Christophe Clugston - the best polyglot
dcd

What do you guys think about the guy calling himself "the Metatron" on youtube? Apparently fluent in seven languages. The video below is in English (native language Italian) with links for Greek, French, Mandarin and Japanese in the description.
Retinend

Impressive in English, Spanish and French, can't speak for the others but knowing his personality I have no doubt he went the distance with them. He's a true polymath.
[Paivi]

Agree - anything he can do he seems to do very well at. Expert piano player, musician, weapons historian, historian, language learner, teacher... the list goes on.
Mariotkd

He is in the same league as Vladimir Skultety. Whatever they decide to do, they will outmatch most of us.
[Paivi]

I wonder whether it's a talent for picking things up and consolidating them properly or whether they just work much much harder than other people.
Mariotkd

I think they are both hard-working and talented.
[Paivi]

I would agree. I definitely think people pick things up at different speeds and so even if it's not some 'worked at' talent some people definitely take to things quicker.
I've got a mate who plays guitar. He can know a tune, not play it for several years and then if someone mentions it he'll rip it out instantly, note perfect. And not ballads or pop music, crap like Van Halen, Paul Gilbert, some extreme death metal.
I once was listening to and trying to play 'The Curse of Castle Dragon' by Paul Gilbert. I said 'betya can't play this', he went off to his room and came back literally 5 minutes later, playing the first minute of the song perfectly.
I had to practice insane hours to even keep my modest level of skill. He is a phenom.
Same in language learning. There are people who just take to things and it just makes sense to them, almost like their brain needs much less time to incubate the information before it becomes natural to them.
Demolitionator

Bru where is my 你个 Tim Doner?
[Paivi]

His French is D.R.E.A.D.F.U.L. Properly bad.
Retinend

He actually posted a video of himself using a foreign language? It's bad to want him to be bad, but I can't help feeling happy if he is to be judged as harshly as he judges everyone. Link please!
[Paivi]

Dunno what video it is because there aren't any of him speaking a language as the main part of the video. There are a few videos where he speaks for like 10 seconds in languages. I've heard him use Spanish. His accent sounds ok to me but i don't speak Spanish.
His French accent is terrible. As if zero effort has been put into it. Imagine Boris from Snatch speaking English with a Russian accent type of heavy.
FWIW i agree with SOME of what he says. Like the stuff about sycophants - proven by this forum - and people just coming out with stuff they believe when it's actually proven by science not to be true.
But he puts it terribly and basically rambles without saying a whole lot most of the time.
Retinend

Huh? I wrote a big long post and put a lot of effort into it yesterday. Where has it gone?
Diotallevi

It went straight into my mail folder ;-)
You wrote:
"Yeah I've heard snippets of his Spanish - seemed legit. Never heard his French or any other language for that matter. I'm not suspicious of him and his abilities per se. He's clearly no spring chicken, and he seems obsessed with language learning, so I have no doubt he's had time and passion to learn a great many languages. but his language website looks like classic oil snakesmanship: Here's a representative paragraph from http://www.language-busters.com/?page_id=7 [b][i]"Well. let’s continue with the analogy as we have now reached the zenith: the linguist (not the Kaufman hackneyed lower the standard definition but a real academic professional linguist) understands the hard science behind language. This can include the designated neurophysiology involved, the physics in acoustics, the articulatory phonetics, the distinctive phonemes in a language, the phonotactic rules of a language, the underlying rule system (grammar) that describes how the language orders a world view, etc. All of these categories are unknown to the native speaker and language teacher. It takes a professionally trained linguist to understand their importance in a given language."[/i][/b] I studied linguistics, so I get what he's saying here. It's not nonsense. But I get the vibe that he's using every opportunity to "sell" the jargon of the field in an attempt to intimidate (and sell). It's not just neuroscience, it's the "designated neuro-physiology"; they're not just phonological rules, they're "phono-tactic rules"*; not just grammar but "the underlying rule system"; not just the feeling of the language, but "how the language orders a world view"; not just someone who studied linguistics and knows the scope of the field, but "a professionally trained linguist." "The hard science behind language" is an arrogant phrase. Like all science, linguistics tried to generalize and make testable predictions, and in the process practical considerations are the first to get left behind. Language learning, on the other hand, is entirely a practical matter. To give Clugston his due, however, I will list some insights that I think people who didn't ever study linguistics might not appreciate so readily when learning a language - I just wish he could so too, instead of holding it over people. Anyway: Knowing what the "head" of a noun phrase is in order to conjugate a long one properly Using constituency tests in order to rephrase complicated sentences into almost babyishly simple ones Appreciating that, even in the most complicated possible cases, three- place predicates are the human limit for verbal complexity. Syllables are basically 75% CV, and that you should observe the "maximal onset principle" in conceiving of utterances involving syllables with codas. ...and that consonant clusters are better thought of as C CVC C than CCVCC all together. "clitics" are a good way to think of seemingly arbitrary syllabification of important words in, say, French or Arabic No matter how weird a sound is, it can be triangulated from a known manner and place of articulation. Learning the semantic "unmarked forms" first and staying away from the "marked forms" until after Knowing what a "stress-timed" language is vs a "syllable-timed" language (e.g. Arabic is closer to English than French is in this regard) Knowing that if you "mishear" a sound in a word (t for d, or b for p, or n for l), you should treat it as data in comparative phonology, not just a failure In forming questions, the concept of a "trace," e.g. in the choice of "que" or "qui" in French, or relative pronouns and case in German And so on... if these concept could be neatly presented they might help in the long run, but I think an non- linguistically-trained polyglot would develop a sixth sense for all the stuff these pretty labels designate, anyway. At best, these labels and intellectual knowledge of their concepts prepare you to notice them in practice. went a bit off topic there, but I'll post."
Non c'è di che... ;-)
Retinend

