If it's common knowledge that Benny is a peddler of false promises, and y'all are doing nothing but preaching to the choir, why not just get back to studying? Much better return on your investment, I assure you.

andikaze Wrote:Wulfgar, I sure expected more from you than this low thread, you seemed to be a decent guy

Point taken. If it's not a secret, who are you on HTLAL?

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Since his Japanese language goals are basically dead and so is the thread (as far as the topic is concerned), I'll keep it alive by going through his IAMA later and post any interesting Q and As (unless someone does it before me).

I couldn't be bothered.

qwertyytrewq Wrote:

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Since his Japanese language goals are basically dead and so is the thread (as far as the topic is concerned), I'll keep it alive by going through his IAMA later and post any interesting Q and As (unless someone does it before me).

I couldn't be bothered.

No worries. Apparently, neither could Benny, lol.

Hirakana Wrote:Isn't there a rule against mentioning Benny at HTLAL? Or am I wrong?

You're wrong. But just like here, when he goes on a "new adventure", some members of the polyglot community go up in arms (usually the same).

Yes, I am bumping the Benny thread.

Some of you people said you were going to buy his book.

Did you read it?

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Yes, I am bumping the Benny thread.

Some of you people said you were going to buy his book.

Did you read it?

I did!

The first 60 or 65% of the book is clearly aimed at people who have never learned a foreign language to a good level by themselves. It focus a lot on motivation and gives lots of tips such as....

"don't think abou what's difficult in that language, but about what you love about it"
or
"nowadays you don't have to live in the country to practice the language, you have several online resources such as Skype, SharedTalk, etc......"

....which might be useless for experienced learners, but are great for complete beginners.

From then on, he has excellent chapters. The one that stands out the most talks about how to take your level from basic fluency to mastery. He has another about improving your accent when you're already good at the language that it's very interesting as well, and one about hyperpolyglots, just as interesting.

My conclusion is: if you've learned any language by yourself to a C1 or C2 level, you probably don't need it, but it might be very helpful if you want to start a specific language or get some motivation.
For any beginner wanting to become a polyglot, or trying to learn their first language without a teacher, I'd say it's a must-buy.

fabriciocarraro Wrote:

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Yes, I am bumping the Benny thread.

Some of you people said you were going to buy his book.

Did you read it?

I did!

The first 60 or 65% of the book is clearly aimed at people who have never learned a foreign language to a good level by themselves. It focus a lot on motivation and gives lots of tips such as....

"don't think abou what's difficult in that language, but about what you love about it"
or
"nowadays you don't have to live in the country to practice the language, you have several online resources such as Skype, SharedTalk, etc......"

....which might be useless for experienced learners, but are great for complete beginners.

From then on, he has excellent chapters. The one that stands out the most talks about how to take your level from basic fluency to mastery. He has another about improving your accent when you're already good at the language that it's very interesting as well, and one about hyperpolyglots, just as interesting.

My conclusion is: if you've learned any language by yourself to a C1 or C2 level, you probably don't need it, but it might be very helpful if you want to start a specific language or get some motivation.
For any beginner wanting to become a polyglot, or trying to learn their first language without a teacher, I'd say it's a must-buy.

Thank you for that. Your review sounds fair and credible.

Looking at his blog (not his book), Benny's insights do have a certain value because he is a living case study of a chronic language learner. He is obviously not as methodological or analytical in his insights as, for example, Richard Schmidt (of "noticing hypothesis" fame), who used similar self-observation, was, but he is giving first hand accounts of how he is going about things and uploading videos of his achievements, and lack thereof, for others to empirically evaluate. All interesting stuff. As is the anti-Benny vitriol from the "polyglot community" which is an explicit sociological demonstration of how a given discursive community engages in aggressive self-policing.

raharney Wrote:As is the anti-Benny vitriol from the "polyglot community" which is an explicit sociological demonstration of how a given discursive community engages in aggressive self-policing.

That's one way to put it. Another would be that people are merely calling bullshit when they see it. Peddlers of charms and snake-oil cures convince the laymen readily enough, but they'd be foolish to attempt to sell their wares at a medical conference. Benny, evidently, is possessed of no such common sense.

afterglowefx Wrote:

raharney Wrote:As is the anti-Benny vitriol from the "polyglot community" which is an explicit sociological demonstration of how a given discursive community engages in aggressive self-policing.

That's one way to put it. Another would be that people are merely calling bullshit when they see it. Peddlers of charms and snake-oil cures convince the laymen readily enough, but they'd be foolish to attempt to sell their wares at a medical conference. Benny, evidently, is possessed of no such common sense.

