This is a very functional situation--this is something that is higher on the mastery level than talking about Tolstoy, but not to people like the sycophants of Kaufmann. In their mixed up world they don't get it--and they never will until they are in situations like you stated.
You understood it perfectly. Also tying the shoes would be another everyday thing that the Gurus can't say or really cope strategy to deal with. Another good one is for them to describe the process of starting a fire in the L 2. They won't be able to do it unless they are FUNCTIONAL
I totally agree with you, Anthony Lauder! Even our English teacher told it to us everytime, when we struggled in a dialog. (My mother tongue is German.) She said something, like: "Do not get stuck on a word, which you do not know. Describe it with the words, which you currently have. But let the conversation flow." Such a skill is much more necessary, than to have a rich vocabulary since the beginning. And the funny thing is: Even as a native speaker, you may forget a word sometimes. These are often the simplest ones. Or you forget a name of a person. It's sometimes like a small blackout in the mind. And then, you struggle also, wave your hands and say to your dialog partner: "Damn ... I just forgot the word ... come on, you know what I mean." Then, the partner throws in the missing word and you reply: "Yeah! Exactly this was the word, which I meant!" Who does not know such (funny) situations? And that does not mean, that you are stupid or not functional, just because you forgot the word at this moment. We are all just humans and no perfect robots. :-)
I'm hardly fluent in German, but I would hope that if I were in Berlin and needed shoelaces, I could say I needed "die Dinge fuer mein Schue" and point, and at least get what I needed. Even if the clerk thought I was clueless. :)
I have only heard of shoestring in the terms of "living on a shoestring budget" (meaning that somebody is quite poor). It is very interesting that some Americans use the term even today to mean what most would call a shoelace. Thanks for teaching me something unexpected!
Hear hear! In the real world "How do you say [description]" has served me much better than being locked in a room for decades until I knew a million words ever would ;)
This is very bizarre to me too. If someone asked me what is that thing that holds my shoe on my foot, I would say "a shoestring." In my American dialect this is correct, and I would never say "a shoelace." I imagine in many other languages, there is this dialect problem also. I can't think of the word for shoelace in Spanish, which is a language that I use everyday. I doubt it is a good indicator of anything.
In fact, I have been to grad school. I have a PhD in theoretical computer science. I also have a masters in engineering from MIT. So, I am pretty good at technical stuff. It is very possible, though, that I am a dunce in other areas, and grad school in language related stuff may well be beyond my brain power.
I agree up to a point, but i think the shoelace comment is about - if someone has reached a certain level in a language, the likelyhood is that they will have encountered this word. So it;s an indicator really. You can know that word but not know the word for yes. Its ok to describe things in other words like the example Anthony gives about "those long things that keep my shoes on" but it doesnt work the other way round, you need to know the lower frequency words or else you want understand the news, tv, films etc.
I admire the way you're reasoning in your videos. Btw. Could it be, that you have contributed to a language exam listening task as one of the speakers? I think I've recognized your voice.
Then a lot of people is not "functional" in their own languages. Let's keep it simple. Language is mean of communication, which is sending and receiving messages. You can use language for resolving conflicts as well as for starting them. You can be polite as well as impolite in a language. Being "functional" as FluentCzech have explained here is about being able to convey any message you want. It has nothing to do with interpersonal/collaboration and intercultural skills.
Ok, it seems we have finally found somebody who really understand what Christophe says and did it not because of desire to be special but because he has same or higher than Christophe's level of education. Please, I beg of you, could you explain clearly and without place for misunderstanding what Christophe meant by "functional" and other shoelaces. Please.
You should raise all these pressing issues on your own channel. Mine, though, is more light hearted than that. It is not purely educational, it is meant to partly fun too, and just sharing thoughts with people.
You don't have to become like women to like them, you know? I like women too. I even love some of them. Yet I'm no feminist. Men and women are profoundly different psychologically as well as physiologically and they have different roles in the society. And it should be like that if we want to have families instead of single mothers and buggers raising our children. Reread your comment "I'm right. And like many women, I am able to " It is so female. Stop being effeminate. Behave like a man.
besides having a very high opinion of himself, which is not by itself a crime, the worst problem with mr clugston is that he doesn't ever reach a point. But what really made me lose complete interest is comments like the above, which shows only a lot about his own personality and cognitive habilities. Grossika for instance is a strong personality, but I don't think I would read a childish comment liike this from him.
