Christophe Clugston : Benny/Steve

This guy gives his opinion on both Steve and Benny. He doesn’t pick a side or anything but it’s quite interesting.

I think he is obviously leaning to Benny’s side. Also I am not sure what he is doing drawing parallels between linguistics and aviation and/or medicine, in terms of their clear and present connection to life and death. I am sorry, I do not find his smattering of the history of Second Language Acquisition relevant.

“Also I am not sure what he is doing drawing parallels between linguistics and aviation and/or medicine,”

I agree with you there. The reason you don’t fly with an unqualified pilot is because you may die. A bit extreme I know. However, if you wanted to learn a foreign language, one the first people you will turn to is someone who has already learnt one. Being a qualified linguist or not is completely irrelevant; I believe it is experience in language acquisition which matters most.

Nice to hear the opinion from a Benny’s follower. I actually like the way he speaks, very succinct, get to the points.

If I am not mistaken, he is saying that Steve’s approach is not for serious stuff, but since Benny took his C1 for German, his approach is for serious stuff?

But apart from the C1 German exam (which I think he failed), he is not aiming at mastering any of the languages his is learning. He actually makes this claim explicitly. So what is this guy talking about?

Also, I am often confused about what Benny really wants his followers to do. Steve wants his to use LingQ or follow the intensive input approach. Other language product makers want their customers to go through their courses. but does Benny really want his followers to travel the world like him to learn languages?

And here’s the definition of a linguist:

Linguist: n. Person skilled in foreign languages.

That’s from the Concise Oxford Dictionary, according to Steve’s book. So, in that respect, this Christophe guy is wrong.

“I actually like the way he speaks, very succinct, get to the points.”
Definitely. That’s why I put this video on here. He clearly puts his opinion across very well.

Does anyone know the average number of languages an academic linguist (those who publish papers) can speak fluently? Is there a stat?

It’s probably close to 1. Most of my English-speaking linguistics professors were monolingual, and most of the French-speaking ones were bilingual. But to expect otherwise is perhaps to misunderstand the task of linguistics.

Utter rubbish. I really don’t care how many papers you have to have peer reviewed in order to qualify as a “linguist”; his constant banging on this point descended into pure pedantry.

I followed the link given above.

The guy in this youtube video seems to be completely full of c***!

He defends Benny on the grounds that he took a C2 exam in German. I didn’t bother watching any further than this, because he seems completely ignorant of the actual facts, which are:

a.) Benny was NOT starting German from scratch as he had tried to claim. (In reality he had taken German at school.)

b.) Benny had several months worth of full-time immersion classes in German before sitting the exam.

c.) Benny failed the exam!

Point (c.) kind of does it for me. Giving Benny praise for failing a C2-exam in German is a bit like saying that a guy is a really great driver because, hey, he just failed his freaking driving test!!

A mechanics might know a plane inside-out, but I wouldn’t want him to fly my plane. I want someone who knows how to fly the plane.

An academic linguist might know all about languages. If he cannot speak more than 1, I want someone who does to help me.

1 Like

Yeah, the video does slide into pedantry quite quickly.

@JayB: He does say that Benny took German at school and that you can’t rely on the 3 months title. Did you see the video about FSI materials? Christophe uses the analogy of the driver as well, albeit in a slightly different way.

I wonder if it is worth replying. I could make a video reply but it would not be very nice to Mr. Clugston.

Steve, it would be great to see a reply. In the comments he does say: “Good to have your take on it. I wonder if we will get “Lingo Steve” to brave the gulf and respond. Here’s his chance in neutral ground to point by point eschew his side. I think we could finally clear it up (without some of the sycophants attacking out of reflex).”

The analogy of the ‘flight pilot’ is not correctly. A flight pilot flying a plane is not analogical to an academic linguist speaking a language. It is as simple as that.

Obviously, Christophe is sided with Benny. I worry that he will later become disappointed when he finds out Benny is just a language tourist.

Sometimes I feel sorry for those academic linguists. They spend so much time on languages, but could not speak any of them.

“Sometimes I feel sorry for those academic linguists. They spend so much time on languages, but could not speak any of them.”

Even if they spoke 20 – they are studying several thousands of them, so it would still be an infinitely small proportion. Not all plane mechanics fly planes, and there is no reason to feel sad for them.

"“I actually like the way he speaks, very succinct, get to the points.”
Definitely. That’s why I put this video on here. He clearly puts his opinion across very well. "

He does have charisma, but I don’t think there is much more than that.

Just a point about linguistics - it has nothing to do with learning foreign languages or studying the best way to learn foreign languages. This is something like people often are confused about.

Most academic linguistics do in fact speak foreign languages - but that is not the point of the discipline.

I studied linguistics and the subject of how to go about learning a foreign language never came up. It’s important not to confuse theoretical linguistics with “applied linguistics” or traditional language study - like comparative and historical linguistics.

I have done a related video, dealing with the meaning of linguist and the power of input based learning. It is now loading on to youtube.

I also tried to leave a comment to Clugston’s video, with the dictionary definition of “eschew”. Clugston uses it to mean “promote” when it means the opposite.

es·chew
[es-choo] Show IPA
–verb (used with object)
to abstain or keep away from; shun; avoid: to eschew evil.

My comment was awaiting authorization, but now has disappeared. Maybe it is just delayed.

1 Like

Of course, linguist also means polyglot and I think that is how most people probably understand the word. This is why they think linguistics has to do with learning languages.