No worries Steve.
I’m just annoyed with the majority of threads (which are not ‘ask your tutor’ threads) being turned into yet another Benny bashing party. I’d rather discuss real language language and not carry on about his sham hacks forever. Feel free to go on about it ad infinitum…
Just a matter of frustration Steve. Hope you can forgive me for that.
as they say in Oz, no worries.
In my case, if I see a subject that is not of interest to me I just do not read, do not comment and do not criticize those who are interested in this subject even if it is on benny, john, mary, …
Relax guys, we are here just for one purpose, to learn languages and make friends.
To me, “speak from day one” is a school of thought, and it has been promoted by ‘you know who’. It has been favoured by a lot of his followers, and judging by the self-descriptions of these followers from his blog comments, most are inexperienced language learners, who surely need better advise.
It is a good idea to hear the opinions from the experts. So I think Friedemann has a valid point here.
BTW, Luca has answered THE question in his interview @1:05:33
“How much do you think a person can accomplish in 3 months when learning a language?”
I agree with Friedemann and Edwin: I think the whole ‘fluent in three months’ thing is essentially about much more than just Benny and his followers. The way I see it, our friend from the emerald isle has merely jumped onto the ‘something-for-nothing’ bandwaggon which is currently so popular in the English-speaking world.
You only need to go into any bookstore nowadays and cast a glance over the language learning materials on offer: there is no shortage of people pushing the idea that you can learn a language within a very short space of time and with hardly any effort. The notion that it might take a lot of dedication to achieve it, that it might require some consistent hard work over a long period of time, is basically dismissed as being completely outmoded and regressive!
I see this as a kind of mad phase that we are going through - hopefully people will have a reality check sooner rather than later!
I’m studying german every day for 3 months and I can say…I am so far from fluency.
Now I can say Impossible to become fluent in 3 months however anyone can absorb the language, notice how this or that language work.
Jay, Edwin,
you’re right, Luca addressed the time aspect of language learning in the Mansaray interview, I just hadn’t gotten that far into the tape. Luca’s response was very much in line with what also my personal opinion and experience is.
It really strikes me how much agreement there is between the “serious polyglots”, but I guess if chemists were to discuss the basic laws of nature they couldn’t but agree either. Some things just are the way they are and smart people just come to acknowledge that. It seems there are some fundamental truth about language learning that most people come to experience.