Bizarre. Did I do something wrong? Anyway I'll reformat it:
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Yeah I've heard snippets of his Spanish - seemed legit. Never heard his French or any other language for that matter. I'm not suspicious of him and his abilities per se. He's clearly no spring chicken, and he seems obsessed with language learning, so I have no doubt he's had time and passion to learn a great many languages.
....but his language website looks like classic oil snakesmanship:
Here's a representative paragraph from http://www.language-busters.com/?page_id=7
<b><i>"Well. let’s continue with the analogy as we have now reached the zenith: the linguist (not the Kaufman hackneyed lower the standard definition but a real academic professional linguist) understands the hard science behind language. This can include the designated neurophysiology involved, the physics in acoustics, the articulatory phonetics, the distinctive phonemes in a language, the phonotactic rules of a language, the underlying rule system (grammar) that describes how the language orders a world view, etc. All of these categories are unknown to the native speaker and language teacher. It takes a professionally trained linguist to understand their importance in a given language."</i></b>
I studied linguistics, so I get what he's saying here. It's not nonsense.
But I get the vibe that he's using every opportunity to "sell" the jargon of the field in an attempt to intimidate (and sell). It's not just neuroscience, it's the "designated neuro-physiology"; they're not just phonological rules, they're "phono-tactic rules"*; not just grammar but "the underlying rule system"; not just the feeling of the language, but "how the language orders a world view"; not just someone who studied linguistics and knows the scope of the field, but "a professionally trained linguist."
"The hard science behind language" is an arrogant phrase. Like all science, linguistics tried to generalize and make testable predictions, and in the process practical considerations are the first to get left behind. Language learning, on the other hand, is entirely a practical matter.
To give Clugston his due, however, I will list some insights that I think people who didn't ever study linguistics might not appreciate so readily when learning a language - I just wish he could so too, instead of holding it over people.
Anyway:
Knowing what the "head" of a noun phrase is in order to conjugate a long one properly
Using constituency tests in order to rephrase complicated sentences into almost babyishly simple ones
Appreciating that, even in the most complicated possible cases, three- place predicates are the human limit for verbal complexity.
Syllables are basically 75% CV, and that you should observe the "maximal onset principle" in conceiving of utterances involving syllables with codas.
...and that consonant clusters are better thought of as C CVC C than CCVCC all together.
"clitics" are a good way to think of apparently "loose" variations in syllabification of important words in, from my experience, French or Arabic
No matter how weird a sound is, it can be triangulated from a known manner and place of articulation.
Learning the semantic "unmarked forms" first and staying away from the "marked forms" until after
Knowing what a "stress-timed" language is vs a "syllable-timed" language (e.g. Arabic is closer to English than French is in this regard)
Knowing that if you "mishear" a sound in a word (t for d, or b for p, or n for l), you should treat it as data in comparative phonology, not just a failure
In forming questions, the concept of a "trace," e.g. in the choice of "que" or "qui" in French, or relative pronouns and case in German And so on...
If these concepts could be neatly presented they might help in the long run, but I think an non- linguistically-trained polyglot would develop a sixth sense for all the stuff these pretty labels designate, anyway. At best, these labels and intellectual knowledge of their concepts prepare you to notice them in practice.
went a bit off topic there, but I'll post
[Paivi]

Disagree totally.
'It's not nonsense' - he claims you need to be a 'professionally trained linguist' to understand linguistics. What total horse dung. Anybody who can read can become an expert in any non-practical subject.
The rest of the stuff you posted about linguistics is irrelevant in learning a language. We never did, and do not need to ever learn that stuff to learn a language.
Retinend

