Five hours??? Everyone, including Tim Ferris, knows that it only takes four hours…
This whole time challenge thing reminds me of this scene from the movie “There’s Something About Mary” - 7 minute abs:
http://www.viddler.com/v/c8809791
@polyglot2
Well, to be fair he only promised enough language knowledge to be a capable tourist.
When he failed on the two day Norwegian mission he went into the whole dealing-with-failure blogging escapade; something that he should have gone into after the half year Mandarin and Arabic missions.
@Steve
“So the fact that people are selling something does not make it bad.”
Of course it is not wrong to sell books to make a profit! But I do think it could be misleading to the uninformed language neophyte that is given the impression either by the level up missions, the website stating their language prowess, or teaching videos that the person has good proficiency in X languages.
I can see a lot of people being impressed by the videos or website and saying to themselves, “Wow, they got fluent in so little time–I can do it in X time also!”
@ steve: (…) So, all of these people, Moses and myself included, hope to generate some income from their activities to support what they are doing. And where is the problem in that? (…)
I’m sorry if my post was misleading but I was in no way trying to suggest that there is something wrong with people offering advice and wanting (or needing) to generate money from their activities. Quite on the contrary, I am more than happy to pay for people’s hard work.
@ Colin: (…) @ Robert - It is a shame that you get so many trolls or criticism on your YouTube channel. What kind of things do people normally write? (…)
Don’t worry, it is not that bad. Actually, I get a lot of positive feedback and have had many very interesting conversations thanks to my channel. I don’t post comments or upload videos so people “praise” me. My only intention is to get to know other language enthusiasts and I have manged to do so. However, I do admit that I am sometimes taken aback by the aggressiveness of some trolls. I normally just ignore them or delete their comments. Very rarely I block people from my site. I only do that if they use extremely vulgar language. The usual comments you’d get from people like that are things like “You are a f…ing a…hole” (I guess most of those comments are posted by people who simply want some sort of reaction, probably some immature kid). What sometimes bothers me more are pm you get where people actually take the time to write half a page to come up with some weird insinuations about your private life and hurl verbal abuse at you. It is not very common but it does happen. This might just be a thing which comes with the territory. I have read similar comments on many other language learning youtube sites.
I have thought now and again to take down my channel and simply concentrate on my own personal study programme. It is a lot less hassle and, believe me, I’m not into this for the money. Fortunately, I have a very well paid job which I enjoy. I already have met a lot of interesting people so I don’t think I would have to maintain my youtube presence to achieve my original objective either.
It is just like with any other hobby (and learning languages is a hobby of mine) - most people enjoy talking about it and interacting with like-minded people. That is all. The Internet offers fantastic opportunties to do just that but sometimes I wonder if it is really the best idea to actually expose yourself the way you do with youtube videos. It is a lot easier and probably just as rewarding to keep an anonymous presence in some language forum and only contact people once you have gotten to know them better.
But all in all I don’t regret having “gone public” because I have met some really incredible people. There might come a day, though, where I decide that this “mission” is over and I can go back to becoming just a “silent” language learner again. There is a time for everything, I guess, and I hope my timing will be a good one 
Ha, burn! Benny does have the most atrocious pronunciation in Mandarin that I’ve ever heard. I’ve said it before, that’s the result of speaking too soon, before you have an ear for the language. I think only Chinese who are used to hearing foreigners speak their language would understand anything he says. He wouldn’t get anywhere on the mainland with his Chinese. People would just be like o.0
@ Colin: (…) I am going for a Schnitzel! [update: the schnitzel was excellent!] (…)
Have you ever tried a “Pariser Schnitzel”? I like it even better than the Wiener Schnitzel. A nice, tasty Pariser Schnitzel with some Petersilerdäpfel mmm 
One of my all-time favourites of the Austrian cuisine, however, is the “Szegediner-Gulasch”, especially with “Nockerln” (like Spätzle but bigger). My grandmother, who had a Czech-Hungarian background, was an excellent cook and fortunately so is my mother. I guess I ought to spend more time on cooking to keep the tradition alive
Is his mandarin pronunciation really that bad that it almost impedes comprehension? The language school gave him a B1 after 4 or 5 months or so but people in Chinese forums said that his pronunciation was terrible.
I’m more of an input guy, but I wouldn’t be able to listen for 1,000 hours before speaking, for example. But I should try it and see how it turns out.
How many hours has anybody done input before speaking and how did it work out?
Benny’s Mandarin is not that bad. It is certainly not incomprehensible.
