Yes 2tmp011007 - two wrongs make a right. :)

Let me make it clear. This is an open forum. All subjects are welcome. We do not tell people what to comment on. Benny's missions are very much part of the internet language learning scene, and commenting on them is fine in my view. This is not a "wrong" in any sense of the word, in my view.

Well I'd say he was pretty abrasive in that above link.

I don't think the original poster was rude at all, just thought the idea that the path to learning a language is the most part...

I read some of the comments below the post you linked to. I have to admit I kinda felt sorry for Benny for making such a fool of him. He really needs to grow up.

And I feel sorry for Benny who recently claimed that he doesn't "actually like learning languages". Now he forces himself into doing it for more than 3 hours a day in a traditional language learning way. Poor guy...

...and he sells a product to teach people an activity that he actually doesn't like...

No, he likes learning languages, and is actually good at it. He also does inspire people to learn languages. His blog is very successful. He encourages people to speak, and not worry about their mistakes. That is a good message.

He just get a little carried away at times. I think he means well. He just cannot resist getting into a tiff with people who don't completely agree with him.

And, it must be said, that there are many people who just can't resist getting into that tiff with him. :)

Let me see if I can summarise this in the fewest possible words:

A lot of people interested in language learning, have reached the conclusion that the process of learning any language beyond beginner level is a long, slow, sometimes frustrating process, and there is no way to short-circuit the process of learning all the necessary new vocabulary, grammar rules and conversational skills.

One person thinks there is a way to short-circuit the circuit, that none of these other people has thought of.

The balance of probabilities is that this person is probably wrong. He will need substantial, even extraordinary) evidence to prove otherwise. HE has not provided that evidence. The onus is on him to provide it before anyone else believes him.

Saying anything further on the matter is likely to drag the parties concerned into a spiral of bickering and name-calling.

Does this make me a hater?

Personally I love it when people prove the extraordinary. It doesn't happen very often. That's what makes it extraordinary.

@Imyirtseshem

If you think that some specific comment made on this thread about Benny is wrong, then why not just point out with reasoned arguments WHY you think it is wrong?

Wouldn't that be so much more constructive than standing on the sidelines and engaging in politically correct finger-wagging?

(Please note: I'm not trying to further this discussion for myself - I have said several times that I myself will NOT be commenting anymore on Benny for at least the next few months - and I'm going to stick to that!)

Very well put, even thought I don't agree with all of it 100%.

I don't think he has to prove his methods to anyone. Nobody must do so. Every method works for some people and not for others. If they work for him and some other people, then I don't see the problem. Although lingq works for me, I do personally know people who just can't work with it and moved back to their trusted ways of learning. That doesn't diminish LingQ in any way. Neither does it mean that they were doing it wrong or are bad language learners. That's just the nature of language learning.

If by evidence, you mean that he should be fluent in all of the languages he has studied? Well, he is worried about conversational fluency and he does have that 'flow' in several languages. All of them? Well, he's only human and the fact that he isn't, doesn't really detract from his methods either. Should he post 'evidence' videos on youtube which are all going to impress everybody who watches them? Not likely.

I'm not sure what the term 'hater' means. If it means someone who hates (someone or something), then I don't think you are.

Totally in agreement on this bit: 'the process of learning any language beyond beginner level is a long, slow, sometimes frustrating process'. Although I stand by my view that anything beyond than 100% natural language acquisition as a child is by its very nature a sort of hack or short-cut.

Rank, it's not 'politically correct finger-wagging'? It's me basically saying 'hey, let's not be so vicious'. We've had this discussion. You're not in the position to tell me what is and isn't 'constructive'.

There's no point admonishing me for the word 'wrong' because I used as a part of a saying.

@Imyirtseshem: "...You're not in the position to tell me what is and isn't 'constructive'."
---

Oh no, with due respect I think I am very much in a position to do so. ;-)

BTW
I would be very surprised if you could point to any post where people have (truly) been "vicious" about Benny? However I myself have nothing more to say about this. Benny has become slightly boring, frankly...

@ Steve
I have followed the debate. Benny may inspire people incidentally, but his missions are not about that. They are all about himself. Very rarely if ever does he make his readers think there is some altruistic mission behind this.

All his writings are about himself. He is quick to call people trolls if they disagree with him. Actually it reminds me a lot of narcissistic rage. Incidentally, for a narcissist any publicity is good as long as they are the centre of attention.

I doubt Benny would receive as much flak if he weren't (blatantly and forcefully) trying to sell a product. Of course, if he weren't selling anything, I also doubt he'd make such bold claims and write such controversial posts. There's no such thing as bad publicity, the saying goes...

@Elric I think you're summarised it pretty well there, if he were just a guy writing a personal blog it'd be different. You don't see Luca from thepolyglotdream getting the same flak, but he isn't trying to sell something (as far as I've seen).

Many respected polyglots are friendly, nice, humble individuals and I think at least some of them sell a product and/or their services. Selling something is not the issue I think, it is just Benny's rude and immature personality which makes him stand out.

