@danchan "In this case Benny referred to himself somewhat creatively as 'Wenny' because he was parodying people attacking him as bawling children, perhaps complaining to their mom in childish English about what another boy did to them on the playground."

Sure about that? He made mention of Mario/Wario as a comparison in his original response.

R.
==

thanks

Oh that's right. Forget my explanation!

This quote from him I found quite funnty:

"but people don't get inspired to learn languages on disagreements."

Pot calling the kettle....

How can people be inspired to learn languages from someone who is so aggressive and who is unable to remain professional when faced with some tough questions on his business model. Probably a good idea he has his own business rather than working in the real world.

I followed the link to the thread at HTLAL posted on the last page by Donovan, and flicked through the discussion. I was struck by one comment in particular from 'hrhenry' :

QUOTE: "...Benny, pretty much everywhere you appear online, problems and bickering tend to crop up. It doesn't matter what causes these problems, but if you plan on overseeing a survey of any scale, you should probably keep in mind that the results will probably be tainted in some way."
-----

This is so true. Benny may moan about the LingQ forum, but the fact is that he seems to cause strife in EVERY language forum where he posts. There is always pretty much the same pattern:

1.) Benny posts
2.) Someone dares (shock! horror!) to disagree with him or challenge him
3.) Benny tries his best to be sneeringly dismissive
4.) People are annoyed and challenge him even more robustly
5.) Benny becomes even more arrogant
6.) People then get totally p*ssed off with him
7.) Benny turns increasingly nasty and (where he knows he can get away with it) foul mouthed

If that is the pattern and presumably he has also read people's comments about him, does this mean he is unwilling to learn or does he have some other ulterior motive for continuing his obnoxious behaviour?

I would have thought it would be in his interest to have people like him in order to increase his following. After all, his aim is to first try and inspire language learners, right? Against this background, his behaviour seems odd. Maybe he is not capable of seeing the long-term effect of his behaviour which will ultimately be damaging to his business and subsequent sales. He is trying to run a business as well as inspire people isn't he;-)?

@Marianne10: "...He is trying to run a business as well as inspire people isn't he;-)?"
-----

I think this is the root of his problem. He can't engage in normal intellectual debate (especially with people like Donovan or Friedemann, etc) because that would mean he might have to resile from specific claims and assertions which he couldn't sustain with facts and arguments.

Clearly he can't afford to risk this, because he needs to preserve his whole 'spiel' in order to sell his products.

BTW
It should also be noted that (unlike Steve, Friedemann, Richard, Luca, etc) Benny has never done an unscripted free-flowing multilingual interview...

I think you are right. Running an altruistic business is a challenge.

On another note, his whole business model made me wonder, how far he might get on a programme like The Apprentice. It would suit him down to a tee. All the attention he would get. Maybe Alan Sugar would invest 250k in him....if nothing else he would be a source of great entertainment. Apparently you can apply now for the 2013 edition. Benny, if you are reading take heed.

--Quote from JayB--

"It should also be noted that (unlike Steve, Friedemann, Richard, Luca, etc) Benny has never done an unscripted free-flowing multilingual interview..."
----

That is interesting. If he is trying to inspire that would be a pretty good way to do that, especially from someone who is just a normal guy who as he himself says has not got much of a talent. Is that beneath him or above him?

BTW, thank you for your use of that glorious word "resile". Luv it.

Although I don't believe Benny has a method of learning languages other than "study and practice," as shown in his Chinese adventure, I agree with him on two points - First, at some point you have to start speaking if you want to learn to speak and it might as well be now. Second, worrying about Benny and what he does, claims, or is will not help anyone learn a language.

I married a Colombian and learned to listen to and read Spanish at B2/C1 level but because she teased me (once and very early in our relationship) about my "RR" and "L," I wouldn't speak. Years later we went to Colombia for vacation and I could understand almost everything said, but couldn't speak because I was afraid. I realized that if I would have been able to speak, my vacation would have been better. I learned to speak Spanish using skype and the phone with my in-laws and my next vacation to Colombia was much better because I could fully participate. Also, while in Bogotá, I found that anyone that I spoke to realized I was not a native speaker in about 4 seconds and wanted to help me with my Spanish - something Benny says, but I can't verify because I've only tried speaking Spanish in one country.

