|
 |
Benny’s Book | ||
Tags: Youtube Polyglot | Book | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| MixedUpCody Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 144 posts - 280 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 91 10 January 2014 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Hey all,
I wasn't exactly sure where to post this, but Benny announced that he wrote a book that's being published by Harper Collins, and coming out in March. I know there is a lot of controversy about certain internet polyglots, and people have very strong opinions, but I really don't care about any of that. I think the language learning community is one of the greatest communities that I've been a part of, and I respect all of the people that make it happen. If anyone is interested, the book can be pre-ordered now, and the US Amazon link is here. I am very excited to read the book, as I feel like Benny has helped me greatly in my language learning journey. Anyway, I hope this information is useful to those that don't get updates from Benny's blog, and I'm sorry if this has already been posted elsewhere. Cody 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4481 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 2 of 91 10 January 2014 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I saw that in my email today! Congratulations to Benny.
Benny kickstarted my whole language-learning journey, without his positivity and enthusiasm I would probably still be a monoglot. I'm honestly thrilled that he has this great opportunity. :-) 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3877 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 3 of 91 10 January 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Good for him.
Nothing against Benny or his techniques, but I was very disappointed with HarperCollins' choice of title. I am unsurprised, since publishing today is increasingly about what writer brings the most fans and the most recognisable brand to the table on day #1, but I am still disappointed. I feel that it's one thing to give a blog an aspirational title, or one that reflects the challenge you set yourself (and that's how I recall that Benny has responded to criticism about his many failures to actually become fluent in three months), but this is publishing and the author is being presented as an expert on the topic, and that makes the title highly misleading. An easily recognisable brand, and something catchy that'll draw new customers who enjoyed such titles as "The 4-Hour Workweek", but misleading nonetheless. If I bought a book with that title, presented like this, and the content was similar to Benny's blog, I'd be angry about it. Not because it's not useful information, but because of the misrepresentation. A book written by an expert does not have an aspirational title. You don't buy a book called "Overcome depression in ten days" and walk away happy to learn that the psychologist who wrote is only aspires to help people that quickly, but in reality it's a work in progress, sometimes leading to improvements in some areas, and sometimes taking years, but mostly said expert is continuously getting closer to helping people heal much quicker. The information may be helpful, the expert may be a real expert, but it's still dishonest marketing. Shame on the money-hungry folks at HarperCollins who didn't think they could market this without going that route, but good for Benny. Edited by eyðimörk on 10 January 2014 at 11:59pm 20 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4311 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 91 11 January 2014 at 12:21am | IP Logged | ||
|
Well the subtitle on the cover is highly misleading, especially if you don't realize that the title is the title of his blog, not the promise of how long it will take to learn a language.
I guess I look forward to his appearance on various talkshows. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4493 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 5 of 91 11 January 2014 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm really excited about it, not so much about the book itself but about another one of "us" being recognized for his work, being published by a huge publishing house such as HarperCollins. His blog has always helped me a lot, both in terms of getting motivation again after losing it for a while, and tips with resources, great guest posts, etc.
Congrats on that, Benny! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3775 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 6 of 91 11 January 2014 at 1:19am | IP Logged | ||
|
I lost what little respect I had for Benny Lewis when he posted these things in a Chinese language forum. He pretty much told a bunch of people that have walked the walk and that have reached higher levels than he will most likely ever reach in Mandarin that they are inefficient, unintelligent, and that he has a revolutionary way of learning. However, he did NOT just learn Mandarin by speaking to random people on the street. He hit the books. Hard. One could make a very valid argument that just talking to people very early on is actually very inefficient since you won't understand anything they are saying and you may very well get into bad habits with a poor accent if you don't flesh those things out first.
http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/36222-benny-l ewis-3-month-quest-to-become-fluent-in-mandarin/page-7 "I have a long road ahead of me, but I plan on sprinting that road rather than crawling backwards on my ass, which considering the fact that I’ve been assured it takes anything from five to ten years to reach a “useful” level of fluency in Chinese, I’m convinced is the way most people are tackling this issue. Sorry for the bluntness, but I’ll make fast progress because of a much more efficient learning approach than them." Edit: I really lost respect for him not when he posted on this forum but on pretty much any forum. If anybody just asks a question, expresses doubt, or does anything other than shower praise on him he gets extremely defensive and calls the person a hater, insults them, or bans them after a single innocuous comment. He may sell a lot of books and may be relatively fluent in several languages, but his attitude is what turns me off the most. Also, "useful" level is very subjective. Many attending physicians I talk to tell me that they didn't feel comfortable treating patients even after 11 years of post HS schooling. Conversely, in the US we have Physician Assistant programs where graduates treat patients after 6 years of post HS schooling. People may have higher standards than others. I remember a story, I don't know if it is true, of a man who in the divorce proceedings with his wife, it was discovered that he had a bronze medal in the olympics. His wife: Why didn't you tell me you had an olympic medal! Our marriage didn't work because you were too secretive and not open enough! Him: I didn't think it was a big deal; it was only a bronze... In summary, some very accomplished people pooh-pah their accomplishments and their ability in many fields because they are very modest. That "useful" level may very well have been a VERY, VERY high-level Chinese. Edited by culebrilla on 11 January 2014 at 7:10pm 21 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4493 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 7 of 91 11 January 2014 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||
Maybe saying that out loud sounds a little blunt, as he said, and shows a little attitude, but I still think that he has a point. Taking myself as an example, in both my Italian and Russian classes at university I was the best student. Did I study more than the other students? Maybe some, but I was an Engineering student and most of them were studying Philology, Languages or Literature, so they should be better than me in many aspects and yet they weren't, and I believe that it only happened because I had a "chatting" approach. So while my colleagues "only" studied by classroom and grammar books and movies, I chatted with natives on Skype and Livemocha, both text and voice chat from the start, which the pretty much the base of Benny's "method", and it happened a long time before I met Benny's blog. I am not by any means trying to brag or anything like it, please don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to say that most students learn in classrooms or through grammar books, and based on my own experiences, classroom methods are mostly very slow, since there are usually 5, 10, 15, 20 students, and they usually don't focus on the living part of the language that much, creating students that after 2 years are able to read intermediate poems in Russian but become speechless when facing a native speaker. Edited by fabriciocarraro on 11 January 2014 at 2:30am 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4414 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 8 of 91 11 January 2014 at 2:20am | IP Logged | ||
|
I'd probably be happy for this guy if he didn't have a Clugston attitude to people who criticize him or express their honest opinion of him.
Although I'll say that I joined his forum before this one which kick started my language journey, but that doesn't really matter at this point. Edited by sillygoose1 on 11 January 2014 at 2:21am 13 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
