their content. Not interested in starting a Fluent-in-3-months movement, but would be very pleased if someone who never got into language learning otherwise were to find this book on a book shelf in a flyover state in America, and then discover this forum and get more into the long-term, reading-appreciation aspect of language learning. Even if I don't promote that myself, I promote THIS FORUM in the book, and can get independent language learning on a stage. Exciting times :D 20 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3811 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 13 of 91 11 January 2014 at 4:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@fabricio:
I honestly don't mean to make fun of him, but there is another polyglot that has studied like 40 languages. The issue is that in some of his real-life videos, he speaks in Spanish, which is my pet topic/specialty. Well, when talking to Mexicans he always says, "Languages are easy, Spanish is easy too." Well, good and dandy but then he makes a LOT of very, very basic mistakes in the language. To me, it is absolutely arrogant to say that something is easy when you have a very low level in the language and are making first year HS mistakes in the language. For Spanish learners and speakers, the evidence is there on youtube. The very basic mistakes are right there, clear as day if you want to see. The only reason I mention any meager personal achievements in Spanish is not to humble brag, but to show that even with a fairly extensive knowledge base in the language, I still have a ton to learn and that really the more you know, the more you realize that you don't know. I'm sorry if any posts sound jerkish or pretentious; really not the intention. In response to your question: some of the chinese posters just focused on reading because they wanted to, and others were very gregarious and talkative. One thing that I think anybody would have an extremely difficult time defending is that of going into a country and interacting with people with a tourist level knowledge of the language. It is incredibly inefficient to 1. Find somebody willing to walk to you and 2. Understand anything that they say to you. In the polyglot's videos that I was talking about he spends ungodly amounts of time just looking for people to talk to but nobody will. And has to wait a LOT of time because the Mexican workers are attending to customers. Well, how is that more efficient than just having skype lessons or chats where you skip all that leg work and just TALK? On italki.com they really are pretty cheap; at least for Spanish natives. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3811 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 14 of 91 11 January 2014 at 5:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I wish you good luck in your future language endeavors and I like your adventurous spirit. That said, many posters were very supportive and, more importantly, helpful to you in that thread. They offered you a LOT of good tips that you hopefully took to heart. Supportive posts: (there were MANY more than this) "I really like your attitude, and you have my support. I've learned some of the languages from your list and found them easy. I found that Mandarin was a different beast altogether. It will be interesting to hear your perspective. Good luck and keep us informed! " "Good luck mate. Let's see your results! :D " "Best wishes in your quest and welcome to Chinese Forums! I read parts of your blog last night and am convinced you have more ability to learn languages quickly than most." "Benny! I'm rooting for you. I just started learning Chinese (self taught) over a week ago and would be very happy to see someone learn it in such wrapping speed. " Now for the moderate crowd: "I feel like you think you're gracing us with your presence here, like you're going to teach us a thing or two and we ought to be impressed by you. We're under no obligations to be supportive of you. You're making some pretty far-fetched claims, and we've called you on them. I was originally supportive of you, but the more you post, the less I like you. You don't seem to understand that you're essentially insulting a large group of people who have been working hard at this for a long time, when you barely have any knowledge of the language whatsoever. It isn't appreciated." "For 3 months (2.5, whatever), not bad. As expected, nowhere near his original goal, but really, not bad. I do agree with roddy though, he could have made similar, if not better, progress by spending 3 months at a good language school and working hard outside of class. I say this from personal experience. Anyway, I have no doubt that he'll continue to improve if that's what he chooses to do, but hopefully he'll do something about his pronunciation ASAP." Helpful advice: (There were a lot more posts talking about specific techniques or pieces of advice but I skimmed through it quickly) "Pronunciation work is essential. Record yourself -- I mean it. Record yourself saying things and then compare it to a native speaker. Repeat until you can produce the exact tones and phonemes. Make it a daily exercise. Here is a tip -- tones are easy in isolation, hard in words and phrases, very hard in sentences. Work your way to complete sentences, and follow the melody exactly." 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5447 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 91 11 January 2014 at 5:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm sorry that I phrased what I wrote that way and said as much. But you continue to very selectively quote out of context!
If you want to discuss a TWO YEAR OLD argument about Chinese forums, kindly start a new thread for that. I don't appreciate you pulling a very old and irrelevant controversy out of thin air for pot stirring purposes, and hijacking the thread with the same tangent. You've made your point - I'd like it if this thread could stay on topic, or at least stay 2014-relevant... Edited by irishpolyglot on 11 January 2014 at 5:45am 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5447 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 91 11 January 2014 at 5:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@Hekje Wow, that's insane! :D So glad to have another monoglot conversion testimony. There's a certain saturation point you reach with blogging, so I'm so glad to break through to new audiences and attempt to get them started. As you know, it's not about following one person's methods - sometimes you need to hear the right words to encourage you to get into it in the first place. That's the focus of the book :)
@fabriciocarraro I know - it's exciting! That's why I felt like taking this opportunity to showcase Moses, Richard, Luca, Tim and a bunch of others, including a few people who just have incredibly inspiring stories even if they aren't Youtube polyglots. So it's not just ONE of us getting recognized, but a chance for several! I was mentioned in a NYT best seller once and got tonnes of new readers thanks to that, so I'm hoping for the same for many polyglots who don't have the kind of platform that I do. The book is already high on Amazon's lists, a few hours after I announced it! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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