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+--- Thread: This guy = the man (/thread-9087.html)
This guy = the man - Inny Jan - 2012-02-23
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:I think what Rawlings did was impressive, just not impressive enough to call him "the man".Take it easy man, transatlantic guys tend to go "ohh, ahh" more often than Brits or Ozies do.
They say "awasome" you hear that, disagree and say "normal", they hear that, disagree and say "you are nihilist" - looks like a cultural clash to me
This guy = the man - kusterdu - 2012-02-23
Inny Jan Wrote:What is a transatlantic guy? You mean North Americans?HonyakuJoshua Wrote:I think what Rawlings did was impressive, just not impressive enough to call him "the man".Take it easy man, transatlantic guys tend to go "ohh, ahh" more often than Brits or Ozies do.
They say "awasome" you hear that, disagree and say "normal", they hear that, disagree and say "you are nihilist" - looks like a cultural clash to me
This guy = the man - Inny Jan - 2012-02-23
kusterdu Wrote:What is a transatlantic guy?http://www.thefreedictionary.com/transatlantic
This guy = the man - JimmySeal - 2012-02-23
Is seeing someone getting a bit of admiration and praise detracting from your non-stop ego trip, Josh?
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
JimmySeal Wrote:Is seeing someone getting a bit of admiration and praise detracting from your non-stop ego trip, Josh?No, not at all - I readily admit my faults on here - I just think, as I have said many times on this thread that I doubt whether he is really fluent in these languages and that I also think there are better documented polyglots than him. If I was on an ego trip I wouldn't be posting stuff I didn't understand on the "what this word/phrase thread" or admitting on a public forum that I couldn't finish a job without my gf etc
Well done to the lad on winning the competition.
@Inny Jam yeah that's probably right the Canadians I know communicate like this....
This guy = the man - JimmySeal - 2012-02-23
The main reason this guy is impressive is that he's only 20 years old. There no doubt that there are several polyglots that can do more than he can, but were they as far along as he is when they were 20 years old? That is the question.
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
I will grant you that's very impressive
This guy = the man - kusterdu - 2012-02-23
Inny Jan Wrote:Thanks! I admit, I was being a bit lazy. It's interesting that the main cultural divide seems to be between "transatlantics" and Brits/Ozies. I've long suspected that the main linguistic divide in the English-speaking world is between North America and everywhere else, so I guess it would make since that the main cultural division is there, too.kusterdu Wrote:What is a transatlantic guy?http://www.thefreedictionary.com/transatlantic
Sorry! I know this is way off-topic.
This guy = the man - Zgarbas - 2012-02-23
Joshua, you strike me as a very troubled individual.
I swear, it's like every post you write screams that. Also a buttload of information about your life.
This guy = the man - Irixmark - 2012-02-23
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:I think I am a direct person who often rubs people up the wrong way and have been called rude before.One the of the many great things about this forum is that people tend to stay civilized even in heated discussions, and that nobody brags about their achievements, even though some really have earned "bragging rights" because of the level of deep knowledge and fluency in Japanese they have achieved. Please keep it that way.
This guy = the man - pudding cat - 2012-02-23
He's lucky his mother brought him up with three languages. That's a massive headstart on most people.
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
yeah, i was in uni with peeps like that. It did make me think wtf is the point of even trying...
@Zgarbas most people would define me as being sane and well balanced - I just mention my gf cos she did help me a lot professionally. You still haven't apoligized.
@irixmark if you look at my post you will see I was only replying to someone who asked who are you exactly. Do you own this forum?
This guy = the man - nadiatims - 2012-02-23
In 翻訳除臭痾's defense, I think the points he raises are mostly valid and there are people out there massively over evaluating their own abilities in multiple languages. However such people tend to have truly god awful accents and basically sound horrendous. I think it would be pretty difficult remembering and delivering his lines without being somewhat decent at the languages. Also googling Alex Rawling doesn't turn up much beside that bbc link, so it's not like he's spamming himself all over you tube or something.
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
nadiatims Wrote:In 翻訳除臭痾's defense, I think the points he raises are mostly valid and there are people out there massively over evaluating their own abilities in multiple languages. However such people tend to have truly god awful accents and basically sound horrendous. I think it would be pretty difficult remembering and delivering his lines without being somewhat decent at the languages. Also googling Alex Rawling doesn't turn up much beside that bbc link, so it's not like he's spamming himself all over you tube or something.lol at the k/hanji!!!!!!! interestingly as I said above the net seems split whether its Collins or Harper Collins who ran the competition and there is no reference to it on their site nor reference to the competition online. I think this is quite strange.
