Art of Fighting: Hide-its the fight in the dog!

 

A Lesson in Perseverance, or Proof that Talent Means Nothing

By Antonio Graceffo

Robert M. Clyne, host of “The Art of Fighting,” made this incredible video about his friend and loosing fighter, Hide, who lives in Tokyo. Hearing what Robert has to say about Hide, I came off lucky in my appearances on The Art of Fighting.

“Hide is what most people consider a looser. He works as a dishwasher. He is not very handsome. The police don’t like him. He dropped out of school. He has almost never had a girlfriend. He doesn’t have cool clothes or tattoos. He’s not very athletic, and he’s actually a pretty skilless fighter.”

“But Hide has heart. That is something you can’t buy and you can’t fake.”

Robert Clyne on “The Art of Fighting”

Out of all the episodes of “Fight Japan” and “The Art of Fighting” I relate to the Hide character the most. For some reason, certain people are just dealt a lesser hand from the start. Things are always harder on these people. But whether you have innate talent or not, life is all about what you, yourself do with it.

Watch: The Art of Fighting: Hide-its the fight in the dog!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOAmz-7PHDM

When the chips are down and the deck is stacked against you, when you have nothing left, remember that there is always a chance. There is always an “if”, the most powerful word on the planet.

Fail the first one hundred times but come back and win the hundred-and-first.

“If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;”

“If,” by Rudyard Kipling

Dream and push through, make your dreams a reality, and you have won.

The winnings are tallied at the end of the fight, not at beginning of round one.

Talent is the same as capacity. It means that all thing being equal, the talented person should find it easier to succeed. It doesn’t mean that he will. The white belt who never quits eventually becomes the black belt. And it has NOTHING to do with talent. Countless people write to me on the internet and tell me how they believe themselves to be talented language learners, or that they have this or that innate advantage for learning foreign language. And they may have a greater capacity or a more probable rate of success, and yet NONE of them speak eight languages. The vast majority haven’t mastered even a single second-language.

Talent should just make the trip easier and shorter, but you still have to complete it, which is the point that most people fail to see and the point which separates a looser from a winner.

There are countless people with lots of talent standing in bread lines.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.”

n      (John) Calvin Coolidge

And finally, no matter how badly you fail. No matter what advantages the other guy has, don’t let anyone take your dreams. Never stop dreaming. No one owns you, and no one has the right to dictate what happens in your head. You own your dreams.

Dream big, but then make your dreams a reality.

Dream a hundred dreams and complete two of them and you have doubled the success of the average person.

“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.”

                        T. E. Lawrence (from Seven Pillars) (also known as Lawrence of Arabia)

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Parts ( 1 – 8 )

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kleow4PEh_k

Robert Clyne, host and creator of “The Art of Fighting”, conducts an in depth interview with Antonio Graceffo, the Monk from Brooklyn. Beginning with his childhood in New York and tracing his family move to Tennessee. Antonio talks about his early years and how he first got into martial arts. In this extremely candid interview Antonio talks about his family and the events of his childhood which set the stage for his years of wandering and fighting in Asia.

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kleow4PEh_k

Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. He is the author of the book, “The Monk from Brooklyn” and the host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts Odyssey,” which traces his ongoing journey through Asia, learning martial arts in various countries.

See all of Antonio’s videos on his youtube channel, brooklynmonk1, send him a friend request or subscribe.

http://www.youtube.com/user/brooklynmonk1

His books are available on amazon.com

Contact him: Antonio@speakingadventure.com

His website is www.speakingadventure.com

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Empty Compliments and the Language Learner