Umm..I do have a backbone but not a "back bone". Great defense by the way. How am I a coward for pointing out the painfully obvious? Instead of becoming defensive and calling everyone a "coward" for pointing out various flaws and inconsistencies, why don't you actually do something about it? Since you claim to be an authority why don't you try to be more professional and make less mistakes.
It is more than that. Since the word shoelace is rather uncommon (low lexemic frequency) it is unlikely that an influent person has incorporated it into his/her active vocabulary. So not knowing this word often CORRELATES with being influent. Note: there is no causal relationship, meaning just knowing/ not knowing the word doesn't make you fluent/influent, but indicates it. However it is a simplification and prone to mistakes, but also vastly faster than to administer a full-blown fluency test.
Clugston and you are both right because you are talking about different things: You talk about vocabulary (i.e. not knowing certain words and ways around it) and Clugston offers a heuristic to gauge fluency, not the actual knowledge of vocabulary. In his opinion a fluent person should have come across the word shoelace as a BYPRODUCT of being fluent. Knowing the word shoelace is not the cause of fluency but a symptom of it. I am glad you missunderstood him => a very good video came of it! thanks
I understand what you are trying to say. On the other side, I see where Christophe is coming from as I am a linguist myself, by universitary means. People who are known as "polyglots" often show only a small range of words and phrases which they transfer into dozens of languages, and "shoelaces", in my opinion, are showing the depth that it would take to seriously "know" a language. If you are a "hobbyist" (Chr. Clugston), you won't be interested in this kind of approach anyway.
What is the word for the things on the ends of shoelaces? If you know "shoelaces" in a foreign language, but don't know that, are you sure you're fluent? LOL.
P.S. it's aglet/aiglet in English... but I had to look it up. And I'm a very fluent native speaker. If I'd needed to refer to them in conversation I'd have said "those things on the end of shoelaces" - and if it was writing, I'd have looked it up, as I did. I think this is the point?
Thanks for your feedback Tom. You're right that I am not an expert in very much; my videos are just my opinions. If people find anything useful in them, then I am delighted, but if you find things I am saying to be factually incorrect (rather than just disagreeing with my opinions) then please do leave comments, or make a response video. I am always keen to learn more, and have benefited greatly from your own videos. Any corrections you can make to facts in my videos would be very much welcome.
I can only imagine that you are on a higher intellectual level, as is CC (according to himself). It could well be that I am indeed shallow and am completely missing the point. However, it seems rather unchristian of you to mock me for those limitations. I, on the other hand, have nothing but praise to offer you, and your own videos. I have enjoyed your helpful reviews and insights, and shall remain subscribed to you, so that I can keep learning from you.
In terms of CC's response video: I can only imagine that I have quite limited brain power compared to others, since again I found that video quite hard to understand. It seemed to ramble and rant, and made no new points. The fact that you do grasp its content more effectively demonstrates your greater intellectual capacity. That is admirable. Alas, I am not so blessed, and need things to be expressed more clearly.
Thank you for your kind comment. So far, the video hasn't received any more "traffic" than other videos I have made. I have a couple of thousand subscribers, and many of them seem to watch new videos that I make. Of course, I have noticed this video has received far more futile arguments in the comments than usual, which is unfortunate, but I do not believe in deleting comments nor vetting the people that make them. After all, I believe in people sharing information freely.
I must admit I have only ever read one book on Field Linguistics (the one by Terry Crowley). This means I am far from an expert, and probably missing a lot of vital information. What is clear from the book, though, is that much of Field Linguistics is about documenting almost-lost languages, rather than gaining any functional ability with those languages. I would love to hear more about how Field Linguistics relates to becoming functional in a language. Can you point us in some direction?
Six year olds can talk about things relevant to them. Recently, I was in the hospital, being treated for parasites (that I caught in India) - I had long and complex conversations with doctors about how I caught them, what treatment options were available, and so on. They send the pharmacist to meet me, who talked about various side effects, how to take the nine week (!) set of drugs, and so on. A six year old could certainly not do this, yet could talk about toys far better than I ever could.
I apologise to anybody - CC including - who feels attacked by me, for that has not been my aim at all. My video was about disagreeing with an idea, rather than attacking a person. In terms of people attacking me, that is not a problem - I know that comments can turn into the wild west sometimes, but that soon passes.
