Language Hacking Guide

Open Forum in English
41

@Steve, @Benny,

Mmm…I can see why Tim Ferriss would annoy you Steve. Bit of a personality clash there. He looks like he’s marketing himself as a “Lifestyle Guru”. I don’t think Steve does either lifestyles or gurus, Benny. Steve has a lot more respect for the results of academic, peer-reviewed research, with evidence gained from repeated, unbiassed trials. He doesn’t attach much weight to ANYONE’s personal opinions, unless they are supported by aforementioned hard data. That’s why I can call him a crazy, octagenarian, Yankee, trigger-happy nutter on his own forum without reprisals. Probably. [Ducks hurriedly under computer table]

42

Steve…

  1. “a few” was actually taking over the majority of the comments. You were starting to challenge the length of the post itself (5,000 words!!) in terms of scroll bar real estate. It was impressive, but irrelevant to the discussion (usefulness of LingQ)
  2. OK
  3. That comment in itself is misleading! I don’t ever “sound like a native” and despite the fact that you love to bring it up so often, I never claimed that I have no accent in my youtube videos. That is taken completely out of context.

The premise of the post I just wrote (that you disagree with so strongly) is that body language, clothing, posture, facial expressions, distance between speakers, reactions, timing etc. are crucial aspects of “seeming like a native”. I also work hard on my accent and I never eliminate it. However, I do reach a point where it is subtle enough to go unnoticed for 20-30 seconds in certain situations (not now since I am out of practice due to German) especially in the context of appropriate non-verbal cues. Someone scrutinising the audio in a headset from a video I made in Portuguese several months after I’ve left Brazil is NOT the context I’m interested in. I want to convince people in person, not over youtube. My context is social.

Your misleading comment here is simply that I’m a liar. I “make up” having been confused for a native, I lie about focusing on social aspects of communication rather than studying, and I lie about what I have achieved in 3 months. You are free to express this of course, but it’s misleading and character deforming to imply so consistently producing nothing but untruths.

  1. I’m not interested in preventing you from doing anything. I just want you to try to see things from another perspective for once and stop attacking my character. Focus on how silly my claims are, but I don’t see how my “intolerance to criticism” contributes at all to a discussion on LANGUAGES. Start a new blog “Benny is a narrow minded sensitive crackpot” if you must, but leave my character out of discussions on language learning methods.

I have gotten messages from so many people saying that they find this exchange between us very entertaining. They enjoy it not because it’s intellectually stimulating, but because it’s like watching a soap opera or car crash. You slow down to see the drama.

I enjoyed your post saying that I won’t achieve my 3 month mission believe it or not! Arguing that my language advice and missions are ridiculous is to be expected and I encourage people to be sceptical. I am for ambitious targets as a lifestyle and you are certainly not the only person to criticise me. Others have focused on my goals, but your character attacks are childish and serve no purpose other than a pis*ing competition as far as I see it.

@skyblue lol :stuck_out_tongue:

43

Helen, we have not blocked people in the past, but that does not mean we could not make an exception for you. Your last post is under review by the editorial committee. ( Me and the wall). Some of the concerns about what you said are

  1. crazy…discriminatory, insensitive, intolerant language, and does it really matter if I am crazy?
  2. octagenarian…learn to spell and learn to count ( a reflection of the UK school system, we’ll let it go!)
  3. Yankee… learn your geography ( see comment in brackets above)
  4. trigger-happy…yes!
  5. nutter…local British term, not in my vocabulary.

Rather what bothers us, me and the wall, is the suggestion that I place value in academic peer reviewed research. That kind of hurts.

44

Benny,

  1. not true
  2. You have a statement at your blog which reads.

“This mission was a success! You can read how I spoke Portuguese with no foreign accent”

You posted a recording of yourself in Portuguese. Not one of 5 Brazilians I asked thought you sounded like a Brazilian. Your Brazilian accent is exaggerated, and I suspect that your mannerisms in a face to face meeting would also be exaggerated. My point is that acquiring the natural native non-verbal skills takes a long time. There is no short-cut, not “hacking”, just as is the case with language learning. That was my point. You are free to state your case, obviously, and I state mine.

