How to learn any language in six months

Discussion in 'Learning Techniques and Advice' started by Big_Dog, May 25, 2014.

  1. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    Since my last post this morning I have learned native Russian.

    It was so simple: I looked at the native Russian speakers' faces on the Youtube videos, I tolerated all the ambiguity everywhere, I had a conversation on the train with many gestures, and before this conversation I knew none of Russian but after I understood all spoken Russian. When I heard a new word I've medidated, what can it mean? I didn't accept a translation at all, this would be terrible and would prevent my native Russian development.

    Oh no. :oops: Oooups it was my imagination. hahahahaha I'm not Chris Lonsdale hahahaaha
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  2. BAnna

    BAnna Active Member VIP member

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    A couple of comments here were along the lines of "can he even speak Chinese"? That's a fair question, hence I posted the video interview I found. Whether it's relevant or not to the soundness of his argument/advice in another question. Whether he is trying to sell something would definitely be relevant and yet I am wary of making the Ad Hominem fallacy (we like or don't like the man's voice, communication style, facial hair or lack of, age, etc. and therefore agree/disagree with his points/arguments, rather than examining the soundness of the arguments or pieces of advice themselves.) He could be a growling three-legged ogre and be right or a gorgeous princess with a lovely voice and be wrong.

    See below for an explanation, taken from the Nizkor project website:

    Ad Hominem
    Last edited: May 27, 2014
  3. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    We've seen this kind of thing before and the likelihood is that his method is not extraordinary, but we would be persuaded by evidence. He hasn't provided any. We should seek to have our ideas criticized, it's how we learn to discard our own bullshit. Expecting this guy to provide something more than assertions and anecdotes is a way of showing respect.
    Last edited: May 27, 2014
  4. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    BAnna,

    As biTsar said, he didn't really provide any evidence to evaluate. Granted the time limit for such speeches is short, but he could have easily cited one or more studies. Thus the only thing left to evaluate was the subjective credibility of the presenter.

    Also I personally would make the assumption that posters here are more well educated than the general public and thus actually know what an Ad Hominem attack/fallacy is. If not, then just a link would have sufficed IMHO.
  5. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Thanks for doing that - it was a very cool video. I don't speak Cantonese either, but as a Mandarin speaker, I'm guessing he is very advanced. To be fair, if he had showed a Benny-like level in Cantonese, we'd be using that fact to call BS on his "method".

    On the other hand, I'm not impressed with most of what he had to say. Seems like just another guy trying to sell a book without giving much substance. Maybe beginners will find it useful…anything is possible.
  6. BAnna

    BAnna Active Member VIP member

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    Hi Peregrinus,
    Of course, you are right and I edited my post above to show just a link. My intention was not to be a jackass (though I succeeded quite nicely at that:eek:), I was just feeling frustrated at reading comments attacking the guy himself rather than his ideas, a lot of which are undoubtedly crap and are merely assertions lacking hard evidence.
    The format of TED talks often doesn't allow for a full exploration of ideas. To me, they seem to be more of an appetizer to get people thinking or talking about a topic. And of course, a lot of the speakers do have something to sell.
  7. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    Some of us attacked his character, yes, because he is an extremely nasty, attacking, war-arm movements, bossy, irritating man. I wish that he would shut up.

    But this was separate of the argument that his method is stupid, too simplified and useless, and that his claims are ridiculous and without proof at all.

    For the evidence, for example, if he want to convince us:

    • he must find soem people with different intelligence, all the range (he said "everyone" can learn it) therefore lowest IQ ~20 - highest IQ ~ 200.
    • He must have 2 or 3 or more groups with this same profile
    • All the people have never heard or spoken the test langauge, for example Finnish NOT similar with the native language, so for example, no Estonian can learn Finnish etc
    • All the people are monolingual and have never learned a foreign langauge at all
    • In each group is a person age 80, 70, 60, 50, 40
    • In each group is one completely blind person and one completely deaf person (he said "everyone")
    • In each group is one person who is illiterate in the native language (he said "eveyrone")
    • 1 group must learn with his method ONLY WITH HIS METHOD 6 months
    • The other groups can leanr with others methods
    After 6 months, the people will be tested by the native speaker of for example Finnish or the test's langaueg if they:
    • native accent?
    • native grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc etc?
    • write an essay like a native?
    • understand all the TV including all genres?
    • etc
    In effect, his method, stupid lecture AND especially claim were so nasty lies, I don't think that he can find ONE person in ALL THE WORLD who can become NATIVE after 6 months if the person is an adult.


    Therefore our arguemnts were not a fallacy at all.
  8. Stelle

    Stelle Active Member VIP member

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    Wow. You seem kind of angry. I get that you have a visceral reaction to the guy, but I think your reaction is a bit…strong. As for the experiment that you described, even you have to admit that it's kind of silly.

    I understand that a lot of people felt that his speech lacked substance. I'm not arguing with that. His method (if we can call it that) was incomplete at best. And I understand that he rubbed some people the wrong way. Fair enough.

