About Dennis' English...

[IMPERIUS]

On 2. 7. 2016 at 2:43 PM, theninja35 said:

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

thats kinda different don't you think? They aren't working in a japanese or whatever speaking country, while he is living and working in an english speaking country, therefore should do better

[theninja35]

4 minutes ago, IMPERIUS said:

thats kinda different don't you think? They aren't working in a japanese or whatever speaking country, while he is living and working in an english speaking country, therefore should do better

Yeah, but if I was practically living with a foreign person, I'd like to get to know their language. That case is similar with exchange students, I'm sure they would like to know each other's language.

[IMPERIUS]

19 minutes ago, theninja35 said:

Yeah, but if I was practically living with a foreign person, I'd like to get to know their language. That case is similar with exchange students, I'm sure they would like to know each other's language.

But they have absolutely no need to know his language and they aren't exchange students (which btw makes your point counter itself, foreign students are in a country that probably doesn't speak their language)

[TheRisingMyth]

Wow... I changed my mind completely. Thanks guys.

[TheRisingMyth]

On 7/2/2016 at 3:15 PM, 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.

 

Your analytical skills. BRUH.

[laminutederire]

On Saturday, July 02, 2016 at 4:40 PM, 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.

 

That's basically why most Chinese students struggle in higher education places in Europe or in North America.

However I think there are also cultural feats that prevent them to impure as much as they could. I've noticed that Chinese and Spanish students aren't very outgoing to other students and thereby form small clusters where they talk to each other in their own language.

When they have to talk to other, they can but it feels like it isn't their natural instinct to do so, preventing them to practice as much as they could when they're studying abroad.

 

On Saturday, July 02, 2016 at 2:38 PM, 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.

Besides he speaks okay compared to a loooooot of foreigners, so he doesn't have anything to be blamed for. I've seen people with worse language skills in their own native language, so that gives you depth of field to see he isn't that bad.

[saras]

On 7/2/2016 at 9:49 PM, neebuilda said:

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.

That's basically what I assumed. 

 

He's not used to being on camera and he's shy about answering stuff when he's put on the spot. Let him do actual presentation roles on camera and he'll improve quickly. FFS, Luke was terrible at first as well. It's a skill people need to learn to do right.