 By Antonio Graceffo

Meeting a new Thai person I simply said “Sawadis krap.” Without a second’s hesitation, he said, in English “You Speak Thai very well.” Was I supposed to feel encouraged? Should my head have swollen to monumental proportions because of this meaningful recognition of my linguistic prowess? I simply answered with a question. “How would you know?” In Taiwan, I walked into the staff room of my new job and said to a Chinese teacher, in Chinese, “I am teaching level Seven-A tonight. Where would I find the resources and course outline?” She answered, in English, “Wow! Cool, you speak Chinese.” And then she walked away, without answering my question. So much of learning a language is actually about learning the culture. In Asia, people seem to enjoy bestowing, and I assume, receiving completely empty compliments. I was actually told in a school in Korea that I should make it a point to tell my female students that they were very beautiful and their English was good. It sort of made me feel ooky because I don’t think it is appropriate for a teacher to tell a student that they are beautiful or handsome or sexy or cute. There are people who have said things like that to students in America, and now Megan’s Law prohibits them from coming within 1,000 feet of a school. Also, I would hate to have to wear one of those ankle bracelets that alerts the police every time I leave the house. On my list of pet-peeves, a list so large that it can be seen from space, is foreigners who buy into these compliments when they are learning an Asian language. A friend of mine in Vietnam is really doing everything right, as far as learning Vietnamese. So, I want to be supportive and encourage him. He has learned more in seven months than most people will learn in countless years, simply because he is attending classes and doing self-study. But, even this friend, call him C3-PO, bought into the false compliment game. C3-PO told me, “My pronunciation is nearly perfect.” “How do you know?” I asked, as it takes more than 1,000 hours of listening to achieve perfect pronunciation in Vietnamese. “Because everywhere I go and speak Vietnamese, people compliment me.” C3-PO answered. And so I asked C3-PO, “Have you ever heard a non-native speaker, speaking English?” “Of course I have. I am an English teacher. I have heard thousands of them.” He answered. “My parents aren’t even native speakers.” “Do you feel qualified to evaluate if someone speaks English well or not?” “Yes, of course, I am a placement tester at my school?” answered C3-PO. “Do you think the Vietnamese people who complimented your Vietnamese pronunciation were placement testers at schools?” As native speakers of English we have grown up listening to foreign accents. In my case, it is extreme because I come from New York City where nearly 100% of my classmates were first or second generation immigrants whose grandparents, and often their parents were not native speakers. But even if you are from a homogenous American neighborhood in Ohio, you grew up watching American movies and TV shows which took place in foreign countries or had foreign characters speaking English. I learned to do the Italian and Spanish accents at home, but I learned the German accent from watching “Hogan’s Heroes,” Japanese from “McHales Navy”, Swedish from “The Muppets”, and most of the others from Bugs Bunny. Asians generally haven’t had this experience. Nowadays, they get American movies in English with subtitles or dubbed into their native language, but they almost never have foreign characters in their movies speaking their language. Think of movies like “The Last Emperor” a movie about the history of China made by an American company for an American audience. Asian countries don’t make historical epics about famous western people. “Shogun” an American movie set in feudal Japan, about a European sailor. There is no analogous movie in Asia. Americans, particularly those who have traveled or are more global, would recognize from someone’s accent if they are French or Japanese. Most Asians haven’t heard enough foreigners speaking their language to be able to differentiate. Probably, in fairness, I would say the average American couldn’t tell from accent or appearance which Asian country someone came from. BUT we would be qualified to evaluate if their English was good or not. And most likely if we didn’t understand them at all, we wouldn’t think they spoke very well. I went on to ask C3-PO, how many non-native speakers of Vietnamese had the average Vietnamese person ever heard speaking Vietnamese? The answer is that we are still at a point that many Vietnamese have never had any significant contact with a foreigner of any kind. And the number of foreigners who speak Vietnamese is so small, relative to the number of foreigners who live in the country, the average person has no idea at all how to evaluate you. They are just so happy that you have made the attempt that they compliment you, EVEN IF they don’t understand a word that you say. And, this is where I get angry at my people and why I want to get in a boxing ring with 78% of foreigners learning Asian languages in Asia. I have witnessed, with my own eyes, literally hundreds of times that a foreigner wanted to show off how good his Thai, Khmer, Chinese, or Vietnamese was, so he spoke at length to a local. I saw the local’s face go from a fake smile, to worry, then fear, then back to worry, and finally a fake smile again. The local then said, cheerfully, “You speak so well.” And there was zero indication that they understood the foreigner at all. Often the foreigner was asking directions or some question which required an answer, or he was trying to buy something and the communication stalled the transaction. He didn’t get his answer, but he was so pleased with the complement that he happily went on his way without his insulin or whatever it was he had been trying to buy. “Wow! I must be great at this language. Everyone compliments me.” Another instance in Vietnam was a female co-worker who said, “I am gifted with languages.” This seems to be a really common belief. I receive emails and Facebook messages daily from people who believe themselves to be gifted language learners. The number of people who told me that they are gifted with languages is off the charts. And honestly, not one of these people spoke more than one foreign language well and many of them spoke zero foreign languages well. This particular girl, let’s call her Leia, went on to say, “I have been told that I have perfect pronunciation in Vietnamese.” Sadly, Leia was telling this to Vietnamese staff member, in English. And the Vietnamese staff member looked confused and surprised. Leia had only been in the country a few weeks, wasn’t attending classes, and didn’t actually speak Vietnamese at all. To me, this seems delusional. I don’t understand why these people aren’t locked up somewhere. Leia then proceeded to read the ingredients on the ketchup bottle, in Vietnamese, very badly, translating each word, wrong. Most people in Asia are very polite. Nearly all Asian cultures are confrontation avoiders and face is a huge issue. I have seen people go to ridiculous lengths of forcing themselves to see the Emperor’s New Clothes, rather than to admit that someone had made a mistake and thus cause that person to lose face. Most Asian people aren’t going to tell you to your face that your language skills suck. They won’t even admit that they don’t understand you. If you are living in Asia. Definitely study the language. Definitely make an effort to talk to people, to communicate with them. People do appreciate when you speak their language. However, only speak their language if it will facilitate communication. If the person you are talking to has excellent English, why torture them with your faulty foreign language? Less than one percent of people are gifted language learners. So, most likely, you are not one. Your native tongue doesn’t count. If you are born with five native tongues you still don’t know if you are a gifted learner or not until you actually try and learn a foreign language. If you actually speak more than three or four learned languages well, it is possible that you are gifted, but even that proves nothing. You may just be a gifted communicator. That’s what I am, a gifted communicator. I am gifted at using the small amount of language I have to communicate at a higher level. In a very fair evaluation of my Chinese, which is my best Asian language, I was told that I was lower intermediate in vocabulary, reading, writing, and grammar, but advanced in communication ability. Don’t be confused between good at communication and good at language. Many learners, when they reach a point that they can use their local language to function, they stop studying and learning. My old German professor used to call this syndrome “Me want cookie.” Everyone knows what you are saying, but you talk like a four year old. If you have a local girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, lesbian-life-partner, or friends, it still takes over 1,000 hours of listening to learn the language. But you may reach your 1,000 hours in six months instead of years. It takes extensive listening to learn pronunciation. Asian people will compliment your speaking, no matter what you say or whether they understand you or not. If you want to evaluate your Asian language skills, go to the nearest language school and take a free placement exam. They will tell you straight away what your actual academic level of fluency is. Most of your friends or people you meet on the street won’t evaluate your listening, but that is the key to the language. Your real level is the level at which you can understand, not talk. Can you sit in a café and pick up the thread of the conversation of two native speakers sitting at the next table. Can you actually, HONESTLY, participate in conversations with groups of native speakers? For example, your Chinese friends are debating the merits of pegging their currency to the dollar. In the middle of this heated debate, one of them turns to you and says in baby Chinese, “Where do you come from?” I got news for you, you are not participating in a conversation. A conversation is happening between native speakers, but they thought you looked board so they shot you a life line. Usually, you will answer and they will either return immediately to their previous conversation. Or, they may ask you two more banal questions, like “how old are you” and “do you have brothers and sisters?” No matter what you answer, they will simply return to their conversation. Either way, don’t kid yourself into believing you can hold your own in a conversation with native speakers. And of course, the final point, also the primary point, the compliment: “You speak Thai so well.” It means nothing, nothing at all. Just say “thank you” and keep studying. See Antonio Graceffo’s multipart video series for free, on youtube. ALG Vietnamese Linguistics Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLuCBEn7b7s Also see Antonio’s video ALG Vietnamese Picture Story Le Loi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNeUEzYRga4 In a recent round of interviews, networks and media sent Antonio the question via email and Antonio answered on camera. If you are interested in doing a similar interview, fire off the questions to Antonio. Antonio is looking for an opportunity to study for an MA/PHD in linguistics. Antonio Graceffo is the author of the book, “The Monk from Brooklyn,” and is he host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts odyssey.” Contact Antonio Graceffo on facebook.com Send him email Antonio@speakingadvdenture.com Vietnamese,VietnamAntonio,graceffo,Brooklyn,monk,martial,arts,linguistics,odyssey,language,acquisition,ALG,theory,growth,automatic,brown,long,david,marvin,Bangkok,Thailand,thai,Chinese,teaching,learning,studying,linguist,TESOL,TEFL,ESL,English,Second,Foreign,other,languages,AUA,Ratchadamri,Thai,long,david,ALG,learn,teach,hung,viet,kiew,Phuong,live, Nguyen,Chu,Nam,Phuong,trang,le,loi,picture,story,stories,traditional, loan,borrowed,words,vocabulary,chinese,kh,er,French,cognate,thai,Chinese,Taiwan,Thailand

Speaking Khmer in Thailand and Vietnam

By Antonio Graceffo

At my Muay Thai school in Bangkok, one of the trainers told me he could speak Khmer. He was having trouble understanding me in Thai, which I speak better than Khmer, but when I switched to Khmer, he understood everything. It turned out he was not a native speaker of Khmer. He had been a Thai soldier on the Cambodia border, for a period of years and thus learned Khmer.

So, why does he understand me, a non-native speaker of Khmer better in a language where he is also a non-native speaker? The answer I came up with was, Thai is a dominant language. Thai demands that foreigners speak Thai nearly perfectly or native-speakers won’t understand you.

(Thai is a linguistic dominant language. It doesn’t mean Thai people are not nice or that they demand perfection. It means the linguistic expectancy is that other people adapt their speaking to Thai ears as opposed to Thai ears adapting to foreign pronunciation.)

Because my trainer was not a native speaker of Khmer, he was more tolerant of my mistakes and faulty pronunciation. He was also excited about having the opportunity to practice his Khmer and particularly, to speak Khmer with a farang (foreigner, barang in Khmer), which was most likely a first time experience for him. Among the staff at the gym, his status went up because he could speak a foreign language other than English and speak it extremely well. Because he wanted to save face, he forced himself to understand me, while people were watching. If we had been speaking Thai, if he didn’t understand, or chose to not understand, then it would have been my fault for having bad pronunciation. If we are speaking Khmer and he doesn’t understand, a stander-by might think the trainer didn’t speak Khmer well. So, to save face, he forced himself to understand everything.

A few years ago, when I was working in Surin city, in Khmer Surin, a Khmer speaking province of Thailand, my Khmer was better than my Thai, and yet I found it impossible to talk to people in Khmer. I would get half way through the sentence and realize that I had switched to Thai. I attributed this difficulty to linguistic triggers caused by being in Thailand and surrounded by Thai sights and smells, which activated the Thai language in my brain and made me tongue tied when I tried to speak Khmer. 