Hi "Coburg Shekelstein." I wouldn't mind if you disagreed, of course, but in fact you missed the point where I branded Clugston "a snakeoil salesman" and said that my list was of linguistics knowledge that the "non-linguistically-trained would develop a sixth sense for, anyway." I also made your point about the pretentiousness of the phrase "professional training" myself. I was making a nuanced point.
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Why can I reply to my own comment and not to his, by the way? This is the second major problem I've had for only my second post on this forum.
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edit: okay so I click " reply" on my own post to reply to the post below it? Weird.
LILingquist

Clugston is a tool. Everyone here knows it already. I'm sorry you discovered him. Consider yourself lucky.
As to your list of the greatest, I would probably say I agree with your Top 3 of Richard, Luca, and Steve. However, I think it's important to point out that Richard has totally devoted his life to this and Luca is not far behind in that regard. Steve has been involved in so much over his life that is non-language related and he gets extra props in my book for having co-created a method for actual learning that can actually make people fluent. A true method for anyone to become a polyglot.
cholinguist

I unfortunately discovered Clugston in August. Why does he just spout claims? He just trashes everything, and the videos are actually quite depressing.
aronald

Vladimir is a lot higher on that list. He may be #1.
[screw_censorship]

EDIT
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(Maybe Mr C deserves a break)
Sukerkin

I just came across Mr. Clugston today and was more than a little taken aback by his presentation and attitude. The fellow has some issues, I fear. His approach reminds me very much of some 'fake' martial arts instructors I've encountered over the years. Bluster, aggression, claiming 'authority' and denigrating others in the same field is not the way to go. Happily the Net allows you to choose who you interact with or view ... so I can simply steer a path away from him and continue to enjoy Steve's far more amiable and inclusive style.
xiaoma

Stujay's talents are practically otherworldly. His mandarin isn't mind-blowing to me since I lived in Taiwan for a long time, but neither is anybody else's on this list. (Mike Campbell and Brendan O'kane's are, though). But Stujay speaks a ton of SE Asian languages and has basically gotten Mandarin from its regional importance as a 2nd or 3rd language in Thailand, Indonesia, etc. His Thai is basically native from what everyone has told me.
I would bump Stujay up all the way to the top. I haven't really heard much of Richard Simcott but Luca thoroughly impressed me and obviously Steve did too or I probably wouldn't be posting on this site.
Wulfgar

Where are you getting this information from? His Thai is near native, yes. Mandarin good, B2/C1, Vietnamese B1/B2. I think there are some videos with him speaking a decent amount of either Malaysian or Indonesian. I've seen very little evidence of his other languages, so I'm skeptical. I've never read much of his advice because it's so bad. Learn 3000 words in the first week? Who can do that? Is he an excellent polyglot? Yes. Does he belong near the top of that list? No.
gregf

I'd never heard of the guy, but then again I never got excited about the polyglot fad on youtube a few years ago. However, this is an interesting video in which he lists his proficiency in many languages (in Thai). Impressive indeed.
xiaoma

I've heard him speak a bunch of languages. He claims fluency in something like 16 languages and some skill in about 30 and nothing I've heard or seen from him makes me doubt it. You should at least be able to find *some* videos of him speaking other languages if you hunt. He did some multilingual interpretation on Thai TV using Cantonese and Hindi.
As for the learning 3k words in the first week, if you already speak half a dozen related languages, it's probably not that hard since you get most of them for free. The same would happen for Luca if he started on another Romance language!
Ironically our "alpha linguist" of the thread gives him the thumbs up and vouches for his Italian, Hindi, Urdu and proto-Thai! How often have you seen a video like this?
xiaoma

Ah here are some videos of him speaking some that are a bit harder to find him speaking on YouTube. It's from 7 years ago, though. He's improved since, especially the Mandarin, Vietnamese and Japanese. The 2nd part shows his estimation of his ability before the clips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csfHuFNlQgY
Bahasa Indonesian
Bahasa Malasian
Javanese
Danish
Swedish (very short)
Norwegian (very short)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr_sWVpsNIg
Italian
Spanish
Hindi
Japanese
Vietnamese
Sign Language
Morse Code (lol)
Wulfgar

I've seen all 4 of those videos, and many others. Again, very little proof of a high level in most of those languages. It's not very hard to make yourself look good for a few seconds in a video; we see it all the time. Some people admit their level isn't very high, some claim fluency, whatever that means.
Regarding the 3k words in the first week advice, it's just bizarre to me that anyone would actually defend that. I hope that special situation works out well for you.
xiaoma

