Video of The World's Greatest Polyglot: Multilingual

K. T.   Sat Nov 17, 2007 8:57 pm GMT
I'm sure many of you would like to see this. It's not a show in English, but probably some of you will recognize your native languages and may wish to comment.

Type in "Ziad Fazah" on youtube, or type the address below


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8FXzkwZhE
K. T.   Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:05 pm GMT
It seems to me that he wasn't able to understand a simple sentence in Russian. Am I wrong about that?
Yop   Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:32 pm GMT
He's a complete fraud! You can tell from the guests's face that they are not quite convinced by the guy's "translation" of what they said. But it's the Farsi speaker who really speak out: "He managed to read 5% of what represents 100% of the Farsi language", and after his faux translation: "Sorry, that's not what I asked".
And you're correct, he wasn't able to respond at all to the Russian speaker.
K. T.   Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:52 pm GMT
I know it's a tough thing to interpret on the spot, but I can't believe he knows Russian at all OR else he was having trouble hearing the speakers and started guessing.
Guest   Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:13 pm GMT
He's certainly not "fluent" in any of the languages, maybe he knows the basics but not enough to put it on his "list". He should definately knwo simple frases like "what day is it" in russian.
K. T.   Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:24 pm GMT
I read that there is a second part where he does better, I think.
Guest   Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:43 pm GMT
Even so, it would not be that hard to speak 20-30 languages to that "reasonable' level, you just need to be unemployed.
Xie   Sun Nov 18, 2007 4:50 am GMT
Any subtitles please? Through wild guess, I can only tell that he didn't seem to have answered (or known) "the (most obvious/only) man-made construction works that can be seen from the moon" in Mandarin, which, as some of you should know, is the Great Wall. I DIDN'T hear anything like "chang2 cheng2". Or was I "hard" of hearing?
Xie   Sun Nov 18, 2007 4:52 am GMT
Supplement: "The only"

I don't know Portuguese, but ... hm, it seems like the people and the Chinese man are startled.
Guest   Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:14 am GMT
This lady does it better!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS_vAYHok9c
Yop   Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:23 am GMT
Xie,

the man didn't answer the question, he translated it. Well, actually he pretended to. His translation: "Where did you learn the knowledge (sic) of the Chinese language, and also, where did you absorb (sic) it with ease?"

PS: the show is in Spanish not in Portuguese ;-)
Guest   Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:28 am GMT
This Peruvian boy does a better job then that PHONEY old man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYhsmgEv-yo
K. T.   Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:33 am GMT
Xie,

The show was in Spanish. The first lady spoke Finnish. The second man said his language was Farsi (Persian/Iranian), the third was Russian, the fourth, Mandarin and the last one was, hmmm, not sure, probably Greek, if I had to bet.

I'm not sure how to put subtitles on a youtube video.

Thanks for your take on the Mandarin.
K. T.   Sun Nov 18, 2007 8:37 am GMT
I just saw Yop's message. Xie probably thought it was Portuguese because ZF lives in Brazil.
Guest   Sun Nov 18, 2007 10:34 am GMT
I am disappointed in Ziad. He was my hero.