Ekhm. He learned German for 5 years or so before and I'm still laughing at his pronunciation when I hear him.

Come on!

TheVinster Wrote:

NightSky Wrote:I for one quite like Benny.

There I said it.

Just because it takes us so long to learn Japanese, we shouldn't let it upset us that he can learn Spanish or German so quickly when studying full time.

The problem isn't whether or not he can. The problem is he tries, fails, but pretends he's "fluent" (his definition of what fluency entails). Then he makes a bunch of money off of claiming to know how to become fluent quickly. If he wasn't making money because of this then I doubt most people would have a problem.

Speaking of NightSky's post, he didn't "try and fail" at all with German or Spanish. His level is pretty good at both of them.

And considering fluency (or basic fluency, whatever you wanna call it) as "being able to have conversations with no or almost no problem", he's probably fluent in most of his languages, exceptions maybe for Arabic and Chinese and the languages he's never come back to (like Hungarian or Czech). Basic fluency starts at B1/B2 level, not C2. I don't think he's ever claimed to be as fluent as a native (except in the languages he has a C2 degree).
Meaning: the guy is definitely not a fraud. I can vouch for that in all the languages we have in common. He has learned many languages to a decent or high level, and he's allowed to make money out of it.
You are allowed to make money out of your Japanese as well, by teaching beginners, creating an ebook or selling webinars as well. Why don't you try? I don't know your level, but if you're at least intermediate you could be helping a lot of beginners and getting paid for it!

I really don't get why people get so criticized when they try to make money...

I don't know about all that, but I had bought his book because I thought it would be interesting. It is basically just a bit of a motivational tool and doesn't add up to much. I'm sorry I bought it. I don't know why it is getting so many good reviews on Amazon.

I am aware that by posting this I am technically contributing to the problem as well, but this thread has seriously outlived any usefulness or productive activity it might have had. Come on guys is there really anything to say that hasn't already been said earlier?

Flamerokz Wrote:I am aware that by posting this I am technically contributing to the problem as well, but this thread has seriously outlived any usefulness or productive activity it might have had. Come on guys is there really anything to say that hasn't already been said earlier?

Fie! Fie, I say! This is the Internet - we've never met a dead horse we couldn't beat!

fabriciocarraro Wrote:

TheVinster Wrote:

NightSky Wrote:I for one quite like Benny.

There I said it.

Just because it takes us so long to learn Japanese, we shouldn't let it upset us that he can learn Spanish or German so quickly when studying full time.

The problem isn't whether or not he can. The problem is he tries, fails, but pretends he's "fluent" (his definition of what fluency entails). Then he makes a bunch of money off of claiming to know how to become fluent quickly. If he wasn't making money because of this then I doubt most people would have a problem.

Speaking of NightSky's post, he didn't "try and fail" at all with German or Spanish. His level is pretty good at both of them.

And considering fluency (or basic fluency, whatever you wanna call it) as "being able to have conversations with no or almost no problem", he's probably fluent in most of his languages, exceptions maybe for Arabic and Chinese and the languages he's never come back to (like Hungarian or Czech). Basic fluency starts at B1/B2 level, not C2. I don't think he's ever claimed to be as fluent as a native (except in the languages he has a C2 degree).
Meaning: the guy is definitely not a fraud. I can vouch for that in all the languages we have in common. He has learned many languages to a decent or high level, and he's allowed to make money out of it.
You are allowed to make money out of your Japanese as well, by teaching beginners, creating an ebook or selling webinars as well. Why don't you try? I don't know your level, but if you're at least intermediate you could be helping a lot of beginners and getting paid for it!

I really don't get why people get so criticized when they try to make money...

You're proficient/fluent in both German and Spanish?

As much as I like the guy and his blog, the best the average person can hope to achieve through 3 months of full-time language study (6-8 hours daily without listening practice) is middle-beginner to upper-beginner status, if that.

You could technically learn a lot because if it boils down to hours, 3 months worth of full-time practice is about 540 hours. But that's still only the basics of breaking into a language. It's at best being able to have "conversations" about basic subjects and being able to ask for directions.

