Multilingualism and Mr. Sanchez

A person named Mr. Sanchez challenged me to do a video in 10 languages, and if I did he would tell all his ESL friends about LingQ, so I did. Unfortunately I left out Italian, and I made a number of mistakes in Spanish and Russian that I think I would normally not make. It does take a little bit of focus to get the patterns right in different languages. Switching from language to language in such a short period of time probably confuses the poor brain.

Comments

[humberto]

Wow! Just amazing Steve! Creo que el Sr. Sanchez debe pagar su apuesta ... humberto

[Cakypa]

Steve, what a great maraphon!
Russian part is good, it is absolutely understandable what do you say.
I'll save it and show to my colleagues. Perhaps someone will be inspired and will sign up to LingQ.

[John Biesnecker]

Your Mandarin sounds good, but it seems like you're a lot more comfortable in Japanese and, especially, French. Anyway, impressive, and a great advertisement for LingQ.

[Valina Eckley]

すごいですね！！　　日本語はもちろん、フランス語も分るようになりました！リンクとかスティブさんの学習の勉強方法のおかげさまです。

このビデオ自分のブログに載せようかと思ってて、生徒の皆さんに見ていただけるといいと思います。

これからも、スティブさんと同じように頑張ります☆　　
よろしくお願いします

[Jonathan]

Well played, sir. I'm guessing we'll be seeing Mr. Sanchez and his class very soon.

It is impressive enough that you speak so many languages -- but to switch between them so quickly, I would think, would make your head explode. Very impressive!

[Tony]

Steve,

Cool! Mandarin and Cantonese parts are very impressive, if you had a chance visiting 51uc.com chat rooms, talk in Mandarin and Cantonese, I am sure people will get impressed and consider signing up to LingQ. The latest version is UC2008 Beta.

[nobuo]

すばらしいです！ Amazing! Chinese speaking Steve looks funny, it sounds good. Your Japanese is natural. And Russian speaking Steve looks Russian. I'll post this video on my Japanese blog. I'll keep learning English with the natural way on LingQ and someday I'll challenge other languages with the natural way on LingQ.
いつもビデオ見るの楽しみにしています。

[skyblueteapot]

Steve's fine performance goes to demonstrate what I have long suspected, that a modest intake of alcohol is actually beneficial to communicating in a foreign language :-)

[Keith]

Bravo! Well done!
Now this video can set a precedent. How about a 3 language minimum from all future videos from you? hahaha

[Rollo]

"Steve's fine performance goes to demonstrate what I have long suspected, that a modest intake of alcohol is actually beneficial to communicating in a foreign language :-)"

That is no joke. I wouldn't advise anyone who doesn't drink to start drinking, but alcohol does loosen you up a bit and just the right amount can help you to overcome your shyness about speaking a foreign language.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Tony,

It it is always less welcome when people are self-promoting. Any chance you could post the video at an appropriate spot at 51uc.com?

[Zhuangzi]

"It it is always less welcome when people are self-promoting."

This coming from you is highly comical. Have you forgotten your days of constantly spamming LingQ stuff at the how-to-learn-any-language.com forums?

[Edward]

每次看你到表演講各種語言都覺得超屌的！

[Steve Kaufmann]

Zhuangzi,

Your comments here are typical of the smug attitude of people who do not create anything themselves and sit on their hands and try to find fault with the efforts of others who are trying to develop something of value for people.

Yes I am proud of LingQ. Yes I want people to know about it and try it. I made many lengthy comments about language learning at How -to-learn, and carefully following the rules of that site, made very clear what my association was with LingQ, and would occasionally refer to it.

This would inevitably bring forth criticism a few self-appointed and self-important puritans, who did not mind people promoting FSI, Assimil, Pisleur or whatever, but were offended that I would mention LingQ. There was another group of people, however, who said, both on the site, and in private communication that they very much appreciated my contributions to the site. You, now hiding behind anonymity, were obviously, part of the first group.

I no longer go to that site, by the way, since I object to the childish and arbitrary censorship that is practiced there.

[Ilya L.]

I am not sure Zhuangzi is that smug just because of his mild comment. The truth is, however, it is much easier to criticize then develop things of value for people.

The truth is, Steve is fluent in many languages. He spends his own money for and makes a lot of effort to create a powerful language learning system for other people. Other people often call it the best among the existing systems.

I had enough criticism of my own to the priorities and certain decisions made by the team in the development of the system. However, I do realize it is very difficult to make things better.

You make a good job! I have a great respect to what you and your team are doing.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Thanks Ilya, and I am sorry if we could not accommodate your priorities. It is difficult to stay on track especially if it is snowing heavily and you do not really know where you are going.

Maybe we can chat in Russian some time.

Steve

[Ilya L.]

Steve wrote: "Maybe we can chat in Russian some time".

It will be my pleasure Steve. Though your phrasing a couple years ago was: "May be we can drink together sometime". Stay on track.

[Tony]

Steve,

Actually, there is no public space on 51uc.com, but I will give people your video whenever I had a chance.

I really love Edward's Taiwanese idiom, just in case if you didn't know: 屌(diao 3rd tone) is very informal, and it is the combination of being cool, excellent, exciting, etc, etc...

[Steve Kaufmann]

Tony,

I did not recognize that character. Now I know, thanks. By the way do you still go to Westca. I do not.

By the way, how popular is 寰球华报's website?

[Tony]

Steve,

Yeah, I sometimes go westca to checking travel forum (there are some nice pictures there) and also the yellow pages for Chinese restaurants etc. The English corner is almost dead.

I called my great aunt, she said the circulation of 寰球华报 is very small, not as popular as 世界日报(Taiwan based) or 星岛日报 and 明报(Hong Kong based), actually, there is a free paper, getting more and more popular, called 都市报，affiliated to 星岛日报，published every Friday, their shelves usually get empty by Friday noon.

Their web site:
http://www.ccue.com/ccp_west/

[欣怡]

如果從Steve口中，聽到「屌」這個字，我會當場心臟病發吧？我從來不用這個字。

[Jason S]

Very, very cool. Inspiring for sure.
About 屌. 屌 has another meaning that is quite crude or dirty. Kind of like the other word for rooster? ;)
These days though, young people, particularly men have started using it to mean cool or awesome. I.e. 你的中文好屌啊。Someone once told me it started with Jay Chou, but who knows. Point is, it's got a dirty background. Not for formal or polite conversation.

[Patrizio]

Bravo Steve. Sei riuscito a parlare parecchie lingue abbastanza correntemente. Soprattutto dopo tutti questi anni di non parlarle. Peccato che non abbia parlato italiano.

[Dan]

The questions is: did Mr. Sanchez sign up?

[skyblueteapot]

I look forward to seeing Mr Sanchez's video of him speaking in English. When may we expect to get a link to it?

I will be happy to arrange some conversations with his students!

[Steve Kaufmann]

I received the original email from Mr. Sanchez, did a video as he requested and and sent it to him, but I have not heard any more from him. I wonder if he is hard at work at LingQ, learning a few languages.

[LFJ]

Owned! lol

Great job.