I'm hoping for that experience when I get around to Korean. I majored in Japanese and then later spent years in Taiwan using Mandarin. Also I speak English fluently, which will be another source of loan words. Hopefully, I'll get many thousands of words practically for free.
For now, I'm struggling with Thai.
UnravelingMind

I sometimes have a hard time believing Clugston isn't just an elaborate troll when I watch his videos. His pretentious behavior regularly reaches a cartoonish level of ridiculousness that is usually reserved for satirical comedy.
steve

Thanks Russophile, the problem we have at LIngQ is persuading people who are used to being taught by someone else, that they really have to just learn by themselves, and that LingQ provides a wide range of resources and functions , and a community, that make it easier to do that.
[russophile82]

I watch Clugston's videos on YouTube. I watch many linguists and language-learners online. You know, the guy is right about *one* thing: the left/right brain modes of learning. What he doesn't realize, though, (since I doubt he's ever used it), is that LingQ allows the user to learn in both ways. I just posted in another thread about how I began "processing" more Russian as meaningful content simply by *listening* to LingQ lessons; by "forgetting" the English definitions I learned and just listened. Of course I wouldn't have understood them at all without a left-brain approach in the beginning; but effective, meaningful listening (at least for me) is largely a right-brain activity. (From what I understand about the different hemispheres of the brain, anyway.) You know, the thing Steve said that finally convinced me into using LingQ was the line, to paraphrase: "No one can teach you a language". That doesn't seem it's coming from a left-brain-centric philosophy at all, which Clugston often accuses LingQ of being. The beauty of LingQ, unlike Rosetta Stone (right-brain-centric) and, I suspect, academic study (left-brain-centric), is that it's well-balanced in this regard. That doesn't make me a "sycophant" to anyone. That's just my opinion. And academia is full of opinions, which I know Christophe would mockingly disagree with.
Elric

Wait, you mean that's not you in your avatar picture? ;)
spatterson

I'll dig this one from the past. I tried to interact with Clugston and talk about some of his ideas but he labeled me a troll because I don't use my real picture online -- as if anyone really cares what I look like... I don't understand Clugston's obsession with titles. As someone with multiple academic degrees... my employer only cares about my work and my results, not the degrees I hold. By his definition of a "master" BB King, Eric Clapton, or Mark Knopfler wouldn't be considered exceptional musicians because they don't hold degrees in music.
Mark_K

I like all the youtube polyglots. They've all got something a little different to throw into the mix. Some of them are trying to sell products/services, and some of them aren't, but they all seem to be basically motivated to help others.
As for who is the best? That's so hard to say. There's the question of how many languages a person speaks, and then there is the question of how well the person speaks those languages. And there's also the question of how much time they've spent learning their languages.
Stu Jay is extremely impressive. It's really mind-blowing to hear somebody speaking a language like Thai the way he does. And he speaks these relatively unknown Indonesian languages. Richard is mind-blowing but his language are mostly European, IIRC. In the end, as with many things, I don't think there is a clear best. It depends on what criteria you consider important.
As for Clugston, I don't know him so I don't want to speculate about him having less-than-praiseworthy motivations. But I find his evident strong dislike for youtube polyglots strange. His videos are somewhat incoherent, and I find them a little bit disconcerting.
Rj

I love them all. But I have a preference for the easy ones,the happier ones. The ones who uses the realistic,natural method Like Steve,Luca,Moses,Richard etc. But I like also Pr. Arguelles.
rwargas22

Thank you ;)
MisterB

I absolutely agree 1000000% with rwargas22.
rwargas22

The prerequisite for the title "best polyglot" should be that the person first BE a polyglot. Clugston shows no evidence that he speaks any language beyond English, which, in any event, he mangles with stilted syntax. I certainly have seen no videos of him speaking foreign languages. He shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as Steve, Luca, Richard, et. al. I know his type well, being a student of the history of radical groups: He reminds me of conspiracy theorists like Lyndon LaRouche. They ramble on and on and on but don't actually say anything. They make video upon video saying the exact same thing. They create an image of themselves as a "guru," based on nothing but hot air, and they build up a fan base of true believers who think that the guru has "exposed" the "mainstream" and, through brave "dissidence," has shown "the truth" and "the secrets" of (fill in the blank). He's a fraud.
ishikawa87