I put the word conversations in quotation marks because honestly, how fluent can someone be if they have to ask someone else to speak slowly (due to lack of listening comprehension that 540 hours couldn't achieve) and use simple vocabulary?

I think that people would have less of an issue if the blog was called "The 3 Month Challenge" or "Speak From Day One/1."

TsugiAshi Wrote:You're proficient/fluent in both German and Spanish?

In Spanish, yes. In German, no, but I have close friends who are and told me that. Also, I'm a native Portuguese speaker and I can tell that his Portuguese is VERY good. His accent is indeed strange, probably like in any language, but since accent doesn't define fluency at all I don't see why it should be harshly evaluated.
I'm also fluent in Italian, and, again, although his accent is very strange and he makes mistakes with genders here and there, his level is also very good, being able to live in the country without problems.

TsugiAshi Wrote:As much as I like the guy and his blog, the best the average person can hope to achieve through 3 months of full-time language study (6-8 hours daily without listening practice) is middle-beginner to upper-beginner status, if that.

Yes, I completely agree with that. The thing is, the average person doesn't create a blog with free language-related content or a Youtube channel to encourage language learning among other average people.
I never said the guy is a god or anything like that, just that he's definitely not a fraud, and does more for the language learning community than most people.

TsugiAshi Wrote:You could technically learn a lot because if it boils down to hours, 3 months worth of full-time practice is about 540 hours. But that's still only the basics of breaking into a language. It's at best being able to have "conversations" about basic subjects and being able to ask for directions.

I put the word conversations in quotation marks because honestly, how fluent can someone be if they have to ask someone else to speak slowly (due to lack of listening comprehension that 540 hours couldn't achieve) and use simple vocabulary?

Well, that depends a lot on the language. For a closely related language like French or Spanish, if you get to an intermediate level, you can use the words that you know (which aren't that few anymore) and rely on context for the rest of it. I do it weekly and it works most of the time. With languages like Japanese or Chinese it's indeed much more complicated than that, but still doable at some extent.

TsugiAshi Wrote:I think that people would have less of an issue if the blog was called "The 3 Month Challenge" or "Speak From Day One/1."

I agree 100% with that.

Who the hell is Benny Lewis and why would anyone care?

fabriciocarraro Wrote:Yes, I completely agree with that. The thing is, the average person doesn't create a blog with free language-related content or a Youtube channel to encourage language learning among other average people.
I never said the guy is a god or anything like that, just that he's definitely not a fraud, and does more for the language learning community than most people.

I don't think he's a fraud, but at the same time his blog is somewhat misleading due to it's title and theme, which is what I think people mostly critisize as it seems to be intentionally used as a means to grasp people's attention and get them to buy what he's offering.

A section of the forum coincides with this where users take on their own 3 month journey to fluency in a preferred language.

I know that Benny himself probably isn't an average language learner, but the people who mostly read his blog assumingly are, such as myself. But that still doesn't mean he could necessarily claim fluency in 3 months either, though. He also makes a living off of his site and product, and without a popular blog/product, he wouldn't be able to make a living off of it anymore.

fabriciocarraro Wrote:Well, that depends a lot on the language. For a closely related language like French or Spanish, if you get to an intermediate level, you can use the words that you know (which aren't that few anymore) and rely on context for the rest of it. I do it weekly and it works most of the time. With languages like Japanese or Chinese it's indeed much more complicated than that, but still doable at some extent.

Even with closely related languages, though, if someone has to get by on a learning curve by relying on context to fill in the gaps during a conversation, then I don't think that that person can claim fluency because they don't necessarily understand the language to an advanced degree in that sense. I wouldn't consider that fluency, tbh. However, I would call it "language hacking" as Benny puts it.

Fluency, imo, is where you basically understand the language, and can speak and read it to an advanced degree. Not necessarily native-level, but enough to cross the threshold into getting to native level.

Listening exposure seems to be one of the most time-consuming aspects of language learning from my experience, and achieving a decent level of listening comprehension in a foreign language cannot really be developed in 3 months.