A few months ago, I returned to Cambodia to work for two weeks. At this point, my Thai is much, much better than my Khmer because I have been attending school and working more in Thailand than in Cambodia. During those two weeks, I hired a translator and made no attempt to switch my brain to Khmer mode. Switching languages is actually painful and I didn’t see the point of going through a rocky and unpleasant shift, if at the end of two weeks I would be returning to Thailand anyway.

The last several months, I have been in Vietnam, studying Vietnamese languages, which, like Khmer, is a Mon-Khmer language. There are a lot of cognates between Khmer and Vietnamese and some of the language rhythms are the same. What I found very interesting was that while I was studying Vietnamese, my Khmer language was coming back to me, but it was interfering only minimally with my Vietnamese. Again, I thought about linguistic triggers. The culture, the sights and sounds of Vietnam are very different from Cambodia, so perhaps this prevented the language from coming out of my mouth when I was practicing Vietnamese. But, the linguistic similarities caused my long-dormant Khmer language to resurface in my brain.

Both David Long (of ALG, AUA Thai program) and I believe that cultural, rather than linguistic, similarities between languages are the most important determinates of what we learn, how we learn, and how easy it is to learn a new language. For example, Chinese native speakers, from Taiwan and China, find it easier to learn Thai than do westerners because of linguistic similarities. But Chinese native speakers from Singapore and Malaysia learn almost twice as fast because of similarities of culture.

My experience with remembering Khmer in Vietnam supports the theory that cultural, rather than linguistic similarities activate a language.

The exercise of learning Vietnamese re-awoke my Khmer language. Now I am speaking Khmer with one of my Thai coaches every day and finding it relatively easy to switch back to Thai. Soon I will be back in Cambodia for a linguistics project and I am hoping to find that Khmer language will come back to me much faster and less painfully than it did in the past, after long periods of living in Thailand.

So, what is my advice to you? If you have forgotten how to speak Khmer, but you already speak Thai, go learn Vietnamese.

Just one more piece of practical advice from a Brooklyn Monk in Asia.

See Antonio Graceffo’s multipart video series for free, on youtube.

ALG Vietnamese Linguistics Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLuCBEn7b7s

Also see Antonio’s video

ALG Vietnamese Picture Story Le Loi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNeUEzYRga4

In a recent round of interviews, networks and media sent Antonio the question via email and Antonio answered on camera. If you are interested in doing a similar interview, fire off the questions to Antonio. Antonio is looking for an opportunity to study for an MA/PHD in linguistics.

Antonio Graceffo is the author of the book, “The Monk from Brooklyn,” and is he host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts odyssey.”

Contact Antonio Graceffo on facebook.com

Send him email Antonio@speakingadvdenture.com

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Learning Vietnamese from North to South

B

y Antonio Graceffo

After three months in Hanoi I moved to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. During my time in Hanoi I had a total of about 90 hours of one-on-one Vietnamese lessons and did approximately 50 hours of self-study listening outside of class. In the weeks before I left Hanoi I noticed that sitting in a café reading a book I was able to eavesdrop on Vietnamese conversations happening at the other tables and either, pick up the thread or at least pick-out vocabulary that I knew. Watching TV news, although I couldn’t follow the stories, it was no longer one big sound all running together. I was able to isolate and identify words that I knew and words that I didn’t, occasionally understanding full sentences.

When I moved to Saigon, I immediately noticed the differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. Eavesdropping I honestly couldn’t understand anything at all. Because I follow an ALG learning program I try not to talk outside of class, for fear of permanently damaging my pronunciation through early production. But the reality of living in a foreign country where no one speaks English is that you will need to speak. When I spoke to people in Saigon they understood me. And I often understood them, because they were trying to speak standard Vietnamese. But my communication was much more limited than it was in Hanoi. Even in simple communications, like buying food, food names were different, and the pronunciation of the numbers was different.

Many people say that it is best to first learn Vietnamese in Hanoi, because it is “standard” Vietnamese. Then, later, you can learn Saigon or southern dialect. Normally, I agree that learning standard language makes the most sense. For German, for example, I learned High-German. Then, later, working in different parts of Germany, I learned to understand some of the basic and consistent differences in dialects. I never actually learned to speak dialect, but I also didn’t need to, because educated people all made an effort to speak High-German. Spanish was the same way. It would make no sense to begin your study of Spanish by learning Puerto Rican dialect. You begin by learning standard Castilian Spanish and then adapt to and adopt the dialect of places where you work or study.

With Vietnamese, I think this method is even more important than with European languages because all of the standard textbooks and listening CDs for Vietnamese language are spoken in Hanoi dialect. So, if you were in Saigon taking lessons, you would learn to read a dialogue one way in class. But, when you went home to listen to the CD it would be pronounced completely differently. With Vietnamese, I believe you should learn Hanoi dialect in Hanoi first, but then when you move to Saigon you need to have formal lessons again, using the same books, but with a southern teacher. The two dialects are quite different and it would be much better to formally study both rather than try to just acquire the second dialect through contact with locals. And by using the same textbooks twice, the patterns of differences will become clear to you much more quickly. Use a digital audio recorder to record your lessons and your southern teacher’s pronunciation. Only use your recordings for your listening practice at night. Stop using the standard CDs because they will only reinforce your northern pronunciation.

One funny linguistic note: Before I began learning Vietnamese the only exposure I had ever had to the language was in Vietnam war movies. When I took my first lessons, I remember thinking that the teacher didn’t sound anything like the people wearing black pajamas in “Apocalypse Now.” So, I thought Hollywood had lied to us. The day I arrived in Saigon, I was eating with a Vietnamese friend when he received a phone call on his mobile. When I heard him talking on the phone, he sounded exactly like those moves. I kept expecting someone in the restaurant to yell “in-coming!”

Being a hobby linguist I tried to think of why my Saigon friend sounded like the Vietcong in the movies, but the real northerners didn’t. The answer I came up with was that the majority of Vietnamese in the United States are probably southerners who worked with the Americans or found some way to leave the country. Vietcong extras in US war movies are probably taken from local Vietnamese communities in California, which are composed almost exclusively of southern Vietnamese.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Hollywood hadn’t lied to us. I could still trust the lessons I learned from TV and movies. Sadly, though, they had mislead us.

See Antonio Graceffo’s multipart video series for free, on youtube.

ALG Vietnamese Linguistics Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLuCBEn7b7s

Also see Antonio’s video

ALG Vietnamese Picture Story Le Loi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNeUEzYRga4

In a recent round of interviews, networks and media sent Antonio the question via email and Antonio answered on camera. If you are interested in doing a similar interview, fire off the questions to Antonio. Antonio is looking for an opportunity to study for an MA/PHD in linguistics.

Antonio Graceffo is the author of the book, “The Monk from Brooklyn,” and is he host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts odyssey.”

Contact Antonio Graceffo on facebook.com

Send him email Antonio@speakingadvdenture.com

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The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Parts ( 1 – 8 )

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk 1

Robert Clyne, host and creator of “The Art of Fighting”, conducts an in depth interview with Antonio Graceffo, the Monk from Brooklyn. Beginning with his childhood in New York and tracing his family move to Tennessee. Antonio talks about his early years and how he first got into martial arts. In this extremely candid interview Antonio talks about his family and the events of his childhood which set the stage for his years of wandering and fighting.

The interview is at times both humorous and painful, as Antonio talks about his past, his family, and his early struggles to complete his education and make good on the promises made to his deceased mother and grandparents.

“As immigrant children, we have it drilled into our heads. We know that grandma and grandpa sacrificed so we could be born in this country.” By succeeding in life, we can justify their suffering and poverty.

H. David Collins, of the American School of Empty Hand Fighting (ASEF) in Blountville, Tennessee was Antonio’s first martial arts teacher, the man who taught Antonio to fight and set the stage for his future adventures. Antonio’s grandmother was his first language teacher, who developed Antonio’s love of foreign languages and helped cultivate his interest in other countries and cultures.

