About Dennis' English...

[TheRisingMyth]

Ok... How come that he stayed this long on the team, and still suck that much ? I learned a while back from cobbled up info that his relationship with LMG was somehow "mutually" beneficial to his linguistic credentials but honestly... I've seen ESL students do much much better than him. Easily.

 

I'm not insulting the guys learning skills, but God... talk about a company not keeping their end of the bargain.

[theninja35]

Well none of them are learning Dennis' language, either.

[JamGorby]

Why do you care? What a stupid post. 

[TheRisingMyth]

6 minutes ago, JamGorby said:

Why do you care? What a stupid post. 

Dennis is undeniably their laughing stock... I'd like a gimmick to at least not get hung up every each two words.

[Misanthrope]

Do you think you'd fare well if you went to Russia?

 

Asian languages basically have no context vs English. Almost no points of comparisson or similarities at all. Not only that but vowels, consonants and sounds, all of it are just completely fucking different sounds.

 

 

[Totallycasual]

1 hour ago, TheRisingMyth said:

I'm not insulting the guys learning skills, but God... talk about a company not keeping their end of the bargain.

Seems like a pretty mean post in general  

 

I have some friends that have been in Australia for 10+ years and their English is still not as good as Dennis's, he's a productive member of the team and honestly one of my favorites! 

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, TheRisingMyth said:

Ok... How come that he stayed this long on the team, and still suck that much ? I learned a while back from cobbled up info that his relationship with LMG was somehow "mutually" beneficial to his linguistic credentials but honestly... I've seen ESL students do much much better than him. Easily.

 

I'm not insulting the guys learning skills, but God... talk about a company not keeping their end of the bargain.

Have you ever tried to learn a new language?

 

Now, have you ever tried to learn a new language once you're in your 20's?

 

The short of it is this:

When humans are young, our brains are fucking insanely awesome. Our learning capacity is at an all time high, and has high elasticity. We are able to learn new languages very easily, and given a young enough age, are able to even adopt a mostly local accent.

 

When humans end puberty and hit their 20's, their ability to learn a new language is significantly diminished. It's not impossible by any stretch. But even when they can, it's difficult to learn the local accent.

 

Dennis probably didn't start learning English until he was a teenager or possibly even in College. He likely didn't have regular lessons in English his entire life.

 

The whole reason Dennis got hired is this:

1. He went to College with some of the staff (Not sure who, Brandon and Edzel I think? Possibly Nick V, not 100%) so they knew him very well before even considering him as a staff member.

2. He's Taiwanese, and therefore knows Mandarin - also known as Chinese (one of variants). Part of his role is to integrate LMG content into the Chinese market. They have a VOD platform that is very popular in China that Dennis translates the videos and uploads them.

3. He's apparently actually quite good at his job in general.

 

He's surrounded by native English speaking people on a daily basis, all day, every day. His English will get better, but it's a slow process. There's not much else that LMG can do for his English - even paying for English lessons likely wouldn't speed up the process much, since he's already speaking English every single day.

[Misanthrope]

10 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Have you ever tried to learn a new language?

 

Now, have you ever tried to learn a new language once you're in your 20's?

 

The short of it is this:

When humans are young, our brains are fucking insanely awesome. Our learning capacity is at an all time high, and has high elasticity. We are able to learn new languages very easily, and given a young enough age, are able to even adopt a mostly local accent.

 

When humans end puberty and hit their 20's, their ability to learn a new language is significantly diminished. It's not impossible by any stretch. But even when they can, it's difficult to learn the local accent.

 

Dennis probably didn't start learning English until he was a teenager or possibly even in College. He likely didn't have regular lessons in English his entire life.

 

The whole reason Dennis got hired is this:

1. He went to College with some of the staff (Not sure who, Brandon and Edzel I think? Possibly Nick V, not 100%) so they knew him very well before even considering him as a staff member.

2. He's Taiwanese, and therefore knows Mandarin - also known as Chinese (one of variants). Part of his role is to integrate LMG content into the Chinese market. They have a VOD platform that is very popular in China that Dennis translates the videos and uploads them.

3. He's apparently actually quite good at his job in general.

 

He's surrounded by native English speaking people on a daily basis, all day, every day. His English will get better, but it's a slow process. There's not much else that LMG can do for his English - even paying for English lessons likely wouldn't speed up the process much, since he's already speaking English every single day.

I'd add 4. He's just a lovable nerd overall: perfect fit for the LMG team.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I'd add 4. He's just a lovable nerd overall: perfect fit for the LMG team.