[Zgarbas]

It depends on the language. I can hold my own in conversations in Spanish (as in, real conversations, not "let's practice our language skills by talking slowly about our likes and dislikes") without much issue, despite not having studied it. When I was in Italy I could understand about 90% of what was said to me if they slowed down, and I'd answer back in broken Spanish and they'd get it. Some languages *can* get hacked. Of course, the basic requirement for this is to be a Romanian speaker (the whole mutual comprehension between romance languages varies a lot), so life's just not fair that way.

In general, conversational levels are not that hard to achieve since human beings tend to be rather nice about it and complement what they're saying with gestures, explanations, rephrasing and context. Answering back fluently is the real task, but if you find understanding conversation partners then it doesn't really matter that much... Most people don't care that you're spurting out ungrammatical unnatural sounding words so long as the meaning gets across.

john555 Wrote:Who the hell is Benny Lewis and why would anyone care?

Benny is a polyglot and a published author on language learning. He also gives advice and teaches by example on how to study languages, on his blog and various other outlets.

33 pages of posts to answer one question: "Benny Lewis Fluent in Japanese in 3 months?".

Now finally, the answer: "It depends on your definition of fluency"

Happy Friday everyone!

yogert909 Wrote:33 pages of posts to answer one question: "Benny Lewis Fluent in Japanese in 3 months?".

Now finally, the answer: "It depends on your definition of fluency"

Happy Friday everyone!

Actually, the answer went something like this: "Clearly not"

yogert909 Wrote:33 pages of posts to answer one question: "Benny Lewis Fluent in Japanese in 3 months?".

Now finally, the answer: "It depends on your definition of fluency"

Happy Friday everyone!

That's the problem with the concept of fluency though, and also one reason why this topic made it to 33 pages. People can take a very liberal definition for fluency, when in all honesty if people who have studied languages are honest with themselves, probably wouldn't readily accept the idea that you can become fluent in such a short time.

Short of being a savant or something (and I'm open to opinions to the contrary), I don't really understand how someone could claim legit fluency in 3 months unless they're just trying to emphasize how fluency is technically subjective in order to make it fit what they want it to fit. Which comes off as a little bit questionable to me.

It's an old thread, but one of the most interesting I have ever come across.

A polyglot:
A guy who tells you he knows twenty-three languages and you believe him.

yogert909 Wrote:Now finally, the answer: "It depends on your definition of fluency"

I tend to agree with

Glossika Wrote:Our definition of fluency is simple and easy to attain: speaking full sentences in one breath.

Penny Lewis penned a book. Here's a review:
http://polydog.org/index.php?threads/flu....17/page-2

I'm not going to spend a penny.

Benny Lewis....yawn....zzzzzzzzzz........

john555 Wrote:Benny Lewis....yawn....zzzzzzzzzz........

It's NOT Penny Lewis. It's the review. Read it. It's long but it's worth it.

I thought this thread was killed thrice already... Well, guess we'll see if another storm comes blowing through.

I'm a fan of Penny Lewis', for various reasons - none has anything to do with language learning.


As far as languages go, these two guys definitely know what they are talking about.
Their free (and good) language learning guides (neither my cup of tea though):

Iversen
Guide to Learning Languages
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/for...16932&PN=5

Big_Dog (aka leosmith, knows Japanese by the way)
The language learning methods of Big_Dog
http://polydog.org/index.php?forums/the-...ig_dog.19/

Ah, I forgot about this guy:
http://www.foreignlanguageexpertise.com/index.html
Alexander Arguelles
He's dry as dust, but sometimes has something interesting to say. Never wrote any guides, though.

Another guy I forgot. He is good.
Luca Lampariello
http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/

buonaparte Wrote:It's an old thread, but one of the most interesting I have ever come across.

A polyglot:
A guy who tells you he knows twenty-three languages and you believe him.

yogert909 Wrote:Now finally, the answer: "It depends on your definition of fluency"

I tend to agree with

Glossika Wrote:Our definition of fluency is simple and easy to attain: speaking full sentences in one breath.

