Christophe Clugston - the best polyglot

Open Forum
41

Vladimir is a lot higher on that list. He may be #1.

42

Clugston is a tool. Everyone here knows it already. I’m sorry you discovered him. Consider yourself lucky.

As to your list of the greatest, I would probably say I agree with your Top 3 of Richard, Luca, and Steve. However, I think it’s important to point out that Richard has totally devoted his life to this and Luca is not far behind in that regard. Steve has been involved in so much over his life that is non-language related and he gets extra props in my book for having co-created a method for actual learning that can actually make people fluent. A true method for anyone to become a polyglot.

43

I unfortunately discovered Clugston in August. Why does he just spout claims? He just trashes everything, and the videos are actually quite depressing.

44

His French is D.R.E.A.D.F.U.L. Properly bad.

45

He actually posted a video of himself using a foreign language? It’s bad to want him to be bad, but I can’t help feeling happy if he is to be judged as harshly as he judges everyone. Link please!

46

Dunno what video it is because there aren’t any of him speaking a language as the main part of the video. There are a few videos where he speaks for like 10 seconds in languages. I’ve heard him use Spanish. His accent sounds ok to me but i don’t speak Spanish.

His French accent is terrible. As if zero effort has been put into it. Imagine Boris from Snatch speaking English with a Russian accent type of heavy.

FWIW i agree with SOME of what he says. Like the stuff about sycophants - proven by this forum - and people just coming out with stuff they believe when it’s actually proven by science not to be true.

But he puts it terribly and basically rambles without saying a whole lot most of the time.

47

Bru where is my 你个 Tim Doner?

48

What do you guys think about the guy calling himself “the Metatron” on youtube? Apparently fluent in seven languages. The video below is in English (native language Italian) with links for Greek, French, Mandarin and Japanese in the description.

49

Impressive in English, Spanish and French, can’t speak for the others but knowing his personality I have no doubt he went the distance with them. He’s a true polymath.

50

Agree - anything he can do he seems to do very well at. Expert piano player, musician, weapons historian, historian, language learner, teacher… the list goes on.

51

Huh? I wrote a big long post and put a lot of effort into it yesterday. Where has it gone?

52

It went straight into my mail folder :wink:

You wrote:
“Yeah I’ve heard snippets of his Spanish - seemed legit. Never heard his French or any other language for that matter. I’m not suspicious of him and his abilities per se. He’s clearly no spring chicken, and he seems obsessed with language learning, so I have no doubt he’s had time and passion to learn a great many languages. but his language website looks like classic oil snakesmanship: Here’s a representative paragraph from http://www.language-busters.com/?page_id=7 “Well. let’s continue with the analogy as we have now reached the zenith: the linguist (not the Kaufman hackneyed lower the standard definition but a real academic professional linguist) understands the hard science behind language. This can include the designated neurophysiology involved, the physics in acoustics, the articulatory phonetics, the distinctive phonemes in a language, the phonotactic rules of a language, the underlying rule system (grammar) that describes how the language orders a world view, etc. All of these categories are unknown to the native speaker and language teacher. It takes a professionally trained linguist to understand their importance in a given language.” I studied linguistics, so I get what he’s saying here. It’s not nonsense. But I get the vibe that he’s using every opportunity to “sell” the jargon of the field in an attempt to intimidate (and sell). It’s not just neuroscience, it’s the “designated neuro-physiology”; they’re not just phonological rules, they’re “phono-tactic rules”*; not just grammar but “the underlying rule system”; not just the feeling of the language, but “how the language orders a world view”; not just someone who studied linguistics and knows the scope of the field, but “a professionally trained linguist.” “The hard science behind language” is an arrogant phrase. Like all science, linguistics tried to generalize and make testable predictions, and in the process practical considerations are the first to get left behind. Language learning, on the other hand, is entirely a practical matter. To give Clugston his due, however, I will list some insights that I think people who didn’t ever study linguistics might not appreciate so readily when learning a language - I just wish he could so too, instead of holding it over people. Anyway: Knowing what the “head” of a noun phrase is in order to conjugate a long one properly Using constituency tests in order to rephrase complicated sentences into almost babyishly simple ones Appreciating that, even in the most complicated possible cases, three- place predicates are the human limit for verbal complexity. Syllables are basically 75% CV, and that you should observe the “maximal onset principle” in conceiving of utterances involving syllables with codas. …and that consonant clusters are better thought of as C CVC C than CCVCC all together. “clitics” are a good way to think of seemingly arbitrary syllabification of important words in, say, French or Arabic No matter how weird a sound is, it can be triangulated from a known manner and place of articulation. Learning the semantic “unmarked forms” first and staying away from the “marked forms” until after Knowing what a “stress-timed” language is vs a “syllable-timed” language (e.g. Arabic is closer to English than French is in this regard) Knowing that if you “mishear” a sound in a word (t for d, or b for p, or n for l), you should treat it as data in comparative phonology, not just a failure In forming questions, the concept of a “trace,” e.g. in the choice of “que” or “qui” in French, or relative pronouns and case in German And so on… if these concept could be neatly presented they might help in the long run, but I think an non- linguistically-trained polyglot would develop a sixth sense for all the stuff these pretty labels designate, anyway. At best, these labels and intellectual knowledge of their concepts prepare you to notice them in practice. went a bit off topic there, but I’ll post.”

