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Benny’s Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6403 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 33 of 91 11 January 2014 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Also... When a 16 year old can speak 23 languages to various extents (including fluency in several), then there’s no doubt that he’d be speaking C1/C2 of whatever you throw at him if he gave it his full-time attention for 90 days. Really? Edited by Serpent on 11 January 2014 at 9:20pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5197 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 34 of 91 11 January 2014 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I hope not to have yet another debate into what can be called fluency but I think Benny's book will show the
general public that it is, indeed, possible to achieve something they didn't think was possible in three months based on their experiences learning languages previously. Most people when they want to learn a language will just think "I'll sign up for a class" or "I'll get Rosetta Stone" and think that's it. For them a book like Benny's ought to be pretty revolutionary. Also his active skill focus will have them focusing on *doing* something during those three months rather than just follow a course. This focus on "What can I *do*?" which I learned to appreciate during my Language Hunters Irish weekend has made me rethink my approach to studying a lot. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5068 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 35 of 91 11 January 2014 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A long time ago, Barry Farber's book- How To Learn Any Language (1991) inspired me to get serious about learning a language. It was written "pre-internet". He talks about paper flashcards, printed newspapers, books, dictionaries and cassette tape courses. I have always wished for an update to include modern methods and the vast usefulness of the internet. Perhaps Benny's book will be just that for a new generation of aspiring language-learners. I see nothing but positives coming from this book. The title will seduce people into buying the book. The meat of the book will show them that it's a heck of a lot of hard work.
Benny's been criticized in the past for his "umms", circumlocutions and sputters in languages but he actually uses the languages he learns to communicate with people. Some of his languages are at a high level and others not so high, still, he takes them out of the garage for a drive instead of leaving them on a shelf somewhere. I think the average Joe or Jane would be quite happy to "umm" and sputter in a language if it also meant they could communicate with people who don't speak English, and get something more out of their visit to another country by interacting with the local culture in its own language. Congratulations, Benny- scoring Harper-Collins as a publisher, very well done, indeed! Edited by iguanamon on 11 January 2014 at 9:01pm 15 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4513 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 36 of 91 11 January 2014 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As someone who has ummed and sputtered a lot, the fact that it has made me friends that
only speak my target language is something that I owe to Benny to have tried, so... 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3803 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 37 of 91 11 January 2014 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not necessarily. As we all know fluency is a loaded term and it's hard to know what Timothy Doner's real level in each language is unless you have a lot of friends that speak many languages and whose opinions you trust. Some people were saying that his Russian accent was really bad. I don't speak Russian so it all sounds greek to me. How would I know how good or bad his Russian is? Also, people may be very nice or mean to a beginner. As a beginner I was always given a lot of praise even though I was terrible. It's hard for most people to be honest. If somebody did spend 10 hours of daily practice in a related language to their native language they would improve a lot in 90 days. That much is clear. Edit: I hope that Benny Lewis motivates people to learn and practice their languages with his book. Starting is the first step, and often times the hardest one to take. Edited by culebrilla on 11 January 2014 at 9:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6403 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 38 of 91 11 January 2014 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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They would definitely improve a lot, but the maths of language learning is anything but simple.
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5589 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 39 of 91 11 January 2014 at 9:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
He doesn't have a "Clugston attitude" at all. I have actually had a rather nasty argument with Benny and some of his followers on this very forum and IMO comparing him to Clugstone is ludicrous. Whatever you think of his debating techniques (and I am no fanboy), Benny wants to help people; Clugstone wants to put people in (what he believes to be) their place. It's not the same thing at all. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5338 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 91 11 January 2014 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you, Benny! The table of contents looks great.
Yes. I'm firmly in favor of anything which steals shelf space from Rosetta Stone. :-) Personally, I do not enjoy methods which involve speaking early. Audio-lingual drills poisoned me on language-learning for a decade; speaking from day one is not my cup of tea, and I'm pretty sure that I would find Language Hunters to be sheer torture. I needed to let my brain marinate in French for a good 6 months, and to puzzle out lots of patterns, before I felt any urge to open my mouth. But for other people, I can see that speaking early is obviously a useful technique. The wonderful thing about speaking is that it gives you an incentive to get better, quickly. And if you stop using your native language the day you step off the airplane in a foreign country, then that incentive becomes almost painfully overwhelming: you're cut off from the human race until you can talk again. I made it from A2 to B2 so quickly because I "burned my ships": I stopped using English at home, and I had to adapt. So even though Benny's A1 & A2 techniques are not my cup of tea, I think it's great that he actually lays out a roadmap, and tells people that they can make a lot of progress quickly. I've spent the last two years trying to do much the same with my log—laying out my victories, my struggles and my doubts. My goal has been to make the process concrete, in hopes of inspiring other people to try. Even if C2 and near-native levels may be a long, difficult road for many people, B1 and B2 are fantastically useful by themselves, and most people can attain them surprisingly quickly given the right conditions. When you get right down to it, most people would love to have a friendly conversation in a foreign language, socialize a bit, watch a movie or read a good book. But if I walk into the local bookstore, I see shelves of language courses, none of which will get the typical student anywhere near those goals. Every year, there's less Teach Yourself, and more $499 Rosetta Stone boxes. So when I see that HarperCollins has picked up Benny's book, and decided to put some marketing dollars behind it, I'm delighted to think that it might appear in the local bookstore some day. There have been too few good, systematic books about language learning—Kato Lomb's Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, Barry Farber's How to Learn Any Language and a few excellent single-topic books like Boris Shekhtman's How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately. And none of these are likely to appear next to those expensive yellow boxes. So even if "speaking from day one" is not for me, I'm delighted to know that it will be available, and from HarperCollins, no less, who absolutely know how to get a book onto those exact shelves. And it's wonderful that Benny has interviewed Luca, Richard and other polyglots, which will drive home the essential idea—that learning a language is absolutely possible, and that if Benny's techniques don't "click", there are a lot of other great approaches out there. And seriously, it's possible to get a lot done with atrocious language skills. I could spend all day cataloging what's wrong with my French, but you know, my biggest complaints these days are things like, "I'm only reliably fluent in social situations, and I sound like an idiot when I'm tired, whine, whine, whine." So if somebody plonks down US$9 for the Kindle edition of Benny's book, goes nuts for 3 months, and then only makes it to a low intermediate level, well, at least they didn't spend $499 on Rosetta Stone and then give up because "they're just no good at languages." The intermediate level is absolutely a victory, very much worthy of much celebration. At least make a few new friends and enjoy a TV series or two before you get all perfectionist, OK? :-) Now, if only somebody could get Idahosa Ness to write a detailed book, I'd be very happy indeed. He's got some very original ideas, and I suspect he's only explained a quarter of them. 12 persons have voted this message useful |
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