Your "snake-oil" metaphor is all wrong. "Snake-oil" is about making fraudulent claims that doing X results in Y. The fraud works because X causing Y cannot be verified AND where the snake-oil seller consciously knows his/her claims are fraudulent.
In Benny's case, [1] Benny uploads videos of himself talking a particular language. There is no faking things here. We can decide for ourselves how good or bad he is.
[2] Benny gives an account of how he achieved the particular language level he has demonstrated. Again, he makes no wild "snake-skin oil" style claims. Everything he says can be tested and replicated (or not).
So your snake-skin fraudster metaphor fails. A better metaphor would be that of an honest herbalist or kampo practitioner at a medical conference. Take out your Foucault books and start pondering that one comrade.

raharney Wrote:

afterglowefx Wrote:

raharney Wrote:As is the anti-Benny vitriol from the "polyglot community" which is an explicit sociological demonstration of how a given discursive community engages in aggressive self-policing.

That's one way to put it. Another would be that people are merely calling bullshit when they see it. Peddlers of charms and snake-oil cures convince the laymen readily enough, but they'd be foolish to attempt to sell their wares at a medical conference. Benny, evidently, is possessed of no such common sense.

Your "snake-oil" metaphor is all wrong. "Snake-oil" is about making fraudulent claims that doing X results in Y. The fraud works because X causing Y cannot be verified AND where the snake-oil seller consciously knows his/her claims are fraudulent.
In Benny's case, [1] Benny uploads videos of himself talking a particular language. There is no faking things here. We can decide for ourselves how good or bad he is.
[2] Benny gives an account of how he achieved the particular language level he has demonstrated. Again, he makes no wild "snake-skin oil" style claims. Everything he says can be tested and replicated (or not).
So your snake-skin fraudster metaphor fails. A better metaphor would be that of an honest herbalist or kampo practitioner at a medical conference. Take out your Foucault books and start pondering that one comrade.

The guy is a legit language learner. However, he can also be a bit deceptive. I like him and his blog and have successfully applied some of the elements I've found on his blog to my own language learning, but at the same time he oversells his own abilities for the underlying purpose of making a living off of his site and his products.

The title of his site is a testament to that. Aside from a few things that could be changed/altered in the way he promotes himself and his learning method, I agree with everything you said.

I'd personally prefer the title "Conversational in 3 Months" although that isn't nearly as catchy as "Fluent in 3 Months."

You're talking to somebody with a BA in philosophy, but for the sake of everybody who hasn't spent years of their life investing themselves into a vocabulary of almost no practical use in daily conversation, I'll refrain from name-dropping sociology theories, logical fallacies, and French philosophers.

The snake-oil analogy is fine. Benny promises fluency in three months with an emphasis on immersion in the place of study. There's no reason to rehash the entire thread, so scroll up if you're in doubt as to whether or not that's a misleading (read: outright false) claim.

Here's another, more thorough analogy:

Let's say there's an aviation enthusiast named Kenny. Kenny loves airplanes, and thinks about airplanes all the time. Kenny claims to have "hacked" aircraft design and further claims that he can design a new, fully-functional, flight-ready aircraft in three months. He claims you don't need to go to college or read any fancy engineering textbooks. The most important thing, claims Kenny, is simply to spend a lot of time watching other people design airplanes and then try to design your own.

Kenny gives himself a three-month challenge to design a brand new airplane. All the kindergarteners who also really love airplanes are really excited. The engineering community clearly has its doubts. At the end of the three months Kenny presents his newly designed aircraft and markets it as a complete success. This is his blueprint:



The kindergarteners all clap and cheer. The engineering community is understandably mortified.

afterglowefx Wrote:You're talking to somebody with a BA in philosophy, but for the sake of everybody who hasn't spent years of their life investing themselves into a vocabulary of almost no practical use in daily conversation, I'll refrain from name-dropping sociology theories, logical fallacies, and French philosophers.

The snake-oil analogy is fine. Benny promises fluency in three months with an emphasis on immersion in the place of study. There's no reason to rehash the entire thread, so scroll up if you're in doubt as to whether or not that's a misleading (read: outright false) claim.

Here's another, more thorough analogy:

Let's say there's an aviation enthusiast named Kenny. Kenny loves airplanes, and thinks about airplanes all the time. Kenny claims to have "hacked" aircraft design and further claims that he can design a new, fully-functional, flight-ready aircraft in three months. He claims you don't need to go to college or read any fancy engineering textbooks. The most important thing, claims Kenny, is simply to spend a lot of time watching other people design airplanes and then try to design your own.