I don't think that someone selling a product it's an issue, but I do think that their claims should be treated more critically if they are trying to sell a related product. Likewise I'd be more critical of Steve's claims about how he learns than Imyirtsehem's (picking someone at random), because Steve is making money off of a language learning system and as far as I know, Imyirtsehem is not.

The LingQ tool and beliefs about learning are fundamentally different "products" and not comparable as such. For example, many who disagree with Steve's views use LingQ. Others who agree will not use LingQ for whatever reason.

Well, I don't think LingQ is a product. I see it more as a service. The problem with Benny's product is that he's trying to sell himself along with it. He's clearly hellbent on becoming a celebrity. He clearly wants to make people believe that he has a new groundbreaking method, but all he does is use common sense and freely available tools that nearly everybody else who's seriously into language learning knows about. That's one of the reasons he bashes the "academics" (a loose term that encompasses all those who have ever tried and succeeded in learning at least one foreign language), he knows they're not his target buyers, and he knows they'll call his bluff, and try to warn unsuspecting "customers".

I myself stopped reading any of his advice the first time he sent me a "earn money over the internet" message through his mailing list.

Benny's product IS himself. LingQ is a separate entity Although Steve may be the reason some use it, it is not necessarily that way.

Yay – First Post!

I just want to say a big thanks to Steve for allowing open discussion on Benny. His threads seem to close everywhere, comments are blocked all over the place, and bloggers try really hard to stay neutral. This is sort of a last bastion for truly open debate, and I hope you never diminish it.

I speak Mandarin. I consider my level to be at about B1, although my strong point is definitely conversation. Actually, I started learning in a similar way to Benny, so it’s neat to compare notes.

I understood the video 100% without subtitles. But if his teacher hadn’t chimed in a few times, I wouldn’t have understood his intent in a few places. One example is when he tries to explain he’s using Chinese to make Chinese friends. He makes some vocabulary and grammar mistakes that would have lost me if the teacher hadn’t jumped in.

I never listen to non-native speech, but I understood him pretty well. In my opinion, his pronunciation is pretty good for this stage. Yes, lots of little mistakes, but understandable. I hate how he pronounces 很 though. Dude, it’s not a female chicken. I think he did the right thing by hitting the tones hard in the first 2 weeks. It’s paid off. He talks like that was some fatal error, but if he hadn’t done it, I hate to think what his pronunciation would be like by now. If he continues to study the language like he says he will, at some point he will probably realize that he started the right way.

Like I said, I’m about B1; maybe a strong B1. I consider his level to be A1. I can’t see anyone speaking that level in a European language and claiming to be any higher than that. In his blog, he feels that he was on the verge of B1 when he made that video. No way. That would make me C1, and I’m definitely not there. Probably the worst thing about the video was his struggling to remember words, delaying, and saying “uh” every other word. His vocabulary is very limited, he’s using very few words in this video. There is no way he’d be considered to be above A1.

Benny knows by now that Mandarin takes much longer to master than the average European language for a westerner, I guarantee it. I also guarantee that he will never admit it. Or he will once again claim “it takes more time, but it’s not more difficult”. I get tired of that argument. When language learners talk about the overall difficulty of a language, they are usually talking about time to learn it. Anything else can’t be quantified. I remember reading a long rant in his blog about no languages being more difficult than others, and talking about how wrong the learners of Asian languages are. Then he had a statement in there like “they might take more time, but they aren’t more difficult”. Huh? He made this claim so loud and so often, from the feedback he came to realize people are talking about time. So he foolishly switched – he claimed there is no time difference, and pretended that’s what he meant all along. Big mistake; everyone knows that he’s wrong. But he won’t back down, due to his ego, reputation, product sales, etc.

Despite the fact that he is only at A1, Benny is learning at a very good speed. But as others have said, it’s only average for an experienced language learner, immersed, and putting in as much time as he is into studying.

'learning at a very good speed...' but as everyone points out, it's just the same as any other learner. But that's not a problem either as Benny doesn't claim to be a better language learner than anyone else, just have better techniques. Yeah, the 'hěn' bit is bizarre. Can't he hear the difference? A word that is so common, you'd think his teacher would correct him. As it's a mistake due to reading pinyin... it's sort of proof that he's not following his technique of learning by interacting but by 'book-learning'.

The hesitation was annoying but he was forcing himself to do the video so you have to give him marks for trying. And I think we as English speakers are pretty patient with learners of English so I suspect that Mandarin speakers are perhaps more patient than we are when listening to Benny. They see him as just a learner but we expect more from him. Plus he had a bit of pressure from the camera no doubt, which probably didn't help.

Yeah, the question is, will he admit that Chinese is more difficult or takes more time? On the other hand he's never done a European language completely from scratch with this much intensity and with a video demonstration of stage by stage progress. So unfortunately we've got nothing to compare this with.

I would have to reject "it's just the same as any other learner".

My wife has just started to learn Portuguese here at LingQ. She learns much slower than I do and is far less attuned to languages in general. I have full confidence that she will develop a greater skill as far as this is concerned, but she certainly has a weaker linguistic intuition than I do. I did not have this at one point; it took time and practice to develop.

So, 'any other learner' is who, exactly?

But, regardless, I do agree that some languages are much harder than others. Chinese is simple compared to Navajo. :D