The amount of input required depends on the language and our circumstances, in my view. When I lived in Japan, I put most of my effort into input activities but spoke whenever I had a chance. With Russian, I listened for well over a year before speaking. With Czech it went more quickly because I already had the Russian background. Now with Romanian, after a few weeks I am ready to speak. Romanian is a lot easier than Asian or Slavic languages, if you know some Romance languages. I am also motivated by the fact that I will be in Romania next month. With Russian I had no need nor opportunity to speak. So I just continued enjoying my input activities until I felt confident enough to have a more or less interesting conversation, or to at least try to.
I don’t know how Benny’s Mandarin has been coming along, but back when he was doing his challenge thing I watched an interview he did and his pronunciation really was that bad. Honestly, I don’t think people say in mainland China with little experience with foreigners would understand much of what he says. Maybe he’d get by in bigger cities with lots of foreigners, but traveling through central China… I don’t think so.
As far as hours of input before speaking, I also think that depends as Steve says. At least you need to have enough exposure so that you have an ear for the language, before you try to produce it yourself, especially with languages quite different from your native tongue.
In my case I’ve slowly been learning German since last October and have only done emails with friends, but no speaking yet. I’m not really in a hurry and don’t really have the opportunity in China without making the effort. But I think I’ll do just fine when I start because I will have built up the language quite a bit, like Steve’s experience with Russian.
@LFJ
Maybe you watched an early interview? Or was it one of the the final, 3, 4, or 5 month interviews? I don’t speak Mandarin so I can’t evaluate it. 
I wasn’t too impressed with Benny’s Chinese either. I don’t think his pronounciation was incomprehensible but given how he prides himself for his accent reduction efforts in his other languages his lack of decent pronounciation in Chinese was surprising to me. On the other hand I am not too anal about pronounciation in Chinese because Chinese, I think, is all about comprehension and lots of exposure, both listening and reading.
I watched his final Chinese recording with Yang Yang and it was almost comical when she asked him at several instances during their conversation whether he had understood what she just said and he answered “yes” each and every time. You could see from his face that he was probably lying every time. I don’t blame him for the comprehension issues, that’s just the unique challenge with Chinese, I find.
@ Robert - I have not had a Pariser Schnitzel. Where can I generally get one?
@ Robert “Have you ever tried a “Pariser Schnitzel”? I like it even better than the Wiener Schnitzel. A nice, tasty Pariser Schnitzel with some Petersilerdäpfel mmm ;-)”
Oh~~ you made me so hungry before going to bed I had Pariser Schnitzel before somewhere but I did not know the name. I just checked the google image and I personally also think it tastes better than Wiener Schnitzel
I don’t even remember what this thread was meant to be about. I think we need a new thread in the German forum specifically about schnitzels. That would be an epic discussion.
Even though journalists try to sell newspapers and have good ratings, they still have an obligation to try to report the facts. If they don’t, they can get fired, of course!
They can “stretch” the facts, I guess, and make the news more sensationalist. However, there is probably a limit to that in terms of what they can get away with.
But again, I think that the “multiple language learners” share part of the blame because they aren’t correcting the false statements. If somebody said that I “knew Portuguese”, for example, I think that I would correct them because I can read a lot due to my Spanish knowledge and can write basic sentences. But nothing more!
@ Colin and Kigoik: (…) I think we need a new thread in the German forum specifically about schnitzels. That would be an epic discussion. (…)
I might open a thread on some specialties of the Austrian cuisine which has been heavily influenced by countries which used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Just thinking of Powidltascherln, Szegediner-Gulasch, Zigeunerschnitzel (some overzealous politically correct people actually suggested renaming this type of Schnitzel because of the term “Zigeuner” ;-), Germknödel, Palatschinken …mmmm. Ok, I’ll stop now since I have to go to bed but I’ll try to open that thread I was talking about in the German forum.
Pariser Schnitzel are actually not as frequently offered in restaurants as Wiener Schnitzel because they take a bit more time to prepare I guess. And you have to prepare them fresh, you can’t just defrost them ;-). As a general rule, you might find them at a “Gasthaus” or a “Beisl” (the small typical Viennese type traditional Gashäuser).
Robert, I am kind of interested in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Having learned German and Czech and now working on Romanian, I might just go about learning the other languages of this former Empire.
@ steve: (…) Robert, I am kind of interested in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Having learned German and Czech and now working on Romanian, I might just go about learning the other languages of this former Empire. (…)
The Austro-Hungarian Empire certainly has a very interesting history. Friedrich Torberg’s “Die Tante Jolesch oder Der Untergang des Abendlandes in Anektdoten” is a wonderfully succinct and extremely entertaining homage to those times. Of course, I am glad that the various peoples who lived under the Habsburg family are now all free and independent. Despite all the nostalgic feelings, I am sure people prefer things as they are now. But, yes, trying to learn all the languages spoken in that former Empire is an intriguing challenge.