Benny the Irish polyglot. Spoofer or the real deal?

population

Hey just wondering what people make of this chap Benny Lewis or Benny the Irish Polyglot as he calls himself?

I saw his site ages ago and dismissed it as nonsense. His claim is that one can become fluent in a language in 3 months with only intense speaking practice. I was deeply suspicious and looked at a few youtube clips of him conversing in different languages and the thing that struck me is the fact that he has the exact same type of phrases in every clip. 'Where are you from' 'I'm Irish' 'I have been learning Chinese for 3 months' etc, the basic phrases one uses on introduction.

I was curious to see if he had the ability to expand beyond this and then an Italian friend of mine who does officially speak 5 languages, certified as a translator in 4 of them, had a chat with him on skype. He spoke to him in Italian and said the guy was near flawless. Now I know all this proves is that he speaks Italian well, but I speak Italian well and it took me 3 years of hard study plus living here to get to that point. Not 3 months of chatting! Is he simply gifted or is there something to his method?

Curious to hear what some linguists think....

fanki na pengin

http://www.fluentin3months.com/


I certainly don't doubt his commitment or drive, but I would question his use of the word fluent. Personally, fluency involves more than speaking and listening well. For me, fluency is reading, writing, speaking listening to a near native level, but importantly, with added cultural understanding (ie colloquialisms etc.). Again, that's just personal and probably semantic. I would personally focus more on reading and writing than he (seems) to do, but that's just me. He's certainly doing very well for, and it is impressive to see the work-rate he has.

I'm assuming he continues to study after each 3 month segment?

An Coilean

fanki na pengin wrote: »

http://www.fluentin3months.com/


I certainly don't doubt his commitment or drive, but I would question his use of the word fluent. Personally, fluency involves more than speaking and listening well. For me, fluency is reading, writing, speaking listening to a near native level, but importantly, with added cultural understanding (ie colloquialisms etc.). Again, that's just personal and probably semantic. I would personally focus more on reading and writing than he (seems) to do, but that's just me. He's certainly doing very well for, and it is impressive to see the work-rate he has.

I'm assuming he continues to study after each 3 month segment?

For me the term fluent does not cover reading and writing at all, you would hardly claim that a native speaker of a language is not fluent because they cannot read or write and to be clear until relativly recently this was the case for the majority of speakers of every language.

As for fluency in a language, for me that means a high level of functional ability, not quite a native ability, but well above what you would find in a phrasebook.

Feathers

I would always take fluency to be, literally, how fluidly you can use it.

So while that assumes a certain base vocabulary & grammar, it may not mean that you know every word under the sun or that you make no grammatical mistakes (just like a native speaker), but that you can convey your thoughts into sentences in that language unconsciously, i.e. thinking in the language — without taking the extra seconds of 'um' and 'ah' while you translate a sentence from English in order to say it.

Manach

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread - but Mr. Lewis has a book out based on his site. Anyone read it and find it worthwhile or not?

cloudatlas

Really fishy that there is no criticism of Benny on his website. The fact that he deletes all dissenting voices is what has allowed him to market his product so effectively, do you think he would be in national geographic or on the bbc if people could read negative responses to his work? The word charlatan springs to mind. He must be rolling in advertising royalties as 'fluent in three months' is quite a bold statement, no surprise that he can sustain an international jet set life style.

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cloudatlas wrote: »

Really fishy that there is no criticism of Benny on his website. The fact that he deletes all dissenting voices is what has allowed him to market his product so effectively, do you think he would be in national geographic or on the bbc if people could read negative responses to his work? The word charlatan springs to mind. He must be rolling in advertising royalties as 'fluent in three months' is quite a bold statement, no surprise that he can sustain an international jet set life style.

Bang of jealousy off this post.

cloudatlas

Chloe Sticky Bandana wrote: »

Bang of jealousy off this post.

Total. Wish I had thought of it first. Hey. Maybe I can start a blog "Fluent in two months" that'll put the wind up him :pac:

Prawo_Jazdy

yeah, I think if he encourages people to learn languages there is some good coming out of it, but there is something about his over the top self promotion that turns me off him.

I saw on his facebook page was organizing a language learners get together in Dublin, so I thought i'd go for the craic. Then like a week before it, he reveals the location and it was basically just a book signing in hodges and figgis. I dont have a problem with book signings or anything, just getting people to join the group by calling it something else originally is bad form.

donfers

Prawo_Jazdy wrote: »

yeah, I think if he encourages people to learn languages there is some good coming out of it, but there is something about his over the top self promotion that turns me off him.

I saw on his facebook page was organizing a language learners get together in Dublin, so I thought i'd go for the craic. Then like a week before it, he reveals the location and it was basically just a book signing in hodges and figgis. I dont have a problem with book signings or anything, just getting people to join the group by calling it something else originally is bad form.

He's a very talented internet marketer, came up with a great idea and absolutely nailed it - he is now a very wealthy man. His product/service whatever you want to call it is lightweight and insubstantial. That's no surprise, most successful internet marketers promise something incredibly powerful yet deliver very little on it beyond some vague fluff.