Down and out, kicked out of college, having no money, no job skills and seemingly no future, a random meeting with a man who had been shot in the leg pirates eventually turned Antonio’s life around. Through the merchant marines and some help from his siblings, he finished college, in Germany, and went on to a professional career.

After leaving a successful career in America, Antonio embarked on his martial arts odyssey, which, at the time of this writing, has been going for more than eight years.

“In retrospect, the signs were there. It was obvious I was going to do something like this. And I think both my grandmother and David Collins predicted it.”

Watch, The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Parts 1 – 8.

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kleow4PEh_k

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Part 2

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t_zVi9IH0Q

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Part 3

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRODmkT6w5A

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Part 4

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkywKMP-cMk

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Part 5

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVAPb9FoR48

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Part 6

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxvX3nEhp_M

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Part 7

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEB8ikQ2y7k

The Art of Fighting: Brooklyn Monk Part 8

Watch it free on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB3hSXAy3TI

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To ALG or Not to ALG

 

A Language Learner’s Dilemma

By Antonio Graceffo

Automatic Language Growth (ALG) has many advantages over other language learning methods, but the cost in time and dedication is high. You need to first determine your own personal goals and level of commitment before deciding which rout to take.

Mandarin Chinese is quickly becoming one of the most popular languages of study around the world, including the west. Anyone who has ever studied Chinese, myself included, can tell you how difficult it is to learn. First off, the language is tonal. For most westerners, Chinese would be the first tonal language they have ever tried to learn. Second of all, learning the reading and writing system is tedious. It takes years and years to even learn to read a newspaper. And if you try to learn reading writing and listening all at the same time, your progress in speaking will be greatly decreased.

According to a friend of mine who studied at the Defense Language Institute, a similar phenomenon was recognized there as well. Apparently the institute went through periods of teaching all four skills at once and periods of isolating speaking and listening, with reading and writing taught later. Apparently, students who studied speaking and listening first, achieved a higher level of overall fluency, but students who studied all four skills at the same time remembered more vocabulary.

When I learned Chinese, I opted for speaking and reading only. We were able to complete a chapter of the book every three days, and at the end of six months I was functional. My friends who chose to learn all four skills at once were only able to do a chapter a month, and at the end of six months couldn’t order food in a restaurant. But they could read the menu, where I couldn’t.

If you ask ex-pats working in Asia, they generally need or want to know how to speak the local language, but look at reading and writing as a luxury. In fact, most westerners working overseas sign a one year contract, which they may or may not renew. If they set out to learn reading and writing plus speaking and listening they wouldn’t generally be able to read a newspaper OR function by the end of a single year, particularly if they are only studying a few hours per week.

Since most ex-pats don’t need reading and writing and don’t have time for homework and exams, ALG would seem the perfect method for learning Chinese. In ALG, students learn through listening. They don’t read, write or even speak until hundreds of hours into the course. The idea is to get your listening to a high level first, so you know what the words should sound like, then later you start producing the sounds yourself. Much later, if you chose that option, you learn to read and write.

David Long runs the world’s leading ALG program, the Thai program at AUA Ratchadamri, in Bangkok. The program, and David, have decades of experience, using ALG method to teach Thai and Japanese. In a recent interview, we discussed the application of ALG to Chinese.

 

Since I published my first articles on ALG, nearly three years ago, I have received countless emails and letters from people asking if there is an ALG Chinese program yet. It seems that Chinese is so difficult for some people that they are open to any suggestion, or methods that might produce success.

 

At the time of this writing, I am in Vietnam where a group of Vietnamese student teachers are interested in learning the ALG method and using it to teach Vietnamese to foreigners.

 

ALG is good for Vietnamese because Vietnamese is both tonal and difficult to pronounce. One advantage to learning Vietnamese is that the alphabet is fairly simple, relative to Thai or Chinese. If a student started learning Vietnamese by ALG method, and without first reading anything, he would be much better off. When you look at Vietnamese script, it looks so much like Latin script that you start mispronouncing all of the words. Using ALG concepts, you would first learn to listen and speak. You wouldn’t look at a printed page till you were competent in the language.

 

This is exactly how Vietnamese children learn. They have a good size functional vocabulary before they learn to read or write at age six or seven. They know what the words mean and how to use them. Then they learn to read.

 

This is how we should learn Chinese or Vietnamese. But the bonus in Vietnamese is that if you were already competent in the language, learning to read and write would probably only take a few weeks of study, as opposed to years, as it would with Chinese.

 

The problem that we keep running into with exporting ALG outside of the classroom in Thailand is that it takes 800 hours of listening to learn Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese. Most ex-pats, on a one year contract wouldn’t be willing to or simply couldn’t put in the 16 hours a week that it would take to reach 800 hours by the end of their one year contract. And if they did, they would be on a plane, heading home the next day, because their contract would be over.

 

When I posed this point to David Long, he countered, asked what people hoped to gain by studying only four hours a week by any method.

 

“They would learn their numbers, hello, how are you, and be somewhat functional if not very, very badly.” I answered. David and I are strictly in agreement on the importance of listening and on proper pronunciation. Pronouncing Vietnamese baldly is useless because there are six tones and a million vowels and no one would have any idea what you were talking about.

 

In reality, most of the foreigners who believe they are functional are actually living with the illusion of functionality. But, they feel they learned something, so they feel their money was well spent. And really bad, traditional teaching methods continue to sell well.

 

David’s answer was, “But they wouldn’t be fluent.”

 

He is absolutely right. If you take a traditional approach, and if you only do a few hours per week, you would never achieve fluency. In fact, you would never achieve correct pronunciation. The National Language Service, Defense Language Institute, The Foreign Service Institute and ALG (Automatic Language Growth) all agree that you need 800 – 2,000 hours to learn Thai, Chinese, or Vietnamese. For ALG the first 800 hours would be spent listening, you would need an additional 1,200 hours for reading and writing.

 

These organizations can’t all be wrong.

 

Recently, a language learner wrote to me on the internet and asked, “But I have a Thai girlfriend and Thai friends, so I don’t need 800 hours.”

 

The answer is, yes, everyone needs 800 hours of listening, BUT they don’t all have to be done in the classroom. Depending on your lifestyle you may be getting tons of hours outside of class as well. It will still take 800 hours, but you may complete those 800 hours in 60 weeks or 60 days depending on what you are doing outside of school.

 

But living in a country is not enough. No one learns a language by osmosis. You have to have comprehensible input. This means you need to be able to understand about 60% of what you are hearing for it to do you any good. So, plopping in front of the TV for 800 hours, when you have no prior knowledge of the language probably won’t work. But after 200 hours or 400 hours, watching TV might be helpful.

 

For myself, I was functional in Chinese after six months of study. Then I went and lived in a temple in China, where my speaking and listening soared. At the temple I met a handful of westerners living in neighboring temples and after six months they still weren’t functional because they just didn’t understand enough of what was happening around them. Next, I lived in a temple in Thailand, with no prior knowledge of Thai. By the end of 3 months I could sort of function, but I was terrible at Thai. After attending school, I wished I could go back to the temple now, because I would get so much more out of it.

 

I receive emails from people all over the globe, everyday, asking me the best way to learn a language, particularly Chinese. My answer is and has remained, ALG is the BEST way to learn. But it is not the fastest. And you will take much, much longer to be functional, but in the end your results will be best. So, the question is not, which method is best, but whether to ALG or not to ALG. This is a question that learners need to ask themselves.