It is the numerous spurious claims that have led me to be so cynical.
This guy = the man - Irixmark - 2012-02-23
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:@Zgarbas most people would define me as being sane and well balanced - I just mention my gf cos she did help me a lot professionally. You still haven't apoligized.
@irixmark if you look at my post you will see I was only replying to someone who asked who are you exactly. Do you own this forum?
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:This is what I meant by being uncivilized, and the one thing said in this thread that most calls for an apology.quark Wrote:I didn't say i could learn Hebrew, Russian or Greek in a year did I, you ***** idiot?HonyakuJoshua Wrote:Where did I say I could surpass him in a year?! I didn't: You're making it up. I have been called a pedophile, a killer, psychopath and a worse still a recluse, but this time there is no evidence to support what you just said. Please apologise.HonyakuJoshua Wrote:English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, are the same family (Germanic) and have similar vocabulary. I could learn these in a year.Right there.
French, , Catalan and Italian.Spanish Are the same family (romance) and have similar vocabulary. I could learn these in a year.
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
I edited it out hours ago. It just upset me that somebody was making blatantly untrue remarks about me - I think that's rude.
This guy = the man - kusterdu - 2012-02-23
I've heard other people complain about unimpressive polyglots, but who are you thinking of in particular? Is there anybody besides Moses McCormick that you're impressed with?
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
I am impressed with:
kato Lomb
Mario Pei
George Campbell
Kenneth Hale
pent nurmekund
Daniel Tammet
and also Powell Alexander Janulus from what little we know of him. I am so sad I am trying 2 contact him.
Also people I know personally in L'pool. Foreign people who learn English to any degree of fluency always astound me.
The exaggerated claims? I just feel they are a very general thing.
This guy = the man - turvy - 2012-02-23
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:Well, his Spanish seems to be pretty good actually. It's not remarkably good, but it's better than most English natives that learned / 'picked up' Spanish that I know.nadiatims Wrote:Some of these hyperglots "master" their languages to a rather low standard (not that there's anything wrong with focus on quantity over quality), but this guy seems to be the real deal, not that I can really verify them though. His dutch pronunciation seems a little off but still very good job overall.I am very suspicious and even if he does speak them well…
However, this was probably scripted so his actual ability in any of those languages may be slightly worse than what we've seen.
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
He doesn't even speak Hebrew in the video...
This guy = the man - nadiatims - 2012-02-23
turvy Wrote:Well, his Spanish seems to be pretty good actually. It's not remarkably good, but it's better than most English natives that learned / 'picked up' Spanish that I know.Well, I don't know anything about spanish or how good english natives usually get at it, but I think "better than most english speakers" isn't exactly a glowing endorsement when it comes to languages. It's like how other japanese people woo and wow when their friend is able to speak even the slightest bit of English. I personally wouldn't want my own ability compared to people who never studied or do so only semi seriously. I think this is kind of where the 'tall poppy syndrome' comes in, because these polyglots' skills almost seem like magic to a lot of laymen they get showered by praise but the people who know a little better are kind of 'meh' about it. Intermediate or low advanced skills appear a lot more amazing when you're just a beginner at something.
This guy = the man - HonyakuJoshua - 2012-02-23
meh
Seriously though, I was looking at this site http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty and he would need to spend at least 242.70833333333334 Days studying the 8 languages he didn't learn from childhood to attain "general professional proficiency"
I just gets more doubtful the more I examine it...
This guy = the man - Zgarbas - 2012-02-23
Romanian similar to English?
Wtf?
This guy = the man - nadiatims - 2012-02-23
that list seems really dodgy...why is german in its own category?
I think these kind of differences in difficulty aren't all that significant if you're studying in the right ways. I don't know, maybe you have a 2000 word head start studying french as an english speaker, but you can learn that in a couple of months anyway.
This guy = the man - IceCream - 2012-02-23
wow, what a carcrash of a thread.
i dunno, i think that any form of fluency in 11 languages is pretty impressive. I don't see any real basis to start putting this guy down, anyway. He seems to be doing good
Whether other people are doing better or not isn't really the point, is it...
Anyway, about the difference in difficulty levels of languages, i think a lot of it has to do with how different the grammar structure is from english, not just how much of a vocabulary head start you get.
Like, there's differences with French grammar too, but i get the impression that it would be much quicker to attain listening fluency in French because the grammar structure is so much more similar to english than it is for Japanese, which means your brain should not take as long to start processing whole sentences, i guess.