Part 3 - Stu Jay Raj -Poly Glot - Dreaming Dictionaries

[Aoploy]

tu parle francais aussi ?

[stujaystujay]

@Aoploy sadly not on the list - but I anticipate that it will be one day

[stratosl]

You are really admirable! Have you ever considered to learn greek?

[stujaystujay]

@stratosl I would love to learn Greek!

[mmannwerter]

พี่เจเก่งจริงๆ เด็กไทยสมัยนี้แค่ พิมพ์ เขียนให้ถูกยังไม่ค่อยจะทำกันเล­ย

[Sturak]

Stu, você fala português? Qual foi o idioma mais dificil de aprender, e porque? abraço

[natbam12]

เก่งมากเลยครับพี่ ผมจำ4ภาษายังจะตายแล้วเลย

[AtomikNY]

LOL, you know you're a language nerd when you immediately see that pile of books and exclaim "I have that book!" before they even explain what they are.

[corchox]

wow that is impressive to say the least. on a side note, those two chinese men were a bit aggressive in their questioning. they would constantly interrupt and they were quite rude.

[AtomikNY]

They're Thai, not Chinese.

[ben4713906]

kamu tau bahasa GAUL?? bahasa ini biasa di pakai anak2 muda dikota besar, contoh: akika tinta makarena. artinya aku tidak makan. :)

[stujaystujay]

iya... aq prnh beli kamu bhs GAUL d jkt :) lucu banget.

[ben4713906]

pernah tinggal di Indonesia juga kah? ada satu bahasa 'slang' di kalangan anak muda indonesia saat ini. disebut 'bahasa gaul'. kamusnya sudah dibuat oleh deby sahertian, kamu tahu tahu bahasa gaul yg saya maksud? atau pernah belajar juga?

saya merasa malu sebagai bangsa Indonesia sendiri tapi ga tau bahasa jawa....hehe, tapi kamu bisa. sukses selalu ya bro!!

[ben4713906]

who teach you Indonesian language?? ever stay in Indonesia?

[stujaystujay]

spoke indonesian since my younger days

[RedMarsMom]

Amazing. Thank you for sharing this.

[ccarlsen08]

haha snedigt trick, til at lære dansk, du fandt på som barn ;)

[bobdacker]

Is Cracking the Chinese Puzzles by T.K.Ann in simplified or traditional?

[stujaystujay]

The great thing about Cracking the Chinese Puzzles is that it is both simplified and traditional.

[bobdacker]

Is that tk ann book simplified or traditional?

[brightlights456X]

The phonebook idea was pretty cool. Also, to meet peole who speak the language one wants to learn and engulf within the community is unique. I will try that one.

On a side note, I like the way the interviewers are asking probing question.

"Do you have the time to just sit around reading dictionaries?"

LOL

[westfinearts]

Your Thai accent/speed/etcetera is terrific... met few able to pick it up with such an accent. Not too modest though?

[maeyako]

I'm learning Chinese and Japanese ^_^ I wish to become like you... someday.

Also, I'm nearly but not quite yet fluent in Japanese and nearly but not quite intermediate in Chinese.

[qzchris]

Thanks a lot for recommending the TK Ann book; I picked it up the other day (cost a small fortune!) and looks very interesting.

[DopeSpace9]

what is the book for chinese that he holds up? i can't quite make it out.

[stujaystujay]

The name of that book is "Cracking the Chinese Puzzles" by T.K.Ann

There is a 5 volume hard cover series and an abridged soft cover. The book I hold up there is the abridged edition and has served me well over the years (as you can see from its diminishing state!)

[Bellantoni]

For all us little stu jay rajs out there, could you say what are the most fun grammar/language books you've ever read, so we could go and buy them. Cause I'm trying to be like Harold Williams when they said of him: "he read grammars the way other people read detective novels." I heard that and thought "what a good idea!" But some grammars read like an instruction manuel for your sink, and I've heard about others that read like Don Quixote- which ones are those?

[stujaystujay]

Bellantoni - that's like saying 'What's your favourite ice-cream?'! :)

There are some good ones, there are some great ones and there are some downright bad ones that you wouldn't even feed to your dog!

Some of the particularly bad ones include some of the Sanskrit grammars from the turn of the century.

One of the best one's I've read over the past few years is Rupert Snell's Teach Yourself Hindi.

[stujaystujay]

Buying a 'Teach Yourself' brand book is always Pot-Luck, Snell has presented the language / grammar as a Bollywood stage-play. Really brilliant.

I'm currently reading the 'Burmese for Beginners' book and it's actually one of the better laid out language books that I have.

[stujaystujay]

Another great book is Colloquial Cantonese and Putonghua equivalents by Zeng ZiFan. Even if you're not after the Cantonese, it has really good specimens of colloquial language - and you might just get a bug to learn Cantonese from it.

[DopeSpace9]

Thanks a lot for your response! I'm definitely picking these up!

[kapowz3r]

Pareto's principle.

[neoguy9090]

Yes, an inspiration!

I've been spurred to work harder on my foreign languages!

[PingoWho]

Yes, he is such an inspiration, wow!!! :D

[dlapio]

I have watched a show on Discovery about people like Stuart. People with increadible memory, like perfecting so many languages, memorising entire books, yet forgetting simple things like where they put their keys or what's the name of a person they recently met. I think the show was about savants.

[Punraz]

One of those people was most likely Kim Peek.

[MagicMaximo]

wow! What an inspiration!

[Leed86012000]

4000 word a week? cool.

[Leed86012000]

4-5000 word a day? amazing

[crimsonvermilion]

that's insanity.

[andromeda03]

I'd like speak many languages like him