World’s Greatest Living Polyglot

Who is this Ziad Fazah?

For those of you who know nothing about him, Ziad Fazah is probably the greatest living polyglot, for he is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for knowing 56 languages. Here is what I've found on net about him….

Fazah was born in Liberia but while still an infant moved with his Lebanese parents to Beirut. "By the time I was 17, I spoke 54 languages," Fazah said during an interview at his small, dark apartment in the middle-class neighbourhood of Flamingo. Aside from his mother tongue of Arabic, and French and English, which he learned at school, Fazah taught himself all the languages. He began with German and moved on to such Far Eastern tongues as Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese and Japanese.

At the age of 17 the Lebanese government called on him to interpret for a visiting delegation from Turkey. "When I began learning Chinese I went to the consulate of Formosa but they told me I couldn't learn it by myself," said Fazah. Determined, he bought a grammar book and a dictionary. "Two months later I went back to the consulate and they were so amazed they offered me a trip to Taipei. But I was in school at the time and could not go."

Two years ago Fazah came to international attention when he had his abilities tested on a televised program in Spain. "They brought in people from Mongolia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand," said Fazah, whose business cards proclaim the fact that he "reads, writes and speaks 54 languages fluently." (Since printing the cards he has picked up two more languages.) He also participated in a program in Greece, where he was tested in Hungarian, Czech, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

It's really amazing that he learned all the languages by the time he was 17. Could you believe this?  If we assume that he started learning languages at the age of 7, it means he finished 51 languages in a span of 10 years, around 5 languages per year. That is a rate of one language per two months. Fazah claimed that in seven years he could learn the rest of the world's estimated 3,000 dialects. But his dream is to create a universal language that would be written as it is spoken.

Amazing person!!

Shashi’s pronunciation report

Content studied: Linguist learner of the month

Linguist Digest: volume 1 Issue 23

   My recording

Jill's recording

Download MP3 files: Linguist learner of the month

Transcript:

Kathy Su, a 38 year-old businesswoman from China who immigrated to Canada two years ago, is April’s Linguist Learner of the Month. She lives in Vancouver and she must often visit Canadian and American clients. She used to employ translators but now she is able to communicate with her clients in English and does not need to hire translators.

Kathy has been learning English for close to thirteen years. She began learning at high school and she continued learning at university. After university, she frequently went to night school and she was enrolled in an ESL class for one and half years when she came to Canada. Kathy says, “Even though I have learned for thirteen years, I cannot speak or understand English. I can only read and write. They always taught me about the grammar at those schools.”

She has been learning with The Linguist system for five months and she really enjoys it because it is completely different from any of the other methods she has tried. Kathy explains:

I don’t need to learn boring grammar anymore. I just read the articles and save the phrases, and then I gradually understand the conventional usage.Also, the articles are interesting and real, not boring and artificial.

Since becoming a member of The Linguist in October, Kathy says that she has learned enough to understand most English television shows; she is not afraid to speak with people on the phone anymore; her vocabulary has increased significantly; and her pronunciation has improved because she always reads content items out loud. Kathy’s husband has also noticed her improvement. He used to speak English better than her, but now she speaks better than him!