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[tod-daniels]

Okay, not to mince words.    BUT. ..  

HE TOTALLY BITES in speaking anything more than "2-word-tourist-thai"    Something you can learn out of a tour  book....  

Sorry but that's what the thais who live on my street said.  And last time I checked, they were THAI   , not some wanna-b-thai foreigner who hoped thais could understand his attempt at trying to speak thai. . ..  

That's AFTER I took what he spoke outside to my Soi, and let the 'real' thais listen to it.  

He sucked ass in BOTH his pronunciation, and in he enunciation.  

I give him a 1.5 out of 5  

Yep, he is a true polyglot; (NOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!)  

[eljefe2]

confidence is great for learning languages, but blindly rating himself a 4/5 when his Thai is well below what an average person could achieve with multiple takes and a bi-lingual friend coaching them (on the video at least) means any self assemsent from you is useless in any of the languages you "speak".

I will optimisitically say Benny is just so full of himself that he doesn't realize how off his assesment is; this explains the ease of achieving fluency in any language in just 3 months.  As has been said before, fluency is a very, very subjective term.

[Parvis]

Confidence should be a "deep-seated" believe in your ability to perform a difficult tusk. Confidence should be a positive motivator "to do". When confidence appears to be just a boisterous remark to impress those around you - it has no foundation - it is just a character flaw.

His agenda was "self promotion" and at least on this forum - he failed there too.
He can now use this experience to gain insight into his failings or just reject criticism "to save face" and continue his "braggadocio" ways.

[sanook2me]

Wow...what a waste of my time reading that 8 pages...

it started off looking great...here is a dynamic person who maybe able to offer some new style or different self help techniques in learning a language.

Sorry to say..that video was awful...

Any phrase book can give you...numbers, fruit and thanks.....

I thought his pronunciation was shocking and couldn't get some of it...

It sounds like he says "krungtere"  but granted the sound isn't very clear..


Total shocking and cringe worthy...don't think there's any reason to donate to his site....what have i learnt from it..


I once worked with a very self assured Brazilian girl who always stated "i can speak over 6 languages" but she was shocking whenever someone who could
speak one of her languages spoke to her she couldn't answer or communicate..then she would just go on a long rant in English and drop some Brazilian/Portugese slang words in too make it sound good...

Learning and speaking a phrase is great if it helps you and that is all it appears mr polyglot has done...


Jane if you're reading this...you and the irishpolyglot should get together !  

[Murf]

ห่วยแตก

[irishpolyglot]

So many confused people here...

I didn't start this thread, so I never claimed to "learn Thai in 8 weeks" as the title suggests. I was always dipping my toes in the language and was very clear from the beginning that I just wanted to get a basic grasp of reading and speaking. I called it "read and speak in 8 weeks" as a playful joke on what people count as speaking a language nowadays and I was actually on holiday in Thailand. I never promised anything, because this was always an EXPERIMENT for me. I didn't reach my target of reading aloud to a native, but I achieved everything else that I had initially stated on my blog. If you think that haggling prices with some English "no no" thrown in, ordering food and introducing the video like I did doesn't count as "basic Thai" then you are deluded.

The targets were modest because I was TAKING A BREAK from immersion. This was never a "fluent in 3 months" experiment and people who think I am exaggerating my claims to what I achieved have probably never read the blog itself where I was clear from the start about my goals.

Being public about language learning progress is something that I do to help relate to others going through the same struggle, but the comments I got here for being public about my 15-20 hours of work on Thai have been unnecessarily vicious.

I had mentioned somewhere in this forum that I "would like" to have done more, but I was working 65 hours a week for my last 3 weeks straight due to financial problems so I had to focus on that. If any of you have had serious financial problems, then you would understand the pressure I was under and the negativity from this forum certainly didn't help.

I don't get why everyone here is being so negative; I was a little ambitious with what I wanted to achieve, but am still very proud with the results. That video isn't the result of 8 weeks of work, I learned how to speak like that in ONE DAY. Before that video I couldn't speak any Thai at all. Maybe that progress is not good enough for you, but frankly I don't care. I shared my progress with you for some advice and support. Criticism is fine, but this thread has turned into nothing less than ridiculous. So many responses here show that you don't have the slightest clue what I was even aiming for in the mission. Not fluency in Thai, but basic familiarity with the feel of an Asian language. I succeeded in that as I had planned. When I try again with full immersion rather than 15-20 hours over 8 weeks then I'll achieve much more, just like anyone else truly committed would.

Despite any shortcomings of what I tried to achieve, I've received dozens of e-mails from people saying that I've inspired them to focus better on their Thai and attempt to make fast progress using some of my tips on mentality and immersion. I'm trying to spread a positive message that you can indeed achieve a lot in a language if you apply yourself. I didn't fully apply myself this time, but despite that lots of people have changed their approach and started speaking. The nastiness of this thread is doing nothing to help anyone.

Please let this thread just die, all that it's producing any more are pointless attacks. I didn't reach a fantastic level of Thai in 8 weeks, get over it.

[SoftWater]

I agree with Benny on this: perhaps its time for the mods to close this thread?

Edited by SoftWater, 2010-03-26 20:34:50.

[meadish_sweetball]

Fair enough. Closed.