Another blogger setting out to learn Chinese in 3 months

[Lu]

Well, I suppose I qualify as a polyglot (Dutch, English, Chinese, excellent passive German, some French), but I would never call myself that. My big secret is being born in a country where everyone is expected to master at least two but usually three or four languages by the time they finish secondary school, so not much to sell there. My mom can have enjoyable conversations in five languages, most of my friends are comfortable in at least three, even my bicycle repair guy speaks perfectly serviceable English. I'll start being impressed when someone speaks at least five languages well, preferably including at least two non-European ones.

But who knows, perhaps there is a market for 'Learn languages like a Dutch!' type books.

[studychinese]

 

But who knows, perhaps there is a market for 'Learn languages like a Dutch!' type books. 

 

Lu, I think you are on your way to making your fortune. Why not sell an ebook and some videos and tell people that they can become 'fluent' in a language in three months, staying at home? It seems to be the thing to do.

 

Benny's video in which he says that his method is "not for taking tests" was particularly funny. Of course if you tell people that they are 'fluent' in three months you don't want to burst their bubble by exposing them to anything as objective as a proficiency test.

[ilovelamp]

 

Well, I suppose I qualify as a polyglot (Dutch, English, Chinese, excellent passive German, some French)

 

Making me so jealous

Being born in NZ, we had to learn some Maori at school. There are only handfuls of people who can actually speak it fluently, so it's basically useless here. Our PM is looking to make Mandarin a national language, as there are 250,000+ native speakers in NZ and we do so much business with China. A bit late for me, but cool nonetheless.

 

It would be great if we were just living in the Matrix, and they would just put a "every language in the world" disc into the thing and upload it all to your brain

[roddy]

Look everyone, other topics. Some of which aren't going round in circles ;-)

[Shelley]

Hehe, well said roddy.

 

Wondered how long it would take for someone else to notice this.

[Johnny20270]

Interesting posts. Took an age to read! lol

 

I must admit I really dislike these whole conversations around "fluent is X number of months", or moving outside the scope of language learning, anything that promotes a 10x faster than the norm in 'mastering a subject'. I have seen these claims my whole life. It always reminds me of the TV adds about the fatty who got a 6 pack exercising 10 mins a day while eating pizza and the magic formula. 

 

My view is that you can certainly optimize means and ways of improving ability (in all walks of life) but there never is a quick fix. Purely my view of course but these claims are usually based on some of the followings:

 

(1) Arrogance or lack of humility of the person claiming to be have found the recipe for alchemy

(2) Ignorance of the breath of the subject matter.

(3) Personal gain in disseminating this information towards others.

(4) very rarely, a naturally gifted individual. 

 

I certainly agree in optimizing, tailoring and employed a intelligent system to learning (irrespective of the subject) but a quick fix is always the elusive dream. People such as Benny Lewis and others, may have some fundamental message worth noting but unfortunately it has been soured by some degree of arrogance & ignorance. It is condescending towards those who have worked their whole life to become 'good' at a subject.

[Angelina]

@renzhe "I speak Croatian, English and German fluently. I am working on Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish, which are at different stages of B2/C1, but all need quite a bit of work."

Me too :)

[Johnny20270]

Whatever happened to Benny anyway?

[陳德聰]

He floundered on Mandarin and Japanese, but seems to have made much progress on coaching his girlfriend in her first language learning adventure.

[imron]

3 years on, the blogger in the original post has quite reasonable Chinese.

[renzhe]

Well done from me!

[abcdefg]

He doesn't sound Chinese. Cannot put my finger on what is wrong. Clearly he has a good vocabulary and a good grasp of sentence structure and grammar. But he just doesn't sound Chinese, in my opinion.

[889]

It's a very good example how you can speak Chinese yet not be understood, at least not easily understood. The cadence and rhythm are way off. It's painful to hear.

[abcdefg]

4 hours ago, 889 said:

The cadence and rhythm are way off. It's painful to hear.

 

Well said! It was painful to my ear. Like listening to someone singing off key.

 

(BTW, I'm not trying to put this guy down and am certainly not claiming that my own Chinese is any better. But I do listen to native Chinese all day long, every day and can therefore tell when it doesn't sound right.)

[889]

Of course it also raised the fear, Do I sound that bad?

[imron]

3 hours ago, abcdefg said:

He doesn't sound Chinese.

He doesn't - he has an accent that is noticeably foreign, but it's not that bad, and 'native accent with no mistakes' is a pretty high bar for people to achieve unless they grew up speaking the language.

 

1 hour ago, 889 said:

It's a very good example how you can speak Chinese yet not be understood, at least not easily understood.

I didn't find it particularly difficult to understand.  I think sometimes he couldn't quite find the word he wanted to use and so spent a sentence or two explaining it and that made some parts waffle on, but I think overall it's not a bad level - especially as he hasn't been learning full-time in country except for those first 3 months.

 

45 minutes ago, 889 said:

Of course it also raised the fear, Do I sound that bad?

Upload an unscripted recording and we'll tell you

 

[stapler]

I had the same thought: "good lord, do i sound like that too?!"

[realmayo]

I think people are entitled to be critical if the guy has been selling some kind of newsletter product at what, $150+ a year if I remember right? For all we know his spoken Chinese is the sum total of his learning, that is, he can't read or write, so if this is what you get for your money, and the results are rather unimpressive, I think people are entitled to ask: is this all you've got?

 

No one demands to hear Imron "prove" his high Chinese level each time he gives advice on learning, because he's not charging for the advice he gives, it's all free and up for discussion and contradiction, without flashy gimmicks and lovely graphics, or the advertising tricks like hiding prices and making you sign up for a newsletter, join a membership waiting list that only opens for a limited period each year kind of crap. I think pretty much all those guys are charlatans, even if plenty of them genuinely don't mean to be. But what makes them seriously think they can charge for advice when they themselves haven't actually done what they're promising they can help you do?

[imron]

21 hours ago, realmayo said:

if the guy has been selling some kind of newsletter product at what, $150+ a year if I remember right?

Different guy I think.  Scott has a book on learning more effectively that according to his website currently sells for $37, plus a bunch of other courses that don't seem to have pricing information (but that I guess aren't cheap).  His newsletter is free, but I've never signed up for it so I don't know what it's like.  I do occasionally check out his blog though, and I find a lot of what he writes quite reasonable.

 

21 hours ago, realmayo said:

if this is what you get for your money, and the results are rather unimpressive, I think people are entitled to ask: is this all you've got?

That's a fair point.  On the other hand, I think that his current level is in line with what I'd expect of someone who had done mostly part-time self study out of country.  According to his other posts, and unlike Benny, he's also been learning to read.

 

 

21 hours ago, realmayo said:

because he's not charging for the advice he gives

Hah, maybe I should write a book!

[889]

Well, the next time someone posts here that they intend to study Chinese independently, I'll just respond with a link to Scott's video. Because that's what they're going to end up sounding like without a native tutor.

 

May heaven help them.