You imply that you have a method of getting to fluency in three months. It is a major part of your message and it is the title of your blog, “fluency in three months”. You have never demonstrated the ability to do this. You did not achieve that goal in Czech or Thai, and the languages that you speak well, were not learned in that way.

  1. Your stated goal in your German challenge was to write the highest level German exam and be mistaken for a Berliner after 3 months of study using Benny’s methods. I predicted that you would not succeed.

I did not realize that “writing” and exam, for you, did not mean actually passing the exam. Yeah, I can write the highest level exam in Russian too, if I have no intention of passing it.

I stick by my statement that you will not be mistaken for a Berliner in 20-30 seconds of speech. 20-30 seconds is a long time, ample time to tell if a person is native or not, unless that person has been living in the environment for a long time. These things take time. You set yourself a challenge, I, and others, challenged your challenge. That should make you even more motivated to succeed, not make you upset.

I enjoy commenting on language learning, to approve of things that I agree with, and to criticize or poke holes in things that I do not agree with. I try to keep the discussion focused on the subject of language learning, facts and ideas. To the extent that I have strayed from this with you, it has only been in response to the constant Bennyisms like “silly, ridiculous, p**sing match, childish”, but I am trying to exercise some control, since what matters to me is the subject of language learning , not Benny.

45

@benny

“it’s your site so they(LingQ forum regulars) will back you up almost by default”
The above quotation from you is your major problem in a nutshell. You think it is a given that people follow without thought whether it is you or others. One of your recurring “debate” tactics is to cite how much support you are getting from your supporters, without elucidation of the reasons for it.

Blind following is not the case with me or I would guess other LingQ members. I welcome you and others that I disagree with on this forum. I disagree with everyone here in some area of language learning or otherwise. I tend to agree with Steve on most language learning matters based on my own 10+ years experience as a learner/teacher. I disagree with him politically to some extent and I have clearly stated when. He has not acted wounded. He may have just said sorry I disagree. Get it?

46

Here we go again

47

Glad you are enjoying it.

48

Benny,

If I were going to pay, I suppose that I would like to see polyglots in action with native speakers. That would show me several things. I would be able to observe the body language of each speaker and I would be able to hear if the native speaker simplified his speech or his speed as a courtesy to the polyglot.

In extemporaneous speech, how well do these famous multilinguals actually fare?

There are various ways to acheive conversational fluency. The real danger is enjoying the conversation about languages so much that we don’t learn enough languages.

49

@Steve & the wall
that’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week, thanks.

50

@Steve:

Did I say ‘academic’ research? Freudian slip. Academics are SOO last century. But I figure data gathered from people’s work on LingQ IS peer-reviewed hard data…kind of. At any rate we can look back at a person’s statistics and see the amount of time they claim to have put into each activity, over what period.

Hey, I spelled octagenarian right!

Yankee: well, you’re from north of Georgia and all the other bits that wanted to keep slavery. I checked on a map. I’m a bit vague on the fine detail.

Trigger-happy: I meant to say gun-toting. On account of being from North America and therefore a Yankee (see above).

Nutter: [tuts]. Are there ANY terms of abuse you foreigners understand??? I suggest you buy a dictionary with some proper words in it.

Note: all wourds ending with “or” have to have a “u” as well or they are spelled wrong.

Really, I can’t see why anyone should be offended by such perfectly reasonable personal criticism. And if this isn’t enough to get me blocked from LingQ, I shall grumble about that as well.

51

Raqui2010, just plunge into the Youtube ocean to find clips of at least Khatz and Stujay speaking with natives. Moses and Prof. Arguelles et al. have another approach (in front of the screen, that is), but comments/posts/threads usually speak volumes.

For what it’s worth, some viewers never get happy, and even if this or that polyglot spoke with a super native accent, educated vocabulary and grammar and so on, I’m sure that someone would find something to pick on, not even noticed by a majority of the native speakers.

Side note (regarding “language hacking”): Last week I had a conversation in a yet-unnamed-language for about 15-20 minutes, during which I felt that my skills way surpassed those in Russian/Chinese despite having spend over 1000 hours on each of those languages during the last years - with LingQ. The number of hours I had spent on this one? How about 30-35… I can read articles and books, listen to podcasts… two days ago I got a magazine which I’m now reading.