The thing that really bothers me is that I live with a native speaker but blew it. Our normal language of communication is English because of my early refusal to speak Spanish; and now when we speak in Spanish to each other, it ALWAYS drifts to English after a few minutes.

Perhaps if I had a cheerleader like Benny early on, I wouldn't have wasted 10 years by not speaking? I do know one thing for certain, my lack of fluency in 3 months would not have further discouraged me.

Finally, after reading the above, I believe it is written at the A2 level - yet I write for a living. It is very difficult to judge a person's true level by a 1-10 minute video or couple of paragraphs. But again, does it really matter to my success in Spanish if Benny is A1 or C2 in Spanish?

@Marianne10: "...Is that beneath him or above him?"
-----

I strongly suspect that it is beyond him! :-D

"Worrying about Benny and what he does, claims, or is will not help anyone learn a language."

OK, did anybody claim it would? Steve has probably made this point ten times in this thread alone, but if people want to discuss Benny why shouldn't they?

@mhogan

You have raised two interesting questions and I will start separate threads on these, namely
1) When should we start speaking?
2) Can we learn from our spouse?

Some additional comments.
1) If you read and understood spoken Spanish at the B2/C1 level, you were obviously ready to speak. You chose not to. Most people would want to start talking at this point, especially if in a country where the language is spoken. This is somewhat different from speaking from day one.
2) I doubt if anyone participates in this thread because they think it will improve their languages skills, nor do they feel that Benny's Chinese level affects their own language level. They comment here because they find it interesting.Those who do not find the subject interesting have long since stopped following this thread.
3) Your written English is at an advanced level, whether C1 or C2 I do not know, but the flow is natural, no grammatical mistakes, and the choice of words, word order etc. are all natural. Why would you say it is at the A2 level. Do you think Benny could write as well in Chinese?

@Steve

1. Absolutely in agreement. It was my fear of failure that kept me from speaking. I don't believe in speaking from day one as I have no desire to take advantage of a stranger's generosity nor do I care to think of people as my unpaid tutors.

2. Other than non-native English speakers, agreed again. I do think it would be nice if when reading a thread in your target language the blue and yellow highlights worked as they do in the library content so that reading the forums would help improve language learning. To be fair, my interest in this thread is the reason I recently converted to a paid membership.

3. My written language may be at a higher level than A2 and I might be overly critical because I write for a living. I am 100% positive that Benny could not write in Chinese as well and to be truthful, I have no doubt that he is "only" at the A1 or A2 level in Chinese. Also, for full disclosure, I can't write very well in Spanish (writing is not my focus).

I'm not a Benny fan, but I do think that his can-do attitude helps more than it hurts.

@danchen

If you re-read what I wrote, you will notice that I said I agreed with Benny on 2 points - what you quoted was point number 2 from Benny (in my own words). I also did not say that people shouldn't discuss Benny as I have actually enjoyed this thread. My point was that if he is really bothering you, then he should be ignored. The point of my last sentence in my previous post was that as far as language learning goes, I ignore Benny.

@mhogan,

You can use the import bookmarklet to quickly import any posts of interest in the language you are learning.

Interesting.

http://www.livethelanguage.cn/2012/05/28/benny-...

I wonder if Friedemann or Hape would get a write up if they dropped by.

I hope we get to see a video of some of their hour long discussion in Chinese. I would want to judge myself whether Benny is a "good B1" in Chinese, who understands native speakers well and just gets the odd tone wrong.

Nevertheless, I do believe that he achieved quite a bit in his Chinese studies, studying quite conventionally, like most people. I have no doubt that his comprehension improved while traveling in China.

I initially said, when I heard of Benny's C1 in 3 months challenge, that A2 or B1, in other words a very basic conversational level on a limited range of subjects, is a realistic goal for 3 months of intensive study, for an experienced language learner. However, the road from B1 to B2 is a long one, and C1 longer still.