I agree. Although I personally don't like the "Here's Dennis doing weird Dennis-y things and here's LMG being fake rude to him" videos, because they're a bit more childish and aimed at the younger demographic (You know, the 12-15 year olds mostly). But they aren't bad videos, just not my taste.

 

I also don't begrudge LMG for making those videos. I simply watch what I enjoy, and skip the rest. Anything I don't like, is not a problem. Because there are thousands or millions of us that do like those videos, so therefore that's awesome.

[ThinkWithPortals]

1 hour ago, TheRisingMyth said:

Ok... How come that he stayed this long on the team, and still suck that much ? I learned a while back from cobbled up info that his relationship with LMG was somehow "mutually" beneficial to his linguistic credentials but honestly... I've seen ESL students do much much better than him. Easily.

 

I'm not insulting the guys learning skills, but God... talk about a company not keeping their end of the bargain.

You clearly haven't got a clue about how hard it is to learn a language, especially one that doesn't use the learner's native alphabet. It doesn't help that English and the oriental languages have basically no similarities.

And his English isn't bad. Everything he says is perfectly understandable. He does have a very strong accent, but that's hard to get rid of.

 

[dalekphalm]

6 minutes ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

You clearly haven't got a clue about how hard it is to learn a language, especially one that doesn't use the learner's native alphabet. It doesn't help that English and the oriental languages have basically no similarities.

And his English isn't bad. Everything he says is perfectly understandable. He does have a very strong accent, but that's hard to get rid of.

 

If Dennis says in Canada, he MIGHT get rid of his accent in 15, 20 years? Not any time soon, that's for sure.

[No]

does it really matter lmao

[Misanthrope]

35 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

If Dennis says in Canada, he MIGHT get rid of his accent in 15, 20 years? Not any time soon, that's for sure.

It also depends on the listener: many people that are non native English speakers say I sound just like an American when I talk yet any American that hears me talk immediately goes "Ajuaaa amigo una cerveza por favor!!!"

[ThinkWithPortals]

1 hour ago, Misanthrope said:

It also depends on the listener: many people that are non native English speakers say I sound just like an American when I talk yet any American that hears me talk immediately goes "Ajuaaa amigo una cerveza por favor!!!"

¡Si, quiero una cerveza tambien, por favor!

[Volbet]

One thing is for certain. His English is much better than mine. 

My English pretty much sucks. 

Dennis only really have an accent while I usually struggle with finding the right words and using direct translations of local mannerisms.

 

But I can say that English is incredibly hard to learn when your main point of reference is an Asian language (in my case it was Cantonese). 

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

It also depends on the listener: many people that are non native English speakers say I sound just like an American when I talk yet any American that hears me talk immediately goes "Ajuaaa amigo una cerveza por favor!!!"

I bet that gets old really fast

[Tech_Dreamer]

If his English is that bad, Then why do all the Asians wanna be him?

 

[neebuilda]

I had seen some stuff he had written, and some videos where he is not under any pressure, and his english was very good. It just comes across worse on things like channel Superfun because of his accent, and the fact he is probably kinda shy.

[minibois]

There are people in the country that I live in that still speak terrible <insert the language I speak here>. Dennis' English (accent) is honestly not terrible. The team can understand him and so can I. Comparing his first appearance (in one of the first moving vlogs) to his latest appearances it has gotten better.

Edited July 3, 2016 by Minibois
I shouldn't write posts this late, fixed some grammar and sentence structures

[terrytek]

i remember i had a friend who was an exchange student from taiwan. like when i met him the first day of school. he didn't speak a lick of english. but as school went on, he started getting accustomed to the english language, even picking up some aspects of american culture, like cussing (that was like surprising since he spoke little english) and football and other things. by the end of this past school year, his english wasn't great still, but it was much better than the first day i met him.

[Donut417]

First of all his English is a shit ton better then some of the foreigners here in the US. Hell when I worked in fast food quite a few of them would just point to the menu to tell you what they wanted. Or they had that one friend who knew how to speak English. Its really sad. Dennis to me has passable English. Plus considering its the hardest language to learn and does quite well. 

[Castdeath97]

I thought the posts questioning Dennis hire decision have stopped?

[TopWargamer]

14 hours ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

If his English is that bad, Then why do all the Asians wanna be him?

 

The man's English is on point!

 

 

[Guest Kloaked]

19 hours ago, TheRisingMyth said:

Dennis is undeniably their laughing stock... I'd like a gimmick to at least not get hung up every each two words.

That's the point. It's funny.

[Misanthrope]

18 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I bet that gets old really fast

Not as fast as "I wanna speak with a real American!" (Favorite of mine given where Mexico is located) and "Put me with your supervisor!"