 

Antonio Garceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. His book, The Monk from Brooklyn, is available at amazon.com. See his vieos on youtub.

http://ca.youtube.com/results?search_query=antonio+graceffo&search_type=&aq=f

His website is speakingadventure.com

Join him on facebook.com

Contact Antonio: antonio@speakingadventure.com

Antonio,Graceffo,thai,Chinese,alg,aua,david,long,brown,marvin,dr,learn,teach,ESL,TESOL,

China,Thailand,Taiwan,Brooklyn,monk,linguist,linguistics,from,translate,translation,alg,

automatic,language,growth,long,david,AUA,Ratchadamri,bangkok 

To ALG or Not to ALG

 

A Language Learner’s Dilemma

By Antonio Graceffo

Automatic Language Growth (ALG) has many advantages over other language learning methods, but the cost in time and dedication is high. You need to first determine your own personal goals and level of commitment before deciding which rout to take.

Mandarin Chinese is quickly becoming one of the most popular languages of study around the world, including the west. Anyone who has ever studied Chinese, myself included, can tell you how difficult it is to learn. First off, the language is tonal. For most westerners, Chinese would be the first tonal language they have ever tried to learn. Second of all, learning the reading and writing system is tedious. It takes years and years to even learn to read a newspaper. And if you try to learn reading writing and listening all at the same time, your progress in speaking will be greatly decreased.

According to a friend of mine who studied at the Defense Language Institute, a similar phenomenon was recognized there as well. Apparently the institute went through periods of teaching all four skills at once and periods of isolating speaking and listening, with reading and writing taught later. Apparently, students who studied speaking and listening first, achieved a higher level of overall fluency, but students who studied all four skills at the same time remembered more vocabulary.

When I learned Chinese, I opted for speaking and reading only. We were able to complete a chapter of the book every three days, and at the end of six months I was functional. My friends who chose to learn all four skills at once were only able to do a chapter a month, and at the end of six months couldn’t order food in a restaurant. But they could read the menu, where I couldn’t.

If you ask ex-pats working in Asia, they generally need or want to know how to speak the local language, but look at reading and writing as a luxury. In fact, most westerners working overseas sign a one year contract, which they may or may not renew. If they set out to learn reading and writing plus speaking and listening they wouldn’t generally be able to read a newspaper OR function by the end of a single year, particularly if they are only studying a few hours per week.

Since most ex-pats don’t need reading and writing and don’t have time for homework and exams, ALG would seem the perfect method for learning Chinese. In ALG, students learn through listening. They don’t read, write or even speak until hundreds of hours into the course. The idea is to get your listening to a high level first, so you know what the words should sound like, then later you start producing the sounds yourself. Much later, if you chose that option, you learn to read and write.

David Long runs the world’s leading ALG program, the Thai program at AUA Ratchadamri, in Bangkok. The program, and David, have decades of experience, using ALG method to teach Thai and Japanese. In a recent interview, we discussed the application of ALG to Chinese.

 

Since I published my first articles on ALG, nearly three years ago, I have received countless emails and letters from people asking if there is an ALG Chinese program yet. It seems that Chinese is so difficult for some people that they are open to any suggestion, or methods that might produce success.

 

At the time of this writing, I am in Vietnam where a group of Vietnamese student teachers are interested in learning the ALG method and using it to teach Vietnamese to foreigners.

 

ALG is good for Vietnamese because Vietnamese is both tonal and difficult to pronounce. One advantage to learning Vietnamese is that the alphabet is fairly simple, relative to Thai or Chinese. If a student started learning Vietnamese by ALG method, and without first reading anything, he would be much better off. When you look at Vietnamese script, it looks so much like Latin script that you start mispronouncing all of the words. Using ALG concepts, you would first learn to listen and speak. You wouldn’t look at a printed page till you were competent in the language.

 

This is exactly how Vietnamese children learn. They have a good size functional vocabulary before they learn to read or write at age six or seven. They know what the words mean and how to use them. Then they learn to read.

 

This is how we should learn Chinese or Vietnamese. But the bonus in Vietnamese is that if you were already competent in the language, learning to read and write would probably only take a few weeks of study, as opposed to years, as it would with Chinese.

 

The problem that we keep running into with exporting ALG outside of the classroom in Thailand is that it takes 800 hours of listening to learn Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese. Most ex-pats, on a one year contract wouldn’t be willing to or simply couldn’t put in the 16 hours a week that it would take to reach 800 hours by the end of their one year contract. And if they did, they would be on a plane, heading home the next day, because their contract would be over.

 

When I posed this point to David Long, he countered, asked what people hoped to gain by studying only four hours a week by any method.

 

“They would learn their numbers, hello, how are you, and be somewhat functional if not very, very badly.” I answered. David and I are strictly in agreement on the importance of listening and on proper pronunciation. Pronouncing Vietnamese baldly is useless because there are six tones and a million vowels and no one would have any idea what you were talking about.

 

In reality, most of the foreigners who believe they are functional are actually living with the illusion of functionality. But, they feel they learned something, so they feel their money was well spent. And really bad, traditional teaching methods continue to sell well.

 

David’s answer was, “But they wouldn’t be fluent.”

 

He is absolutely right. If you take a traditional approach, and if you only do a few hours per week, you would never achieve fluency. In fact, you would never achieve correct pronunciation. The National Language Service, Defense Language Institute, The Foreign Service Institute and ALG (Automatic Language Growth) all agree that you need 800 – 2,000 hours to learn Thai, Chinese, or Vietnamese. For ALG the first 800 hours would be spent listening, you would need an additional 1,200 hours for reading and writing.

 

These organizations can’t all be wrong.

 

Recently, a language learner wrote to me on the internet and asked, “But I have a Thai girlfriend and Thai friends, so I don’t need 800 hours.”

 

The answer is, yes, everyone needs 800 hours of listening, BUT they don’t all have to be done in the classroom. Depending on your lifestyle you may be getting tons of hours outside of class as well. It will still take 800 hours, but you may complete those 800 hours in 60 weeks or 60 days depending on what you are doing outside of school.

 

But living in a country is not enough. No one learns a language by osmosis. You have to have comprehensible input. This means you need to be able to understand about 60% of what you are hearing for it to do you any good. So, plopping in front of the TV for 800 hours, when you have no prior knowledge of the language probably won’t work. But after 200 hours or 400 hours, watching TV might be helpful.

 

For myself, I was functional in Chinese after six months of study. Then I went and lived in a temple in China, where my speaking and listening soared. At the temple I met a handful of westerners living in neighboring temples and after six months they still weren’t functional because they just didn’t understand enough of what was happening around them. Next, I lived in a temple in Thailand, with no prior knowledge of Thai. By the end of 3 months I could sort of function, but I was terrible at Thai. After attending school, I wished I could go back to the temple now, because I would get so much more out of it.

 

I receive emails from people all over the globe, everyday, asking me the best way to learn a language, particularly Chinese. My answer is and has remained, ALG is the BEST way to learn. But it is not the fastest. And you will take much, much longer to be functional, but in the end your results will be best. So, the question is not, which method is best, but whether to ALG or not to ALG. This is a question that learners need to ask themselves.