He evidently has far too high an opinion of himself...
Having read a lot about NLP, a lot of it is not well founded scientifically but they can provide some useful practical techniques.
There are assumptions made about our psychology and use of language which don't stand up well to scrutiny. For example it is claimed that people favour a way of thinking about the world that is linked to a certain sense and that a persons use of language identifies which "modality" the person favours. So if a person generally thinks visually then they will likely use words and phrases relating to sight. Someone with a visual modality would likely say "I see what you mean." a lot, instead of "I hear where you're coming from" , which would indicate they favour an auditory modality.
As soon as I read that I thought this was bunk. My mother and father are both blind with my mother having been blind since birth, and my father lost any useable sight over a decade ago. Both of them use lots of visual expressions like "I see" or even things like "I went to see a film". Saying things like that are merely habits of speech that we pick up.
It's also discredited by the academic community for lack of empirical evidence and putting forth factual errors. That said, some of the mental techniques taught can be beneficial for certain things, so it is not all complete nonsense. Just... Mostly.
After a little research, it even seems that much of the online martial arts community consider him an absolute joke. He even claims to have re-discovered the fighting style of the gladiators from the time of Julius Caesar...
He seems like a troll after cash.
Elric

The biggest tool in the language learning community is Clugston himself.
tastyonions

Clugston posted a video with some parts I enjoyed recently, called "The biggest tool you have for learning foreign languages." After his usual boilerplate of denigrating YouTube polyglots, he talks a bit about real-time interpretation as a powerful exercise for improving skill (and locating gaps in vocabulary / expressive ability) in your languages.
[lovelanguagesII]

I did not even know I was in that kind of "competition". It is nice to see that people find some of my videos useful but that's about it for me. I enjoy studying languages and exchanging ideas and experiences. I have a lot to learn from others and I hope I'll have even more opportunities to do so in future.
alexandrec

These guys are all amazing and worthy models.
As for Clugston... I watched one of his videos. It was so full of nonsense, I couldn't help leave a comment midway through -- which I regretted writing after hearing more of the video. In any case, he refused my comment because I wasn't using my real name (there are videos of me on my channel and they mention my name!) and ridiculed my post in the most cavalier manner while misspelling every second word. Anyway, I'm done with that clown.
steve

In reconsidering, I would vote for Richard for the range and and number of his languages, and Luca for the smoothness of his pronunciation. But then Stu Jay Ray is quite amazing as well. So maybe I would not vote at all.
steve

I would also vote for Luca. But then language learning is not a competition.
Wulfgar

Some of you may find this poll fun/interesting
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=32508&PN=1
vincentd

Ranking the YouTube polyglots seems quite foolish to me. Language learning is not a competition, I don't get why everybody wants to know who's "the best polyglot". Even if someone knows just one foreign language, he might communicate better in that language than someone who knows a dozen of languages. And after all, language is all about communication.
[anonimo]

@Vincentd:
Exactly my thoughts! I'm interested in communicating with people, expanding my horizons and getting to know different cultures.
As a learning endeavor and as a matter of of interest, curiosity and breaking barriers, I just love learning languages.
As an odd kind of sport, based on silly measurements, "polyglotism" is one of the lamest.
[Marianne10]

Interestingly no women on that list.
xiaoma

Only because Kato Lomb passed away :/
2tmp011007

@Imyirtseshem "You'd think that Clugston with his demand that every opinion be cited (except his own, for some reason), would be more weary of such 'shady characters'."
that's not very likely:
Linguist, language teacher, pro fighter, developed what has been called the Worlde’s strongest self defense. Accelerated learning, Neuro Linguistic Programming, Athletic enhancement (mental and physical)-
"NLP is always something which I've taken to be pseudo-nonsense."
yep and nope..
yep: NLP seminars, workshops, books, audio programs.. = pseudo-nonsense ($$$)
nope: NLP basic principles = pretty normal hypnosis
now, is hypnosis kinda pseudo-nonsense? yep.. then why did I write "nope"? cause even pseudo-nonsense seems to work (somehow) in real-life scenarios.. why? I have no clue
[Jay_B]

Stu-Jay's level in Thai is pretty mind-blowing.
(But then, he's lived there for quite a long time and he is married to a native speaker, I believe...)
maths

ah, I'd only seen a few of Stu Jays videos, and read a few of his blogs. Indeed he seems very accomplished with languages, but I agree, from what I know of NLP is hazy pseudo-science. I understand that Stu Jay is very much a motivational coach, working with companies, I imagine the NLP stuff goes down well with business managers :)
[1892uDH]

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maths

What strikes you as whacked out about Stu Jay's ideas? I'm not like a devotee of him, just interested to know what you think
[1892uDH]

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2tmp011007

-christopheclugston: "Who is the best Polyglot? I bet you don't know. Christophe Clugston tells you, based on scientific criteria."-
hahahahaha "SCIENTIFIC"
[1892uDH]

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