Bad Criticism in Language Learning

Glossika

Today I have the privilege of introducing Glossika, (Mike Cambell). Glossika is both a linguist and a polyglot. I have been watching his YouTube videos for a few weeks. It is a rare event that I will actually go out on a limb and give a call out to another person. This is one of those rare occasions. Not only do I think Glossika is an impressive person, but I also recommend all my viewers to check out his channel immediately. You can find his channel simply by clicking on his name as it appears in this blog.

Glossika learns foreign languages because he loves them. There is not a single ethnocentric bone in his body. If only other people had this kind of open-mindedness. He does not express any negative attitude towards any particular language. He does not express any value judgment’s towards rare languages. He understands that there is no such thing as a useless language. Learning languages will give a person a richer and fuller ability to appreciation of things they otherwise would not have been able to appreciate.

 Glossika has no agenda other than sharing his love for languages. His YouTube channel contains dozens of fantastic videos. These videos not only show us his impressive language abilities, but also instructions and good advice about how to learn a language.

I grew up in a part of the United States, within a specific family culture that was and is VERY ethnocentric. I am sure you know the types. Those people who think that English is the best language on earth and everyone should speak English as a primary language. The same people who think that America is the best country on earth, yet they have never even lived in another country. These people place the English language at the top of an imaginary hierarchy and subsequently assigns other languages a lower value. They boast that English is allegedly the hardest language to learn, but they have never studied any foreign languages themselves. I do not see how any person can make that claim without having fluency in at least one other language.The funny thing is that the people who tend to make these ethnocentric arguments tend to be high school dropouts who could not even give a single English lesson if they tried. As you can see – I am very judgmental and openly admit it.

Glossika is not judgmental like me. At the same time, he embraces a lot of the qualities I wish Americans would embrace. That is one of many reasons he is one of my favorite YouTube Polyglots

Glossika’s goal is simply to teach and share with a large audience. He does not get involved in drama. He even makes it clear on his channel that all “subjective political and religious comments will be deleted.” He recently uploaded a video about some of the negative criticism one can receive when they upload a video in another language.

The reality is that Youtube is full of trolls. Their only goal is to tear a person down. In his video, Glossika gives some solid advice about how to deal with abuse, haters and trolls. He also encourages people to continue their language learning goals. I think that his message is important which is why I asked his permission to mirror the video on my channel.

I especially like his video about linguistics, polyglots, and philologistics. Not only does Glossika teach us languages, but he also teaches us about the science of language learning. 

Kudos to Glossika! Keep up the good work!