 

Antonio Garceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. His book, The Monk from Brooklyn, is available at amazon.com. See his vieos on youtub.

http://ca.youtube.com/results?search_query=antonio+graceffo&search_type=&aq=f

His website is speakingadventure.com

Join him on facebook.com

Contact Antonio: antonio@speakingadventure.com

Antonio,Graceffo,thai,Chinese,alg,aua,david,long,brown,marvin,dr,learn,teach,

ESL,TESOL,China,Thailand,Taiwan,Brooklyn,monk,linguist,linguistics,from,

translate,translation,alg,automatic,language,growth,long,david,AUA,Ratchadamri,bangkok 

Brooklyn Monk: Pra Kru Ba The Muay Thai

Pra Kru Ba is a Muay Thai monk who rides horses on the Burma border helping hill tribe people and orphans from the war in Burma. In 2003 he took in Antonio Graceffo, his first foreign student. He taught Antonio the Thai language, Muay Thai, and Thai Buddhism. In 2009, Antonio returned to the monastery to see his old teacher. Many things had changed at the monastery. In the intervening years, Kru Ba had grown from being a renegade forest monk, opposed in many established circles, to being a popular, iconic figure, who receives hundreds of visitors per day. But, the relationship between student and teacher hadn’t. Kru Ba was excited to hear about Antonio fights and travels. Antonio was please to have even a few minutes with one of his favorite teachers. Join Antonio on facebook Watch it for free on youtube. Pra Kru Ba The Muay Thai Monk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR2aNVVC4Xw Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. He is the host “Martial Arts Odyssey,” a web TV show which traces his ongoing journey through Asia, learning martial arts in various countries. His books are available on amazon.com Contact him: Antonio@speakingadventure.com Join him on facebook.com His website is www.speakingadventure.com This episode was edited by Antonio Garceffo and features the official Martial Arts Odyssey intro and outro by Andy To. martial,arts,odyssey,Brooklyn,monk,brooklynmonk,Antonio,Graceffo,thai,Thailand,TMA,kick,kickboxing,boxing,chiang,mai,kawila,muay,MMA,Buddhist,religious,sangha,pedro,khru,villalobos,kru

Wrestling with the Vietnamese Language

 

By Antonio Graceffo

 

Vietnamese is, by far, the hardest language to pronounce, of any language I have ever studied.

 

At the time of this writing, I have been living in Hanoi for seven weeks and studying Vietnamese for six weeks with private tutors. I have an hour and a half of lessons per day, six days per week. Outside of class, I do as much listening as possible, working with a number of commercially available and proprietary listening materials.

 

Before coming to Vietnam, I had made the assumption that the language was related to Chinese. The two countries had been closely linked until less than a thousand years ago, when Vietnam won its complete and final independence from China. Traditionally, the Vietnamese follow Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. And, until the 19^th century, they still wrote their language, nearly exclusively, with Chinese characters. For these, and many other reasons, I thought that being a speaker of Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese would be easier for me to pick up.

 

Saying one thing is easier than another, or easier for one person than for another person is always a loaded statement, fraught with opinions and based on a comparison of the known with the unknown. The short answer is, there is nothing easy about learning Vietnamese.

 

Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic/Mon-Khmer language. Many of the regional languages in Southeast Asia fall into this category. The two most widely spoken, the only two which are official languages of a country, are Khmer, the national language of Cambodia, and Vietnamese. Number three would be Mon, a language spoken by tribal groups in Burma and Thailand, but the total number of native speakers is less than one million.

 

Vietnamese grammar is much more complex than Chinese grammar, which is fairly simple for westerners. The Vietnamese language also has elements of registers of speech, with countless forms of address, depending upon the speaker and or the listeners status and age. Additionally, Vietnamese is tonal, like Chinese, Thai, Lao, Burmese and many of the regional languages. But, where many of the other tonal languages only have four or five tones, Vietnamese has six. Tones are hard for most westerners, but a difference of four or six is not the Waterloo in learning Vietnamese. The next hurdle, after the tones, is the sounds. Vietnamese is riddled with sounds that don’t exist in most western languages. So, the pronunciation is extremely difficult. And, as with all tonal languages, if you miss pronounce something, even by the slightest bit, a listener will not understand you. By the same token, unless you really dominate the language, you won’t understand most of what is being said to you.

 

Readers who are familiar with my research and study in the field of ALG (Automatic Language Growth) will know that I am strongly against learning words and phrases. To truly speak a language, you must learn the language, the communication, not a set of words and phrases. When you go shopping, you don’t recite a pre-rehearsed dialogue. You have to accept and be aware of the fact that native speakers can, and will, say things to you that don’t match the script in your head. To communicate, you will have to be able to deal with the fact that Mr. Hai who cuts your hair, didn’t read the chapter in your phrase book called, “At the Barber Shop.”

 

Another tenet of ALG is that native-like pronunciation only comes from extensive hours of listening. There is no way to learn pronunciation from a book. With Vietnamese, if your pronunciation is not close to perfect, NO ONE will understand you.

 

The Vietnamese language is more closely related to Khmer, than it is to Chinese. And like Khmer, it has a large number of sounds. Counting diphthongs, and long and short vowels, Khmer has well over a hundred vowel sounds. A slight change in a vowel changes the word completely. Vietnamese has all of the complexity of Khmer, but with the addition of trip-thongs and tones. Khmer is nearly the only regional language which is not tonal.

 

Speaking Khmer is only slightly helpful in learning Vietnamese. Speaking Chinese will help a bit with vocabulary. Although Chinese and Vietnamese are from completely different language families, with unrelated origins, Vietnam historicaly falls into the area of Chinese influence countries, and as a result, a lot of Vietnamese vocabulary comes from Chinese. These Chinese loan words were once written with Chinese characters and are generally monosyllabic words or compound words, such as the Vietnamese “Dai hoc” which means university. Interestingly, however, the Chinese loan words often don’t match up with modern, spoken Mandarin. These words entered the Vietnamese language so long ago, that they came from Manchurian dialect. Today, there are only a handful of native speakers of Manchurian still living.

 

If you have ever studied Korea, you would find that 60 – 80% of the Korean language vocabulary comes from Manchurian, Chinese dialect, although the Korean and Chinese languages bear no similarity in structure or origin. The Vietnamese word “Dai hoc” is very close to the Korean “De Hak” because they both come from the same Manchurian root.

 

Occasionally, knowing Chinese does help. For example, the names of countries, particularly western countries, are often Vietnamese transliterations of Chinese names for those countries. A British friend, who is also studying in Hanoi, told me that he learned the Vietnamese word for Portugal is Bồ Đào Nha. He asked his teacher what the words literally meant. She couldn’t answer him, but I knew that the three syllables each represented a Chinese character, which, in Manchurian dialect, was the closest they could come up with to sound like “Portugal.”

 

My explanation of the origin of the word for “Portugal” may have been an interesting tidbit of linguistic trivia, but in practical terms, will it really help me learn Vietnamese faster or better? ALG says “NO.” ALG would also say, “don’t get hung up on words and phrases. Learn the communication.”

In short, having a few words and phrases of Vietnamese is completely useless. I see foreigners all of the time trying to “get close to the people” or “Be sensitive to another culture.” They mix Vietnamese phrases in with their English, thinking this somehow facilitates communication. When a foreigner says “xin loi” or “excuse me” without pronouncing the inflection and tone markers, there is a chance that a Vietnamese person would turn around or look at them. So, the foreigner thinks his communication was understood. Actually, the native speaker had no idea what the foreigner had said, only that he had said something. Other phrases or names of things that foreigners use in their regular shops or with their regular friend “appear” to be understood, but actually the native speaker may not even realize these foreigners are speaking Vietnamese. They just think, “My friend Francoise always says “café sua” when he wants coffee with milk.” But it doesn’t mean that Francoise is saying it correctly. Often when Francoise goes to a new coffee shop, where he has never been before, he comes back with a story. “The people in that shop are so stupid. I gave them my order in Vietnamese, as I do in my regular coffee shop. But they didn’t understand me.”

 

Across Asia I have seen couples completely inventing their own quasi-Asian language, where they understand each other, but no one else can understand them. Many foreigners are sadly encouraged by the ability of their spouse or significant other to understand them, and their estimation of their own linguistic ability is inflated.