Penny Lewis penned a book. Here's a review:
http://polydog.org/index.php?threads/flu....17/page-2

I'm not going to spend a penny.

That might be the problem with the concepts of polyglotism and fluency, the subjective nature of each definition that people like to highlight when discussing them. I noticed some of that going on in this thread when people would say things like, "oh, well, you know fluency. It's subjective."

It would do well for there to be a standard definition for each term, because looking at the definitions for them on dictionary.com, I noticed how someone could highlight the subjective nature of fluency and polyglotism and technically get away with it.

I agree with you that this is an interesting thread, particularly since it seems to have turned more into a debate thread about language learning and fluency.

The polydog.org forum software is a modern marvel.

Proper definitions are never subjective. Saying "my definition of X is subjective" is akin to saying "I choose to be stupid and lazy about how I define X".

Definitions are the logical consequence of one's purpose. For instance, when one's purpose is to evaluate the nature of reality, a concept is defined in the way that best serves that purpose. When one's purpose is to formulate a normative statement, definitions should once again relate to one's underlying purpose.

In this case, the underlying purpose of learning a language is to make use of it. If one wishes to define a concept that measures progress in this endeavor, it must relate to the ability to use the language.

I submit to you the logical, and frankly obvious, way to define fluent: being fluent is being able to use the language. And that's not subjective. It can be a little vague, but not all that vague. We know a lot about general statements of this type (stuff like "crows are black", or "Americans are rich"). We know for instance that 1. they refer to the majority of cases and 2. they are not necessarily all-encompassing. There are white crows and poor Americans, just not that many.

Someone fluent in a language can use it in most cases. There are cases in which he can't, but not that many. Benny Lewis claiming to be fluent, when in fact he can only use the language in a small number of situations, is not a subjective statement, it's a lie. Not a straight up, blatant mis-statement of fact, but a far more sophisticated lie that corrupts conceptual thought to make itself difficult to detect. These are the kinds of lies that are most dangerous, and the kind we have way too many of floating around these days.

.

That's the issue, though. The concept of "being fluent is being able to use the language" is a very vague one. I don't exactly think that fluency has a standard definition. Fluency seems to be observed as being subjective due in some large part to its vague nature. Although, like you and I, I'm sure there's an accepted notion of fluency that language learners who are honest with themselves prefer to use.

In the case of Benny Lewis in particular, he can study very intensely for three months (which he tends to do when he's undertaking one of his language learning endeavors) and can achieve a great amount of knowledge in the language to the point of being lightly conversational. But I think one of the issues is how at times he tends to measure his ability in said language. He basically reads a script after having the script reviewed by a native speaker/teacher.

Then, after the course of three months, he'd be able to read that script in a proper manner while having his ability to do so assessed by a language professional of some sort that is oriented towards the language that he was learning. The professional can grade him on how clear he is while speaking, alongside grading him on other facets.

If that's one of his chosen methods of measure when learning a language, then technically he fulfilled the criteria for being able to use the language. He read it aloud in proper form, and then went around said country, working and socializing with the locals with his light conversational ability.

Through those two means, he has demonstrated his ability to read and speak in the target language in a fluid manner. That technically fits the definition of fluency. However, it neglects to scrutinize the method of language use, and it neglects to observe that he most likely has to have the people who he's conversing with speak slowly and simply so that he can understand them. I agree with you that it's misleading.

Most people who are honest with themselves in language learning wouldn't be so quick to call that fluency, despite it fitting what appears to be a definition for fluency.

Here's a simple test of whether you're fluent in the language you're learning:

Sit in on a university lecture (a not too technical subject) and see if you can simultaneously follow along with and understand what the professor yapping about and at the same time write down notes summarizing the main points he is making, as he makes them.

(I, a native English speaker* had to do this when I attended university and even for me and my native English speaking classmates it was sometimes difficult. Some people brought in cassette tape records to tape the lectures. Some professors objected to this).



*someone on this forum once referred to "native speakers of English". This irritated me but I said nothing. No real native English speaker would use the term "native speaker of English". We prefer to use the term "native English speaker". There. That's my rant for the day ).