Lots of confusion here--I guess I will make a video to explicate what everyone is missing. This isn't about vocabulary as an abstract thing to do. BTW I'm talking about Field Linguists--educational performance standards are not the same (public testing already assumes you are functional in the society).
Functional and coping strategies are not he same. Kids will know all sorts of things in their L 1 that none of the Gurus ever learn--because they NEVER live int he milieu and have to be functional. They artificially talk about things like Economics when they can't fix a flat on the car, describe a sickness, buy tickets for bus, train and air travel for 3 different people.
Exactly. And coping mechanisms saying it is this thing that is long and you have a shoe (because they won't know the word for tying shoelaces either) is low level. How many kids learn this right way? It is basic to a functional L 1 speaker. Any real interpreter or translator will know this word--as will anyone who lives int he milieu where the language is used.
I didn't take it as a personal attack--as a misunderstanding of what I said: and that was the extent of it. Some of the others are trolls (like the guy on the medical dole in OZ learning Dutch because it is so pragmatic--notice he's scared to have a real name and real photo?)
Are you paying me to educate you? Then do your own research--I am not the one holding you back from learning--you are.Really people I am not here to give you a free education or ego post like U tube gurus. See my video about my role as Sam Harris of the U Tube ling/lang crowd.
As always anyone with a conflict to their fragile pundit ego should come to me in person bring your spine and tell me all about it. Funny that never happens just bravado from a basement connection to the internet (especially those with the fake names and no real photo)
As usual you have no idea what I am talking about. Re-read my replies to others on this thread (which is once again from my work and not from any one of you pundits)--there are ONLY 2 people who get it--and you're not one of them, Tom.
The area that would fit you is formal semantics. I urge you to check that out. Actually, my response video would be considered insulting to grad students in linguistics (it's just too basic--hand holding self evident material)
I did not want to mention the person who proposed the shoelace test. Now that you have mentioned Christophe Clugston's videos, though, I also recommend people watch them. They are quite entertaining.
Ive just watched about 6 of your videos in a row and Im enjoying them more and more. I came to these videos already agreeing with a lot of this already but I'm also picking bits of info up that I didnt know before as I go along. Subscribed! thanks for the great vids, keep it up.!
I understand that it is a test, but I don't understand what it is a test of. Is it just a test of whether or not you know the word shoelace? If so, it is not a very useful test.
This is not a forum, though. It is just a video on youtube, with people leaving comments. Most people will never read most of the comments, which is probably quite sensible of them.
I have no interest in engaging in any sort of dialogue with you or Clugston. I have better things to do with my time. That's the last message you'll see from me to you. Have a good day.
Personally, I do the summarizing aloud, because I want to prepare for conversations. I do know that some other people, though, prefer to practice in writing or silently thinking.
Hello i think you make a very good point here for vocabulary activation,i did not try it yet but it sounds good in theory, just wodering what the length of the material that you summarise should be. I am asking beacause i wonder if summarization of short phrases/ideas could stabilize and activate some specific structures by repeting it in the context, but at the same time it could become a little mechanical and so easily forgotten or summarise big chuncks, 2-3 phrases/ideas, and just get the main idea in your own words like the simplify, simplify,simplify method. Probably a summarisation with repetition of specific structures combined with a summarisation in our own words would work best and it is also a natural way to do it because we tend to use words/structures that we heard recently. So i am curious how you do it, and what do you think about the length of the material and how much did it help you with the activation of the vocabulary. Thank you.
How so? If someone is claiming to be highly educated in "X" field, I would expect higher professional standard than those who are not. I would question any Chemist who made several mistakes talking about medicine, especially if that person was trying to make a persuasive argument for said medicine. Likewise, I would not trust a taxi driver who has a beat up car and smells of alcohol. If you claim to be a linguist at least use proper syntax, grammar and have good composer. Sell yourself.