Kenny gives himself a three-month challenge to design a brand new airplane. All the kindergarteners who also really love airplanes are really excited. The engineering community clearly has its doubts. At the end of the three months Kenny presents his newly designed aircraft and markets it as a complete success. This is his blueprint:

http://i.imgur.com/JNBqzdq.jpg

The kindergarteners all clap and cheer. The engineering community is understandably mortified.

You still have to account for the fact that Benny uploads videos of himself talking the language he has claimed to learn. In your metaphor this would be the equivalent videoing the plane actually flying (well or badly).

TsugiAshi Wrote:

raharney Wrote:

afterglowefx Wrote:That's one way to put it. Another would be that people are merely calling bullshit when they see it. Peddlers of charms and snake-oil cures convince the laymen readily enough, but they'd be foolish to attempt to sell their wares at a medical conference. Benny, evidently, is possessed of no such common sense.

Your "snake-oil" metaphor is all wrong. "Snake-oil" is about making fraudulent claims that doing X results in Y. The fraud works because X causing Y cannot be verified AND where the snake-oil seller consciously knows his/her claims are fraudulent.
In Benny's case, [1] Benny uploads videos of himself talking a particular language. There is no faking things here. We can decide for ourselves how good or bad he is.
[2] Benny gives an account of how he achieved the particular language level he has demonstrated. Again, he makes no wild "snake-skin oil" style claims. Everything he says can be tested and replicated (or not).
So your snake-skin fraudster metaphor fails. A better metaphor would be that of an honest herbalist or kampo practitioner at a medical conference. Take out your Foucault books and start pondering that one comrade.

The guy is a legit language learner. However, he can also be a bit deceptive. I like him and his blog and have successfully applied some of the elements I've found on his blog to my own language learning, but at the same time he oversells his own abilities for the underlying purpose of making a living off of his site and his products.

The title of his site is a testament to that. Aside from a few things that could be changed/altered in the way he promotes himself and his learning method, I agree with everything you said.

I'd personally prefer the title "Conversational in 3 Months" although that isn't nearly as catchy as "Fluent in 3 Months."

Fair point. "Fluent" is such a slippery concept but it can, to some extent, describe what Benny claims. So he might, for some, be guilty of crass marketing but he is not guilty of fraud as others are claiming here.

raharney Wrote:

TsugiAshi Wrote:

raharney Wrote:Your "snake-oil" metaphor is all wrong. "Snake-oil" is about making fraudulent claims that doing X results in Y. The fraud works because X causing Y cannot be verified AND where the snake-oil seller consciously knows his/her claims are fraudulent.
In Benny's case, [1] Benny uploads videos of himself talking a particular language. There is no faking things here. We can decide for ourselves how good or bad he is.
[2] Benny gives an account of how he achieved the particular language level he has demonstrated. Again, he makes no wild "snake-skin oil" style claims. Everything he says can be tested and replicated (or not).
So your snake-skin fraudster metaphor fails. A better metaphor would be that of an honest herbalist or kampo practitioner at a medical conference. Take out your Foucault books and start pondering that one comrade.

The guy is a legit language learner. However, he can also be a bit deceptive. I like him and his blog and have successfully applied some of the elements I've found on his blog to my own language learning, but at the same time he oversells his own abilities for the underlying purpose of making a living off of his site and his products.

The title of his site is a testament to that. Aside from a few things that could be changed/altered in the way he promotes himself and his learning method, I agree with everything you said.

I'd personally prefer the title "Conversational in 3 Months" although that isn't nearly as catchy as "Fluent in 3 Months."

Fair point. "Fluent" is such a slippery concept but it can, to some extent, describe what Benny claims. So he might, for some, be guilty of crass marketing but he is not guilty of fraud as others are claiming here.

Idk, it's like taking the concept of fluency and reducing it to something other than what it should be.

What Benny can claim is that he usually gets to a low to fair conversational level for a beginner, which more studying and progress could lead to fluency in two or more years. But to claim fluency in three months for the busy layperson is stretching it to the point where the elasticity is about to snap.

I'm not necessarily calling him a fraud, as I think he has great points. But he does seem to be focused on the business end of his language learning (rightfully so) to the point that he has to intentionally phrase and define things to fit his interpretation of fluency, which is usually done so in a biased manner.

It's kind of like the people who claim that fluency is a subjective definition (which it is, I agree), and then emphasizing the point of it being subjective. Which is basically just used to fit their argument however they please. Because if something is subjective, it can be as subjective as someone wants to make it.

raharney Wrote:

afterglowefx Wrote:The kindergarteners all clap and cheer. The engineering community is understandably mortified.

You still have to account for the fact that Benny uploads videos of himself talking the language he has claimed to learn. In your metaphor this would be the equivalent videoing the plane actually flying (well or badly).