Unfortunately, language schools and education providers have vested interest when giving their opinion about someone like him. His name is associated with attention and web site traffic.

They say that Benny's speaking ability is about the HSK-3 level ("... he definitely reached B1 level. For the HSK, HSK 3 is supposed to be B1, ...").

But he would fail the HSK-3 because he is unable to recognize and to write Chinese characters. ("... though he would struggle with the characters ...").

One should ALSO keep in mind that HSK-3 is NOT EQUIVALENT to CEFR "B1" as they state in the article. As stated from the Association of Chinese Teachers in German Speaking Countries on the new HSK, the HSK-3 is equivalent to CEFR "A1" (!!!) which seems much more realistic from what we saw in the videos (he didn't speak a lot, and I wonder whether he understood a lot!).

Read more (last page): http://tinyurl.com/cpn5fas
HSK3 Listening tests here at LingQ with texts and solutions: http://www.lingq.com/learn/zh/store/75905/ - not so difficult at all ;-)

I think the article is a just big ad for the language school, and for Benny of course!

If I would visit this school, they would never write such a long evaluation about my Chinese!

Your judgement about what he could achieve seems spot on, Steve. Not knowing Chinese, I would have assumed that even B1 was a big stretch for just 3 months.

Nevertheless It's hard to judge what is meant by B1 unless you're familiar with the exams, particular the exam for the language being discussed. If people know the HSK exam system, and if B1 is somewhere between the level 3 and 4, then they should be able to make a judgement about what qualifies as that level of ability. Without knowing the exams, it's difficult to give anything other than one's own personal judgement about whether a learner qualifies as "lower-intermediate" or not.

I'm also confused a bit by the terminology. When people say B1, do they mean that someone could pass the A2 exams and therefore be considered B1, or do they mean that someone could pass the B1 exam? This fellow from the Chinese school seems to be saying that he thinks Benny could pass the listening/speaking portion of the exam that is considered equivalent to a B1 exam. That, if it's true, is actually fairly high, although I have no idea of how much speaking that exam actually entails. The English B1 exam is reasonably challenging.

I agree with Steve - to buy the notion of Benny as B1 in Chinese (never mind about C1) I would need to see some unedited footage showing him engage in free-flowing two-way conversations in a range of situations.

All we get in Benny's videos is footage of native speakers who have been asked (or perhaps bribed?) to chatter away into Benny's camera, while he just sits there nodding like a donkey and shooting the odd proud glance at the camera as if to say "look everyone, aren't I a clever boy?"

Probably he would still be nodding away if they said something like: "hey, what's that glued to your head? A fox's tail?"

EDIT:
I appreciate the videos are subtitled - but I don't believe for a second that this is Benny's work

"nodding like a donkey ..."

:-))

Yes, in his Chinese videos he nods more than he speaks...

Is this Benny "Please stop talking about me but when you do I'll bump the thread in a paranoid "no one loves me" kind of way" Lewis we are talking about? If you're not careful, he'll come back and threaten to stop reading the forum (only then to come back again).

EDIT:
and again and again and again and again and ...

@hape, wow B1 or A1, that's a huge difference. There isn't even an A1 exam for adults in English. The first Cambridge exam is at A2. It seems weird that level 3 (of anything) would be equivalent to A1, but I'm in no position to say. At the same time, the article you posted to is arguing that HSK 3, traditionally considered to be B1, should be revised to an A1 level. That may not necessarily be everyone's opinion. The fellow in his review stated that there was disagreement over whether HSK 3 was really equivalent to B1.

As to whether this school is giving Benny a positive review because they want traffic from him, or because he has bribed them, I can't say. The director's name and the school's name are on that, so their credibility is a bit on the line. If Benny's Chinese is actually complete crap, and that comes out, the school will look bad. I'm inclined to trust their evaluation unless there is some specific reason not to.

If anyone wanted a review, and if the school offered skype lessons, I don't see why they couldn't get one, although it might be difficult to assess their knowledge of characters.

29 pages and counting.

With all sincerity, Benny really knows what he is doing in this area.