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Benny’s Book

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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HMS
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England
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 Message 49 of 91
15 January 2014 at 1:58am | IP Logged 
I have said this before...How would Mezzofanti be received on here were he to be able to post today?

Good look to Benny..at least he has got off his arse and done something as opposed to critising what somebody else has done.

I can't help feel that some here think language learning is some form of competition. If one person has been to Tenerife then the next says they have been to Elevenerife...
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AML
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United States
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 Message 50 of 91
15 January 2014 at 4:03pm | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
I don't know if there's something in the air, but in addition to Benny's book, soon there will be Fluent Forever.
by Gabriel Wyner who, to my knowledge, is not a contributor here. (Full disclosure: I have pre-ordered both books). For whatever it's worth,we note that both
authors are engineers by training. What's there about engineering that leads to polyglottery?


He contributes here as gwyner
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mrwarper
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 Message 51 of 91
16 January 2014 at 12:31pm | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
[...] For whatever it's worth, we note that both authors are engineers by training. What's there about engineering that leads to polyglottery?

As an engineer by training, I've found my best students so far to be also engineers: people clear about their goals, who were also ready to put immense quantities of work into it, as long as they had something meaningful to work on. And they usually had something to show for their work too.

However, I distinctly remember how some fellow ESLer, who had a background in Law, complained how his engineer students were no good at his classes. In turn he was all praise about his lawyer students, who'd readily try to speak without ever waiting to 'be ready' about stuff first.

Draw your own conclusions ;)

I don't think one thing has to do with the other, but I'm sure it will be good for laughs in certain occasions...
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shk00design
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Canada
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Studies: French

 
 Message 52 of 91
16 January 2014 at 6:54pm | IP Logged 
The approach Moses McCormick uses to learn his languages is starting with a few phrase books until he learn
enough words & phrases and then go to public places like shopping areas and look for native speakers to
exchange dialog. At times he would exchange phone numbers with people who want to learn English while he can
improve on the specific language. Some of the approaches polyglots use are common such as looking for
"cognates" or words that are common with a language you already know such as: "independence", "rapid" &
"rapide" between English & French. Next is to focus on learning subjects people are most likely going to talk about
when you first meet them such as: "do you speak specific languages", "what part of a country you're from", "how
long have you been in the US", "do you speak English fluently" that sort of thing.

The only person I know who successfully learned to speak a language is Daniel Tammet from England. At a young
age he was diagnosed with symptoms similar to autism but functions normally. Once he went to Iceland to test if
he could learn Icelandic in the matter of 2 weeks. During an interview a TV station (totally in Icelandic) the hosts/
hostesses of the show were convinced he picked up enough vocabulary to carry on a basic conversation. All their
questions were answered.

I don't know enough about Benny Lewis' book to make a comment. According to 1 YouTube video I came across
from Steve Kaufmann who speaks a few languages including Swedish, Spanish, French, German, Cantonese &
Mandarin commented that it would be impossible for Benny Lewis to make the claim he can be fluent learning
Chinese in 3 months unless he is exposed to the language for at least 10h/day. For Chinese you can pick up
words & phrases easily but not the characters in that short period of time.

The other day I contacted an employer. The company is looking for people who can translate online content from
Chinese to English. After a brief introduction: "Can I talk to so and so" followed by "Do you speak Chinese? 你好"
and the whole conversation was in Chinese. In the beginning people have to think about what they want to say
and sometimes stumble on a correct word or phrase. In a 5-minute conversation you want to sound confident so
that the company would call you in for an interview. In these kinds of situation you get some common Q&A in any
language. After introducting yourself, you confirmed with the other party that they have received your application,
resume /CV. Next is to ask to schedule a date for your interview and the call ends with a courteous: "Thank you/
謝謝, merci beaucoup" sort of thing.

After reading the postings on this topic the Chinese 4-letter proverb that comes to mind is: 自以為是 zìyǐwéishì
(someone who believes he is infallible / better than anyone else)...

Edited by shk00design on 16 January 2014 at 6:59pm

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Serpent
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 Message 53 of 91
17 January 2014 at 12:15am | IP Logged 
mrwarper wrote:
s_allard wrote:
[...] For whatever it's worth, we note that both authors are engineers by training. What's there about engineering that leads to polyglottery?

As an engineer by training, I've found my best students so far to be also engineers: people clear about their goals, who were also ready to put immense quantities of work into it, as long as they had something meaningful to work on. And they usually had something to show for their work too.

However, I distinctly remember how some fellow ESLer, who had a background in Law, complained how his engineer students were no good at his classes. In turn he was all praise about his lawyer students, who'd readily try to speak without ever waiting to 'be ready' about stuff first.

Draw your own conclusions ;)

I don't think one thing has to do with the other, but I'm sure it will be good for laughs in certain occasions...
As a linguist I'd find it easiest to teach a fellow linguist. Someone who has some experience with Latin and knows many grammatical concepts that are not present in the languages he/she speaks.

:D I think it's often easier to teach those similar to you. Your strengths will match, and you (the teacher) will hopefully know what to do about the weaknesses too.
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mrwarper
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 Message 54 of 91
19 January 2014 at 10:11pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
As a linguist I'd find it easiest to teach a fellow linguist. Someone who has some experience with Latin and knows many grammatical concepts that are not present in the languages he/she speaks.

:D I think it's often easier to teach those similar to you. Your strengths will match, and you (the teacher) will hopefully know what to do about the weaknesses too.


In a just very slightly more serious tone, I'll say that's what being a teacher is about, and if you really do it, it shouldn't really matter what your students backgrounds are. :)

Interestingly, when I taught at university (law school, hehe) I had a couple of groups of law professors, and they should have done way better than the students they and I had in common, if only because at least they didn't need to be told what noun or adjectives are, etc. In the end, it didn't make much of a difference, because only a few professors and students wanted to actively work, and of course their efforts were mostly drowned in their lazy groups dynamics.

I guess that's what you get after 30 years of 'learn without studying' advertisement. Damn, I saw a Vaughan commercial stating exactly that on TV not ten minutes ago. Laziness being the most widespread (and worst) weakness among students in my experience, I don't think I'll ever learn how to cope with it. I hope you don't think that makes me a bad teacher ;)
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Darklight1216
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 Message 55 of 91
20 January 2014 at 10:54am | IP Logged 
shk00design wrote:


I don't know enough about Benny Lewis' book to make a comment. According to 1 YouTube video I came across
from Steve Kaufmann who speaks a few languages including Swedish, Spanish, French, German, Cantonese &
Mandarin commented that it would be impossible for Benny Lewis to make the claim he can be fluent learning
Chinese in 3 months unless he is exposed to the language for at least 10h/day. For Chinese you can pick up
words & phrases easily but not the characters in that short period of time.


If I recall correctly, Benny has never emphasized literacy in his three month language missions. He focuses on being able to speak with (and, naturally, understand) people, not on reading.


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Serpent
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 Message 56 of 91
20 January 2014 at 2:56pm | IP Logged 
mrwarper wrote:
Serpent wrote:
As a linguist I'd find it easiest to teach a fellow linguist. Someone who has some experience with Latin and knows many grammatical concepts that are not present in the languages he/she speaks.

:D I think it's often easier to teach those similar to you. Your strengths will match, and you (the teacher) will hopefully know what to do about the weaknesses too.


In a just very slightly more serious tone, I'll say that's what being a teacher is about, and if you really do it, it shouldn't really matter what your students backgrounds are. :)
Yeah but for example folks with a "math-brain" can have good teachers and still struggle whereas someone like Benny could explain things in a much better way to them.


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