I think the plane pretty evidently crashed and burned. Does it matter if kenny built his plane design or not?

btw that diagram was awesome sauce.

dtcamero Wrote:

raharney Wrote:

afterglowefx Wrote:The kindergarteners all clap and cheer. The engineering community is understandably mortified.

You still have to account for the fact that Benny uploads videos of himself talking the language he has claimed to learn. In your metaphor this would be the equivalent videoing the plane actually flying (well or badly).

I think the plane pretty evidently crashed and burned. Does it matter if kenny built his plane design or not?

btw that diagram was awesome sauce.

It is the metaphor that crashed and burned. But, yeh, I agree the diagram was something else.

afterglowefx Wrote:http://i.imgur.com/JNBqzdq.jpg

First time I've laughed out loud in a long time. That was awesome.

As for Benny, he made a big deal about how he was going to learn Japanese, recorded a couple minutes of seriously cringeworthy speaking, and then gave up on the whole project.

He didn't even come close to being conversational, and after announcing his plans for a trip to Japan, uploaded no videos of it. And videos of himself speaking with natives--that's his whole schtick.

So looking at Benny's two and a half months of "study," I'd say he did worse than the average learner would. I'd give him a solid D.

On the other hand, he did a great job of proving that Nope, it isn't actually possible to become fluent in Japanese in 3 months.

A more apt comparison may be this. A man claims he can build a car as fast as a Lamborghini really cheaply by tweaking some spare parts. Many amateur car builders and enthusiasts scoff at him and argue about what he'll really be able to put together using the parts he claims, but a small following of people with little to no car knowledge believe its possible and follow his experiment with enthusiasm. Some YouTube videos of the build process are released, and finally a video of the finished car on the road is shown. Many followers are impressed and believe the story. Fighting breaks out amongst the amateurs. Some believe it's a complete hoax and the car can't even move by its own power. Some believe the car does run, but is nowhere near as fast as a Lamborghini. A few others believe the claim, because they believe the videos may show the car going 0-60 as fast as some Lamborghini models. Others still argue that even if the car is as fast as a Lamborghini, the breaking and handling may be really poor, and thus it can't be compared to a real Lamborghini. At any rate, the car is nowhere near as luxurious as a real Lamborghini. The actual professional auto industry, as a whole, does not give a hoot and ignores the whole thing.

patriconia Wrote:A more apt comparison may be this. A man claims he can build a car as fast as a Lamborghini really cheaply by tweaking some spare parts. ....

http://youtu.be/g-IjfDszLvY?t=2m30s

patriconia Wrote:A more apt comparison may be this. A man claims he can build a car as fast as a Lamborghini really cheaply by tweaking some spare parts. ....

An even more apt comparison may be Preston Tucker, a man who set out to build a car oblivious to the tedious sneers and myopic condemnations of self-appointed industry experts.

Don't forget the part of the story where the car crashes and burns upon test drive. We all saw this guy fail to get any appreciable ability in Japanese during his 3 months.

As I've mentioned before, as well as in HTLAL, the "haters" are always the same

fabriciocarraro Wrote:As I've mentioned before, as well as in HTLAL, the "haters" are always the same

I agree that the criticism is intense, but consider the following for a moment, maybe even contemplate it:

If you had three months to learn a language and you dedicated roughly 6-9 hours a day to studying it, with your knowledge of language learning (whatever level it's at or isn't at), would you feel comfortable telling someone else who is fluent in the language, and would you feel comfortable telling someone who is actually fluent in multiple languages (one who spent years on each language), that you're fluent in the language that you had 3 months to learn?

And to expand on that, would you feel comfortable expressing how you're fluent in the hypothetical language by actually speaking the language to express yourself?

TsugiAshi Wrote:

fabriciocarraro Wrote:As I've mentioned before, as well as in HTLAL, the "haters" are always the same

I agree that the criticism is intense, but consider the following for a moment, maybe even contemplate it:

If you had three months to learn a language and you dedicated roughly 6-9 hours a day to studying it, with your knowledge of language learning (whatever level it's at or isn't at), would you feel comfortable telling someone else who is fluent in the language, and would you feel comfortable telling someone who is actually fluent in multiple languages (one who spent years on each language), that you're fluent in the language that you had 3 months to learn?

And to expand on that, would you feel comfortable expressing how you're fluent in the hypothetical language by actually speaking the language to express yourself?

Ehr, yeh, WTF not. What's with the constant obsession with credentials and qualifications the "haters" here have. ("I have a degree in blah blah blah so don't tell me blah blah blah"). Life is too bloody short to wait around for the credentials Brahmin to anoint you as being worthy enough to speak for yourself.