Non c’è di che… :wink:

53

Bizarre. Did I do something wrong? Anyway I’ll reformat it:

Yeah I’ve heard snippets of his Spanish - seemed legit. Never heard his French or any other language for that matter. I’m not suspicious of him and his abilities per se. He’s clearly no spring chicken, and he seems obsessed with language learning, so I have no doubt he’s had time and passion to learn a great many languages.

…but his language website looks like classic oil snakesmanship:

Here’s a representative paragraph from http://www.language-busters.com/?page_id=7

“Well. let’s continue with the analogy as we have now reached the zenith: the linguist (not the Kaufman hackneyed lower the standard definition but a real academic professional linguist) understands the hard science behind language. This can include the designated neurophysiology involved, the physics in acoustics, the articulatory phonetics, the distinctive phonemes in a language, the phonotactic rules of a language, the underlying rule system (grammar) that describes how the language orders a world view, etc. All of these categories are unknown to the native speaker and language teacher. It takes a professionally trained linguist to understand their importance in a given language.”

I studied linguistics, so I get what he’s saying here. It’s not nonsense.

But I get the vibe that he’s using every opportunity to “sell” the jargon of the field in an attempt to intimidate (and sell). It’s not just neuroscience, it’s the “designated neuro-physiology”; they’re not just phonological rules, they’re “phono-tactic rules”*; not just grammar but “the underlying rule system”; not just the feeling of the language, but “how the language orders a world view”; not just someone who studied linguistics and knows the scope of the field, but “a professionally trained linguist.”

“The hard science behind language” is an arrogant phrase. Like all science, linguistics tried to generalize and make testable predictions, and in the process practical considerations are the first to get left behind. Language learning, on the other hand, is entirely a practical matter.

To give Clugston his due, however, I will list some insights that I think people who didn’t ever study linguistics might not appreciate so readily when learning a language - I just wish he could so too, instead of holding it over people.

Anyway:

Knowing what the “head” of a noun phrase is in order to conjugate a long one properly

Using constituency tests in order to rephrase complicated sentences into almost babyishly simple ones

Appreciating that, even in the most complicated possible cases, three- place predicates are the human limit for verbal complexity.

Syllables are basically 75% CV, and that you should observe the “maximal onset principle” in conceiving of utterances involving syllables with codas.

…and that consonant clusters are better thought of as C CVC C than CCVCC all together.

“clitics” are a good way to think of apparently “loose” variations in syllabification of important words in, from my experience, French or Arabic

No matter how weird a sound is, it can be triangulated from a known manner and place of articulation.

Learning the semantic “unmarked forms” first and staying away from the “marked forms” until after

Knowing what a “stress-timed” language is vs a “syllable-timed” language (e.g. Arabic is closer to English than French is in this regard)

Knowing that if you “mishear” a sound in a word (t for d, or b for p, or n for l), you should treat it as data in comparative phonology, not just a failure

In forming questions, the concept of a “trace,” e.g. in the choice of “que” or “qui” in French, or relative pronouns and case in German And so on…

If these concepts could be neatly presented they might help in the long run, but I think an non- linguistically-trained polyglot would develop a sixth sense for all the stuff these pretty labels designate, anyway. At best, these labels and intellectual knowledge of their concepts prepare you to notice them in practice.

went a bit off topic there, but I’ll post

54

Disagree totally.

‘It’s not nonsense’ - he claims you need to be a ‘professionally trained linguist’ to understand linguistics. What total horse dung. Anybody who can read can become an expert in any non-practical subject.

The rest of the stuff you posted about linguistics is irrelevant in learning a language. We never did, and do not need to ever learn that stuff to learn a language.

55

He is in the same league as Vladimir Skultety. Whatever they decide to do, they will outmatch most of us.

56

I wonder whether it’s a talent for picking things up and consolidating them properly or whether they just work much much harder than other people.

57

I think they are both hard-working and talented.

58

I would agree. I definitely think people pick things up at different speeds and so even if it’s not some ‘worked at’ talent some people definitely take to things quicker.

I’ve got a mate who plays guitar. He can know a tune, not play it for several years and then if someone mentions it he’ll rip it out instantly, note perfect. And not ballads or pop music, crap like Van Halen, Paul Gilbert, some extreme death metal.

I once was listening to and trying to play ‘The Curse of Castle Dragon’ by Paul Gilbert. I said ‘betya can’t play this’, he went off to his room and came back literally 5 minutes later, playing the first minute of the song perfectly.

I had to practice insane hours to even keep my modest level of skill. He is a phenom.

Same in language learning. There are people who just take to things and it just makes sense to them, almost like their brain needs much less time to incubate the information before it becomes natural to them.

59

Hi “Coburg Shekelstein.” I wouldn’t mind if you disagreed, of course, but in fact you missed the point where I branded Clugston “a snakeoil salesman” and said that my list was of linguistics knowledge that the “non-linguistically-trained would develop a sixth sense for, anyway.” I also made your point about the pretentiousness of the phrase “professional training” myself. I was making a nuanced point.

Why can I reply to my own comment and not to his, by the way? This is the second major problem I’ve had for only my second post on this forum.

edit: okay so I click " reply" on my own post to reply to the post below it? Weird.