Of course it’s possible to hack languages. Especially “easy” languages. Many people just don’t believe it’s “working” and/or would rather spend an hour a week for the rest of their lives even if the total amount of hours exceeded those during the initial and intense “hacking period”.

52

Did anyone hack piano playing yet? I wanna hear the result.

53

@jeff " Last week I had a conversation in a yet-unnamed-language for about 15-20 minutes, during which I felt that my skills way surpassed those in Russian/Chinese despite having spend over 1000 hours on each of those languages during the last years - with LingQ. The number of hours I had spent on this one? How about 30-35… "

35 hours, done in, let’s say, 5h per day (which is, I guess, a reasonable time for a serious learner to put in when just starting a language) , is one week. So, you are saying that you have a way better grasp of the language you’ve hypothetically spent one week on than the languages you’ve spent years on? In that case I’d say that you’we been doing something wrong during those years :). (although from your profile it doesn’t seem like that, so I’m really curious what is it that you have done differently with this language).

“Many people just don’t believe it’s “working” and/or would rather spend an hour a week for the rest of their lives…”
Is ‘language hacking’ synonym for ‘intensive learning’? Because if it is, there are many ways to do intensive learning. Benny’s strategy is definitely not the only one.

54

I agree, Aineko. 35 hours a week doesn’t seem to result in “hacking” a language. In fact, based on the context of what we’re referring to as “language hacking” it is quite the opposite. I’m gathering that it is supposed to make fluency ridiculously easy in an extremely short amount of time. So, if one is spending 35 hours a week, that is a bit more laborious than potentially “hacking” a language.

All-in-all, research tends to put quick language fluency theories without time/effort toward the “myth” pile, along with Hypnopaedia. However, I do think that Benny’s work may include some interesting tips, especially considering it contains interviews with some of the more well-known polyglots.

55

I just meant that while people have issues with Benny’s methods (kind of suggesting that he doesn’t even practice what he preaches, and that languages can’t be hacked - and possibly stating that there are (other) superior methods), I managed to “get into” this language after a couple of 30 minute-sessions here and there for the past five months (mostly reading, some “analysis”/exercises/flashcards, but hardly any listening at all).

I can’t see a problem with taking short cuts, as long as they get you to the target.

56

Jeff,

I agree the issue is the target. I do not know what “getting into a language” means, but I am curious to know if there are shortcuts to getting comfortable in a language, achieving fluency, the ability to understand, converse, read for pleasure etc.

In my view Benny has that level in a number of languages, but in none of them was this acquired via a “hack” or in three months. Everyone is interested in possible shortcuts. I started another thread to see if any of our members had any such hacks or experience in using short cuts to achieve this degree of fluency.

57

Jeff,

Is this language you are talking about a deliberately constructed one? Like Esperanto etc.

58

Helen, yor case will be reviewed shourtly so don’t sound so fourlourn. It is not clear how the case will go. I am of two minds. We need yor flair and wit here. It adds flavor to the Four’m. But you have challenged the Vozhd! This cannot be fourgiven.

By the way, re the spelling of that term of yors four eighty year olds, please google octapus, octagon, octaber and see what you get. Then try octagenarian.

59

According to wiktionary it’s a valid alternative spelling: octagenarian - Wiktionary. I think wiktionary and I may both be wrong on this, but it’s too late at night for me to want to look it up.

I once, in a pub, had a rant at a North American about Americans having corrupted the language of Shakespeare. He very sweetly pointed out several instances (spellings, pronunciations, use of the word “gotten”) where it is the UK English that has changed and the US English has stayed closer to the language of Shakespeare. It was one of the best put-downs I have ever been on the receiving end of.

60

No surprise, I’m talking about Esperanto.

Is this an “easy” language? Are most of my other languages “difficult”? Have I done something wrong with my other languages (despite being fairly motivated)?

Victor2 - I learned fiddle in quite a short time (started in August 2001), at least to a level where I could play at jam sessons in Ireland less than a year after (July 2002), playing (lead on) hundreds of tunes for hours (on three days that week I played basically non-stop for 13 hours). I joined a local symphony orchestra in Sept 2003.