Definitely agree with you. The main idea about speaking other languages, is "being functional", and many people base their approach to new languages on vocabulary (which on the other hand it's important, vocabulary is needed for speaking) but once you get a basic vocabulary in any foreign language, the important thing is to know how to use it. I believe once you start to interact with the people who speak that language, vocabulary comes easily...
that when person then tries to learn those things. He/she is unable to learn them rightly because there synaptic system has been corrupted with over complicated information. Because of over complicated information when they try to learn all that or that other information gets in the way and find it hard to use the language. Stuffing the brain for 2nd LNG learning. Making there language learning take longer. (Now I could be wrong because I am no expert, yet I feel this is a logical reasoning)
大丈夫 (it's ok). I have feeling and I am no expert but I feel that there way of language teaching might be damaging for the brain in areas of 2nd language learning. The reason I say that is because they manipulate information. Like the reason humans learn languages. They say the mean reason is to exchange ideas. Yet that is untrue, We learn languages for survival and identification, all that other stuff comes after. Before we can talk about ideas, we need to able to identify who are we are(con)
I'm in the early stages of learning Yoruba as a second language and so I much appreciate this video and some other video's I've watched. Beyond personal study, I want to learn in a way that is sociable, participatory and fun. To me confidence to 'speak up' is key to communication. In the early stages this can be a challenge. In my view learning about different approaches and adapting them to personal needs helps develop a personal method of acquiring or learning a language. Thanks for sharing.
Are you seriously doubting that field linguistics is actually about documenting/describing languages, and not about becoming fluent? Do you even know anything about linguistics? This is a serious question, because I don't think you do. -In case you plan to interrogate me on my credentials, I'm a very experienced, straight-A linguistics major who constantly speaks with all of his professors, ones who *actually* do research and field linguistics.
-I'm a linguistics student at the moment, and I'd just like to mention that not all linguists are as stuck up or ignorant as he is. I've only watch a few of his rage-fueled videos, but, at least by my guess, he doesn't have all that much (if any) credibility or knowledge of other languages or of linguistics. Half of the things he says seems to be contradictory to the opinions of modern linguists. I can't believe people still take him seriously.
And in this last video of yours you "defined" being functional as knowing everything. The common understanding of being functional in a language is the ability to function in a language and to extend your knowledge of the language without any help from using any other language. Simply put, if you are able to understand language instruction in the language itself without using bilingual dictionary and to get your meaning across with whatever words you managed to remember, you are functional.
You always reference to field linguistics and how it teaches you to become fluent in any language you wish. However, field linguistics have nothing to do with becoming functional or fluent in a language or even being able to use the language for communicating. All it does is documenting and describing. linguistics (dot) ualberta (dot) ca/en/UndergraduateProgram/AboutLinguistics/FieldLinguistics.aspx
Please explain me how I attack or demeans women by admitting your female behavior??? Are you really so bad that it is insulting for women to compare you with them??? I have never said that women are less value of something. I have just said that men and women are different. I was attacking you personally and you cry "hey, girls, we are being offended!!!!" trying to shift everything to politics. Good defense tactic though, my wife always use it.
Then, could you please clearly define what you mean by functional. Don't you find it strange that most of the pundits doesn't understand you? And only two of them managed to understand because they want to look special. You said something like "they are not functional! they're not functional! they cannot describe their injuries to ambulance and they doesn't know word for shoelaces". Then, when you receive a reply rebutting you, you say "you all have understood me wrong".
I agree with you on both points: 1. the video was more about how to cope with the vocabulary that you already have and 2. Clugston's method is a simplification (heuristic) => read "Blink" from M. Gladwell. Its usefulness however can only be determined by real world use, meaning you could be right and a more thorough test would always be needed or Clugston's method could significantly shorten the assessment time for fluency. Only data can tell (which i don't have).Thanks for your fruitful input!
I don't think I offended any sensible women who understands her role in the society and those fundamental physiological and psychological differences between men and women. Maybe I have offended some feminist mutants and those week who dance to their tune. And I don't mind. Let's not slip to debates about feminism. It's not the topic of this video, which is a great piece of advice for language learning. My sincere gratitude to the author.
(i have read the first version of your comment and you managed to delete it while i was writing a response since I've already written it, here it is ) Your message was a reply to my comment so I replied to it in turn. It's very women to criticize and mock your opponent's way of speech instead when you have no more counterargument left. Your opinion of my usage of capitalization was unnecessary. As we Russians say: don't tell me what to do and I won't tell you where to go.
How on earth can coming across the word shoelace be a byproduct of being fluent??? Fluency is a result and not the cause of having vast vocabulary. Knowing word shoelace isn't the cause of fluency nor it is a symptom of it. I have had shoelace in my passive vocabulary when Clugston mentioned it. Yet before I had this discussion I would never be able to remember it if I were to say something about shoelaces because when I see them I think "шнурки" because I'm Russian.