 

An American engineer living in Taiwan once told me. “I have learned to speak Chinese well, but I can’t understand when a native speaker is speaking.” For me, coming from an ALG background, this is not possible. I don’t believe that you can learn production without learning passive skills first. Not only do I not believe it, but I am willing to get in a boxing ring with anyone who disagrees with me. You learn from listening, not speaking. If you can’t understand when people are speaking to you, then this means the language is not in your head in the first place.

 

This brings me back to Vietnamese and learning words and phrases. A foreigner living in Vietnam or Taiwan or Turkmenistan, who believes they can speak but not listen, has managed to memorize a large number of phrases. For most of what they do during the course of the day, they are covered. They know how to order food, get a hair cut…if they are really good, like one Australian I worked with in Cambodia, they even know how to get their car fixed. But they don’t SPEAK the language. They have memorized the vocabulary that they need for specific tasks. And the second that the conversation takes any kind of unexpected turn, the moment that here is a problem or a bump in the road, they are completely out.

 

The test that I gave the engineer, who believed he could speak but not listen, was “Tell me in Chinese that your company is cutting back on employees and your contract may end at the end of the year, and you aren’t sure what you will do at that point.”

 

Is this too much to ask of a language learner? This story about the contract was something he had told me in English. And it is the sort of thing Chinese speakers tell each other. If you believe that you speak a foreign language, then you should be able to talk about these types of concepts in the foreign language.

 

So, if learning words and phrases is not the same as learning a language, then why do so many people do it?

 

Selling languages, language lessons, learning materials, and courses is a huge business. In business, you want your customers to be satisfied. The easiest and fastest way for anyone to learn anything is rote memorization, rather than understanding. Rote learning is done through repetition and through a mix of sounds, pictures, and texts. The best way to fool someone into believing they have learned something is to put questions on the test, which match exactly what they have learned in class.

 

This is how 90% of the methods and commercially available language learning aids work. They teach you a set of phrases and vocabulary through repetition. Then they test your ability to remember them and spit them back out on the exam. In the end, even if you earn a mark of 100%, you still can’t speak the language.

 

So, how do we learn Vietnamese? How do we learn any Asian language? The answer is, listening, listening, listening, listening, and eventually, reading, reading, reading. But, with Asian languages, particularly Vietnamese, you need incredible numbers of hours of listening to get the sounds right. The NLSC (National Language Service Corps) has assigned Vietnamese a category of Three (out of four) for difficulty. The Foreign Service Institute has established that it requires 88 weeks, 2,200 hours of study for an English native speaker to learn a category three language. They also prefer that at least half of this time is spent studying in the country where the language is spoken.

 

You can’t learn a language in twenty minutes a day. One hour a week won’t get it. To truly learn a difficult language, such as Vietnamese, will take a dedicated student two years. The more listening you do, the better and faster you will learn. Try to find hours in your day to spend with your listening. Take your Vietnamese I-Pod lessons with you to work or on the motorcycle or at the gym. Attend your classes regularly and do as much homework as you can stand.

 

And most of all, listen, listen, listen. Be realistic, but don’t get discouraged. The Vietnamese learned it. So can you.

 

 

See Antonio Graceffo’s multipart video series for free, on youtube.

ALG Vietnamese Linguistics Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLuCBEn7b7s

 

Also see Antonio’s video

ALG Vietnamese Picture Story Le Loi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNeUEzYRga4

In a recent round of interviews, networks and media sent Antonio the question via email and Antonio answered on camera. If you are interested in doing a similar interview, fire off the questions to Antonio. Antonio is looking for an opportunity to study for an MA/PHD in linguistics.

 

Antonio Graceffo is the author of the book, “The Monk from Brooklyn,” and is he host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts odyssey.”

Contact Antonio Graceffo on facebook.com

Send him email Antonio@speakingadvdenture.com

 

 

 

Vietnamese,VietnamAntonio,graceffo,Brooklyn,monk,martial,arts,linguistics,odyssey,language,acquisition,ALG,theory,growth,automatic,brown,long,david,marvin,Bangkok,Thailand,thai,Chinese,teaching,learning,studying,linguist,TESOL,TEFL,ESL,English,Second,Foreign,other,languages,AUA,Ratchadamri,Thai,long,david,ALG,learn,teach,hung,viet,kiew,Phuong,live, Nguyen,Chu,Nam,Phuong,trang,le,loi,picture,story,stories,traditional

 

 

Fight in a Hanoi Park

 

By Antonio Graceffo

 

 

For my web TV Show, “Martial Arts Odyssey,” I try to show little known, and culturally interesting martial arts, in unusual locations, which few people are familiar with. We have all heard of China and Japan, and everyone has seen or studied some Kung Fu, Karate, Judo or Jiu Jitsu at some time in their lives. But few people know about the martial arts of Vietnam.

 

When I worked with some of the big budget American shows, I suggested that they do episodes in Vietnam, but they refused. Both of the big American series had formulas whereby the climax of each episode was a fight between one of the hosts and a local. In Vietnam, there isn’t a lot of fighting. It would have been difficult or impossible to find a fighter who could stand up to the experienced MMA fighters who hosted these shows. So, Vietnam was cut from the production schedule.

 

Luckily, “Martial Arts Odyssey” has no budget, and no schedule, and I can do anything I want. So, I returned to Vietnam, Hanoi this time, to film episodes on VoVinam, Vo Co Truyen and a host of Sino-Vietnamese arts, or perhaps Vietnamized Chinese arts. I knew that the level of fighting would be low, but that shouldn’t detract from showing the art and the culture.

 

The problem for me personally, training in Vietnam for several months, is that I can’t keep fit. Without the serious cardio and impact training of fighting arts, Muay Thai and Bradal Serey, I am gaining weight and losing my fitness. The diet is also a problem. In Thailand, Taiwan, and Cambodia, where I spend most of my time, it is not difficult for me to find a diet of only vegetables, fruit, and meat, while avoiding rice, noodles, and bread. In Vietnam, if I cut rice, noodles, and bread out of my diet I will starve to death.

 

When I first arrived in Hanoi, my friend Ling arranged for me to train with his Vo Co Truyen master in a temple in Hanoi. That was a very cool experience. Then I met a VoVinam teacher and a Wing Chun teacher at my gym and they invited me to train with them in the park.

 

The first day I was in the gym, the Wing Chun master came up to me and wanted to knock forearms and also shins with me. He hit me really hard, and it hurt, but I hung in there. Next, he wanted to knock knuckles and I absolutely refused. I can see some practical benefit to this type of body conditioning of forearms and shins, because you need both of those for blocking in real fights. But like a surgeon or a piano player, I don’t want to risk getting my hands damaged and not being able to box.

 

This brings up a number of questions that I have when I get around traditional martial artists (TMA) (as opposed to fighters). First off, although I believe shin and forearm conditioning can be beneficial for a fighter, why are these TMA guys doing it? I have never seen Muay Thai or Bradal Serey guys conditioning any part of their body except their shins. And, they fight and train for fighting all of the time. I have seen TMA guys conditioning all different parts of their body, allegedly because it is good for fighting, but then they don’t fight.

 

When I refused to let the Wing Chun master knock knuckles with me, he laughed. A crowd had formed, and he felt he had won some type of victory. I think the problem with TMA is that he believes his hands are harder than mine, and thus, he can fight better. While I agree that his hands are harder than mine, a fight is a fight. It will be won or lost in the fight, not before and not after. It will be based on who can knock whom out or who collapses from lack of cardio or physical toughness. Hard or soft hands won’t really matter. I have said in a number of articles, pro boxers tend to have really soft hands because they are wrapped, steamed and babied all of the time. But they are the best punchers in the world.