    But let's not completely throw away *everything* the guy said. I think that some of it was worth listening to - even if only for the conversation that it generated here. And let's not forget that it was a talk aimed at a particular audience. All of the "FLUENT FAST!!!1!11!" videos have to be taken with a very large grain of salt*, but that doesn't mean that they're completely devoid of anything useful.

    But then, I actually enjoyed the video (despite its flaws), so what do I know? ;)

    *currently binge-watching Supernatural on Netflix - which I openly admit is an absolutely ridiculous show - so now I'm picturing myself salting the speaker
  9. biTsar

    biTsar Active Member VIP member

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    He needs to eliminate the hyperbole, show humility, then nobody much will fault him too severely even where there are disagreements. He's no paradigm changing 747 (and neither are the rest of us). Also, he should have attributed those images and concepts from Betty's book, not to do so was naughty !
  10. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    Sorry for the inappropriate tone.

    yes, chris lonsdale was extremely annoying and made me feel angry and frustrated.


    Sorry for the sillyness also.

    Yes, Iknow that the experiment was silly, but i didn;t know other way to demonstrate that Chris Lonsdale's claim was completely false, impossible, a lie, and nasty.

    When someone tell that everyone can do somehitng, then for the people who can't it's horrible. But anyway, in ym opinion nobody can do what the man has said.

    I didn't know. it seemed a univeristy and published online. Which audience?

    fluent is not native. For sure fluetn after 6 months is possible, although not with the man's method without other things.


    Yes, some humility. He was so arroagnt and forcing, overwhelming, bossy and warlike. He doesnt accept the other opinions at all. His talk was nasty and based on vague things, wihtout proof at all and with stupid pictures like the glue, what a stupid picture.
    Last edited: May 29, 2014
  11. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Or another way of saying it:
  12. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    Chris Lonsdale's invention is not an invention because he has plagiarised the only useful ideas in his stupid rubbish rant, but here are some more useless inventions LOL mostly more useful that his one. My favourite is the anti-theft suitcase hahahahahahahahahaahaaa

  13. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    There are people who can be either innovators or synthesizers. Chris Lonsdale is not an innovators, and he seems to be a poor synthesizer. Not just because he does not encompass all that is needed in his talk, but also because he does not give credit where credit is due, which is a matter of integrity. Oftentimes innovators seem so enamored of their contributions, that they fail to realize they are still just component parts to a greater whole. So they don't promote those contributions as someone who truly is a great synthesizer. The mechanic who knows how to use all the tools in the toolbox achieves more in practical terms than the inventors of those tools.
  14. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    I like that. "Daddy war-arms" is a nick he can be proud of. Honestly, I'm a little jealous.
  15. Laamok

    Laamok New Member

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    Thanks for sharing, there was some good points to think about.

    I live in Thailand and I am learning Thai, but I am not around Thai people much, I really need to sort out some volunteer work or put myself out there somewhere.

    I speak English at home to teach my wife and child a good grasp of English.
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  16. Big_Dog

    Big_Dog Administrator Staff Member

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    Thanks Laamok and welcome to the forum! Incidentally, here is a tool you might find handy for reading Thai text. The bulk-lookup option has been the most useful to me.
  17. pensulo

    pensulo Member VIP member

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    I thought he had a lot of interesting things to say, but nothing really mind blowing. The thing with language learning, like losing weight is that people want a complex solution which will ensure fast results rather than a simple solution that will give them "slow results". I think the advice he gave at the end about speeding up results wasn't really that bad in terms of at least getting the most bang out of your buck in a language.

    For most people if they get themselves a book on learning a language and study it slowly bit by bit, day by day they will get to a conversational level in the language - conversational enough that they can have meaningful discussions with people and polish off their language skills to achieve fluency at some point if they kept up the hard word. Achieving fluency in a short time is hard work because it requires a lot of time, and to a degree a lot of intelligence.

    The intelligence side of things is usually ignored by polyglots I noticed because they do not want to discourage people - but it really does play a key in how fast you can learn given the amount of effort put in. Age also plays a factor as well of course which kinda ties into the strength of one's mental processes. I hate to use myself as an example, but when I was studying Japanese I taught myself hiragana and katakana in a matter of hours - not even maybe an hour or two at the most. 3 months into my course most others were still struggling with it, let alone the kanji we were also learning at that point.

    In the end, these sorts of videos appeal to people who will never get around to learning a language because all they ever do is learn about learning languages :p
  18. zKing

    zKing New Member

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    I watched it and thought he was fairly fluent (far better than my Cantonese), my wife said:

    "No time to watch the whole thing, only 5 mins.

    He definitely has an accent, but his mannerisms are excellent. The way he accentuates his words is great. Word choices are nice. He sounds very professional. If I was just listening and didn't see his face I would have thought he was a mainland person who learned Cantonese. Impressive!

    You know, like when you meet someone who has an accent in English but they speak so well and comfortably that it doesn't matter."

    And while I also laugh a bit at his "Native in six months" claim... abrasive or not, his Cantonese skills are at a level I aspire to: Not native in all aspects but very fluent.

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