They weren't talking about fluency at all. They talked about being functional or not and being unable to describe your injury to the ambulance without knowing word "shoelace". haha. Fluency on the other hand is about rate of speech(like in "rate of fire"). You can never be fluent no matter how many words you know unless you can rapidly describe an unknown term in other words because there will always be words that you lack.
I'm convinced that Clugston does what he does only out of jealousy. He can't live with that somebody learn languages without having a degree in linguistics. And those who support him seem to have same motives. I thing Christophe have wrong understanding of purpose of education. Which is to get you to the point where you can learn on your own and not just job training. That means that you don't have to study linguistics at the university if you already have a degree in chemistry.
Allow me to disagree. I think the point was made and nothing was missed. Clugston's point was that those who he hates so much aren't functional in their languages, because of their limited vocabulary. Our FluentCzech have made a clear point that being functional in a language doesn't mean knowing all important words but the ability to convey messages and to inquire for unknown terms.
Christophe, I have found numerous grammatical errors in several of your videos and comments. How can you be taken seriously when you are making mistakes in your native tongue? Also in regards to your fighting methods, when in world am I ever going to have to fight like the Viking ??!?!? When I travel back in time to fight ancient Icelanders?
I asked where to buy pedra pomes in Brazil and the workers in the supermarket did not know what it was, so I pantomimed and the they knew immediately. The word was on the product, but it goes to show even native speakers are not going to know every word. You have great suggestions FluentCzech. I use synonyms a lot as well.
The only reason people (including me) take him seriously is that he have some supporters claiming understanding of his obscure talks. I didn't know if they really have some solid based objections about language learning or they share same jealousy, driving their hatred. I don't know and I don't want to know any more.
Hi, Christophe, how are you? Sometimes I just want to greet you but you have blacklisted me despite me having real name(i have reasons for not sharing my photo). As I understand, you see "functional" as discrete state. One can be either functional or not. So why do your fellow linguists create such things as Common European Framework of Reference???
Aha! You're not functional in English because you didn't know some people say "shoestring!" lol By the way, I'm also American and most people I know personally prefer "shoelace" although "shoestring" is no less correct. There are many people in many regions of the US that speak so differently, sometimes an American can be harder to understand for me than an Englishman.
@christopheclugston Why don't you produce a product or service that informs and brings people up to the Clugston level of functionality? If none of the other services or methods meet your standard, why not make money and a service that revolutionizes the way second languages are acquired?
Nobody asks you for educating anybody. Just make yourself clear. When you accuse somebody of incompetence you'd better be clear and leave no room for misunderstanding. Otherwise it seems you don't know what you're talking about and just insulting people for the sake of it.
I know what I've written. And I meant it. There is no need to recite me my own words. It is so women to accuse others of bad manners wile being impolite oneself. I repeat: don't tell me what to do and I won't tell you where to go. I thank you for such a entertaining discussion. Farewell.
You'd better address this to HIS MAJESTY THE LINGUIST Christophe Clugston. Because, he is the one who used "functional" while condemning and insulting other language enthusiasts. And why should I disagree if you just restated the same thought in other more vague words.
Great video. I think you're saying fluency would be helped more by struggling to talk around a word rather than simply looking it up. That makes sense if you define fluency as the ease in which you put your [possibly limited] words into use. Thanks for sharing.
Functional means "capable of operating", so if you are capable of operating in a milieu, not restricted by your language, then your language is functional. Your argument is that a person can be functional without being native-level fluent. FluentC, you are spot on.
Oops one mistake on my message. It is suppose to be "I pantomimed and they knew immediately." not "I pantomimed and the they knew immediately." have pointed out my own mistake, before someone pounces on it and makes a sarcastic remark.
I'm Russian engaging in discussion on RU-vid who agrees with Brit learning Czech. I don't understand what you are trying to prove. Is it that you are right and everybody else are has less insight? You can be as right as you want to be...
We also use the term to talk about things that are really skinny, like "shoestring fries," but I guess for you they'd be "shoelace chips"... lol. Somehow, they don't sound as appetizing that way...:)
entertaining is a nice word... haha in some videos he has some valuable information which I very much appreciate. Other videos end up being pure vitriol, can't watch those