 

Next, the Wing Chun master started punching all of the metal exercise equipment in the gym, to show me how hard he could hit. He invited me to punch metal and I refused. He laughed again. Now he had won two public victories over me. But once again, I don’t know ANY real fighters who stand in a static position, such as horse stance, and punch a metal target with their bare-hands. It has nothing at all to do with fighting. As a fighter, I only hit the bag, the pads, or another person. I am moving when I hit, and the targets are moving, and of course, I am always wearing gloves, or at least hand-wraps. These TMA guys generally stand still and hit a stationary target over and over and believe this somehow has something to do with fighting.

 

This all calls to mind the famous quote from Bruce Lee about why he didn’t hit boards. “Boards don’t hit back.”

 

Next, the Wing Chun master made me understand he was going to hit and kick me. He took up a static stance and started throwing strikes at me. I really wasn’t sure what we were doing. Were we sparring? If so, I was going to move, and strike back. Or was he showing me something? I had no idea. Also, in Asia, there are so many issues related to face that I was afraid if I did anything that caused him to lose face, he might attack me.

 

So, I walked away. Everyone laughed. Now, he had won three victories without even stepping in a ring.

 

I trained a few times with the VoVinam master and he had me spar some of his guys. I was careful not to hurt them, just touch sparing. It was evident to me, as I had anticipated, that they couldn’t fight at all. They were all good martial artists. In fact, they were much better than me. Their kicks were beautiful. Their stances were perfect. They had dedication. They all conditioned their body parts… There were so many admirable qualities to the way they lived and trained, that is why I put them on my show.

 

But, they couldn’t fight. Again, I have written about this question extensively, but does it matter that they can’t fight? Does everyone need to fight? Do we only do martial art to fight? In the Jet Lee remake of the Bruce Lee film, “Fists of Fury” he is training with a Japanese Karate master and refuses to learn a particular karate movement. He says, “My Chinese kung Fu is faster to win a fight.” The Japanese Karate master answers, “The fastest way to win a fight is with a gun.” His point was, if you just want to win fights, then there are a lot of things you could do that would be easier than martial art. Clearly, we practice martial art for some other reason.

 

The other side of me, however, knows that these TMA guys are completely delusional and believe that they know how to fight. Part of me wants to get in a ring with them and show them that they don’t.

 

In addition to having more fighting experience, I was also much bigger than the VoVinam students. So, when I was fighting them I didn’t want to use any grappling, because they would have been at too much of a disadvantage. But, I felt I needed to show the masters and the other students what I could do. After all, that is why they invited me in the first place. So, I did a single take down. And once, when the student grabbed me, I did a standing choke.

 

When the video aired on youtube a lot of Vietnamese people wrote in. One guy apparently contacted the VoVinam teacher and wanted to fight me. So, I went to meet him at the park. When I arrived, I found two men who had come to fight, plus the VoVinam master and two of his students.

 

In Asian countries where I don’t speak the language and don’t know the culture I am often confused and frustrated, not knowing what is expected of me. Did they just want more touch sparring? Did they just want to see my moves? Did they want to win another victory so they could perpetuate the myth of TMA? I didn’t know. I asked several times what they wanted.

 

“We want to fight.” Said the taller man. “OK” I said. I put in my mouth piece, slipped a groin protector over my shorts and started wrapping my hands. The men all started talking to each other in excited Vietnamese. Finally, the tall man said, “No damage.”

 

“What?” I asked. I sort of knew that they now wanted a simple sparring match and no one would get hurt. But I was frustrated and annoyed at this point. They got me out of bed early and called me all of the way down to the park to fight, and now they were changing their minds. Also, I originally thought I was fighting the tall, mouthy one, but instead he wanted me to fight his friend who looked like a retired tuk-tuk driver.

 

There was no way I was going to fight as easily and politely as I had with the young students. The students were kind and respectful. Their master had treated me well. I wanted to help them. These guys had called me out. And since I wasn’t quite clear on what they wanted there was no way I was letting them walk away with another alleged victory.

 

I would fight easy, and not punch hard, since we weren’t wearing gloves, but I decided that the tuk-tuk driver was going to have an accident.

The tuk-tuk drive got in a low Kung Fu stance. Although VoVinam and Vo Co Truyen are Vietnamese arts, with influence from everywhere, Chinese martial arts seem to be the largest influence on Vietnamese arts. I was just about to start kicking when the tuk-tuk driver and his tall friend interrupted to re-explain to me that we were doing easy sparring. They did this three more times. I have it on video. From the time I was standing in the circle, waiting to fight, until the time I threw the first kick was about twenty minutes because they kept on and kept on explaining to me that I needed to go easy.

 

I kicked at the tuk-tuk driver. His extremely low stance took me slightly out of my game, but it wasn’t much of a problem in the end. He threw an upward palm strike that hit me in the face, then he turned his back and ran out of the circle shouting in Vietnamese. I ran after him, grabbed his coat and was tapping him with my fist while all of the other men tried to pry him out of my grip. Apparently he thought he had won by hitting me once.

 

It took ten minutes or more to get reset and restart. This time, I kicked lazily, he grabbed my foot and came in. I caught him in a standing choke. Immediately, everyone was yelling “Stop! Stop!” but I had no intention of stopping. They made this happen, not me. They wanted to see a fight. And, I didn’t want even the slightest chance that they would walk away thinking TMA had beat real fighting. I lifted him off the ground by his windpipe.

 

After twenty more minutes of arguing, we reset. We exchanged a few kicks and punches. I moved in and started raining really soft blows on the guy. He turned his back and ran out of the circle for the third time.

 

They stopped the fight.

 

“Are you tired?” asked the VoVinam teacher.

“No, we have only been fighting for like thirty seconds. No, I am not tired.” I answered

The fact is, I had been in Hanoi for two months and hadn’t had any fighting at all. I was just getting warmed up and excited and wanted to keep going. The master let me fight two of his students. I went especially easy on the students, so it would be extremely clear to the tuk-tuk driver and his friend that I had gone rough on him intentionally.

 

The tall man said to me, “We is difficult for us to fight you because you do sport fighting, we train for street fighting.”

 

Anyone who has ever seen me fight, generally says it looks like a street fight. I even grabbed the guys coat while I was punching him. Apart from going through his pockets looking for change, I don’t know how could have made it anymore like a street fight.

 

The tuk-tuk driver said, and his friend translated, “We do low kicks on the shins and knees, which you can’t take because you do sport fighting.”

 

Once again, I practice Muay Chaiya, which is all low kicks. Although I throw high lazy kicks with these guys, in real fights, I only throw low kicks.

“We also strike in the eyes with our fingers. That is why my friend stopped the first time. When he hit you with his hand, he meant to hit your eyes with his fingers.

 

Since I started training, at age twelve, I have heard this excuse from TMA guys. Essentially what they are saying is, “Our style is so deadly, we can’t spar or go in competition.”  I don’t want someone poking their fingers in my eyes anymore than the next guy, but is this really a legitimate excuse for not sparring?

 

When it was over, they all told me how strong I was, which made me nervous, because in Asia you never know what lies behind an empty compliment.

 

Later, my cameraman told me that at one point the whole crowd was considering attacking me for hurting the tuk-tuk driver.

 

Confused, angry, bitter, sore, tired, exhausted, annoyed, and lost, up one minute, down the next, excited and disappointed…..this is my life in Asia.

 

 

Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. He is the author of the book, “The Monk from Brooklyn” and the host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts Odyssey,” which traces his ongoing journey through Asia, learning martial arts in various countries.

 

See all of Antonio’s videos on his youtube channel, brooklynmonk1, send him a friend request or subscribe.

http://www.youtube.com/user/brooklynmonk1

 

His books are available on amazon.com

Contact him: Antonio@speakingadventure.com

 

His website is www.speakingadventure.com

 

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