Hi, everyone.
You're going to find that this is a pretty serious video.
Although the content of this video is related to Elight,
I hope you'll all understand that this isn't some trifling matter.
It's not just "YouTube Drama," but rather something very serious.
I'm going to speak English now to make things easy on myself, and you can turn on the subtitles if necessary.
So, do you guys remember around six weeks ago I made a video talking about how Elight
was making false copyright claims on YouTube.
If you haven't watched that video, you can watch it now.
Anyway, as people were discussing that video, I saw a handful of comments saying things like:
"Oh yeah, and have you seen Trang's book? It's full of mistakes and plagiarism."
So I thought, "Well that sounds kind of interesting,"
so I decided to get ahold of a copy myself and check it out.
Indeed, the books has many, many typos and elementary-level grammar mistakes in it,
as well as an absolutely appalling amount of plagiarism—far more than I expected to find.
Now, to me, the plagiarism is the much more serious issue,
so I'm not going to go through and show you every single mistake that I found in the book.
But I do want to show you a few that really stood out to me,
because I think people who have bought the book or are thinking about buying the book
deserve to know about them.
Then, after we see the mistakes, I'll show you the plagiarism in more detail.
So, we'll start with something pretty simple.
On page 329, it says:
"The weatherman said it may rain very soon. We must to be ready for that."
This is a mistake I see all the time from Vietnamese people.
We don't use "to" after the word "must." We just say, "We must be ready for that."
In this exercise on page 238, you're supposed to change the adjective to an adverb.
But the adverb for "hard" is just "hard."
It should say: "Lan works hard."
On page 102, there are two mistakes in one exercise.
Here it says, "I brush teeth three times a day."
Now, I know in Vietnamese you guys just say, "đánh răng,"
but in English we always say:
So, here it should say, "I brush my teeth three times a day."
Here it says: "The weather is getting cold. Take care your health!"
First, the grammar is wrong. It should say, "Take care of your health."
But, secondly, that's a really unnatural thing to say.
It's hard for me to imagine a native speaker saying it.
We would just say, "Look after your health."
Here on page 80, it says, "The person who has had the most influential on my life is ________"
Now, you could say, "The person who has been the most influential in my life,"
or you could say, "The person who has had the most influence,"
but not, "The person who has had the most influential."
On page 278 is sort of a classic Vietnamese mistake.
"Tom realized a lot of familiar faces."
Now, what they've done is they've mistranslated the word "nhận ra."
In English, if you're talking about the truth or the reality of some situation,
then we say "realize."
For example, you might say, "I realized my friend was lying to me."
But when we talk about a face or a song or an object,
we say "recognize."
On page 335, two separate times we've got, "I can't believe you do this."
But in both situations, the person is talking about an action in the past.
So, you could say, "I can't believe you did this"
or, "I can't believe you've done this."
But you can't use the present simple.
And now I want to show you page 306, which has a lot of mistakes.
It's all about inventions. Here, we've got, "Boat was invented."
Now, you need to have "the" before that:
"The boat was invented."
Same problem here: "The compass."
And here: "The telephone."
And here: "The refrigerator."
Also, they've got "refrigerator" spelled correctly one time and incorrectly another time.
Now let's go back to the compass.
It says, "It was spreaded to Arab world and Europe."
First of all, the past participle of "spread" is just "spread." No "-ed."
And here, Arab world needs to have "the" before it.
"It was spread to the Arab world."
Let's look at vaccines.
"Vaccines was invented by Edward Jenner."
"'Vaccines" is clearly plural. It should be, "Vaccines were invented."
And, finally, the internet. "It is invented in 1969."
1969 is in the past. It should be, "It was invented."
Also here: "It is used to share knowledge and entertaining stuffs."
"Stuff" is not countable. It should say, "entertaining stuff."
Now, incidentally, page 306 is also a convenient place to segue into the topic of plagiarism.
You know, these days, plagiarism is really easy to detect.
All you have to do if you find something that looks suspicious
is do a quick Google search with your search term in quotes.
Because when you do that, Google only returns results that have exactly that phrase in them.
So let's look at what Elight wrote about fire.
"Fire allowed for warmth and protection from predators at night."
So, we'll search for that in quotes, and, hmm . . .
totallyhistory.com Let's have a look.
"Fire allowed for warmth and protection from predators at night,
as well as increased the availability and variety of nutrients to be found in cooking food."
And Elight's is exactly the same.
Now let's look at what Elight wrote about the telephone.
"The telephone allows at least two users to communicate from far away, as though they were next to each other."
And on totallyhistory.com? Exactly the same.
Let's take a look at something a bit longer, on page 155.
Here it says, "What are you going to do at the weekend?" "I'm quite busy, really."
And so on.
They copied that exercise from this book,
Oxford Living Grammar Elementary, by Ken Paterson.
If we look on page 41 in Oxford Living Grammar . . .
"What are you going to do at the weekend?" "I'm quite busy, really."
And so on. Elight's is copied word for word.
Now let's go a few pages back to 141 in Elight's book.
"The world famous author of the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling, was born in 1965 in England."
They copied that from this book, Macmillan English Grammar in Context Essential, by Simon Clarke.
If we look at page 51 of this book . . .
"The world famous author of the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling, was born in 1965 in England."
And they copied a lot more from this book, as well.
On page 158 in Elight's book, number 1: "It's 8:30. Claire is still in bed."
2. "John has the ball. There are no defenders near."
And page 59 in Macmillan English Grammar in Context . . .
exactly the same.
1. "It's 8:30. Claire is still in bed." And so on.
Also, the thing I showed at the very beginning of the video,
where Elight even copied the design of the Eiffel tower bit,
That came from page 40 in Macmillan English Grammar in Context,
and it's page 117 in Elight's book.
Although Elight actually made a mistake in the plagiarism. They forgot the word "the" before Eiffel.
There are some other cases, too, where Elight not only copied the words but the design itself.
On page 209, look at these menus.
"Beef: well-done, medium, rare. Chicken. Fish. Rice."
And now look at these menus:
"Beef: well-done, medium, rare. Chicken. Fish. Rice."
Elight copied these from an old book called Listen Carefully, by Jack Richards.
In fact, these two pages, 208 and 209 in Elight's book, are copied 100% from Unit 4 in Listen Carefully.
And on page 84 in Elight's book, they copied this design from page 3 in Listen Carefully.
Take a look.
Yet another case of copying the design comes on page 253 of Elight's book
"Amazing Facts! The lowest point. Antarctica has the most extreme climate.
The biggest tree.The shortest river."
And . . . here we have the same.
"Amazing Facts! The lowest point. Antarctica." So on.
That one was copied from a book called Active Grammar Level 1, a book published by Cambridge.
I found eight different places where Elight copied from this book,
but I'll just show you two of them.
On page 159 in Elight's book:
"Will you go/are you going to Joe's Halloween party next week?"
And page 51 in Active Grammar:
"Will you go/are you going to Joe's Halloween party next week?"
Although the funny thing here is they changed the names from Jill and Kelly to Henry and Bella.
Do they think that changing the names makes it no longer plagiarism?
And then, page 347 in Elight's book . . .
the entire page is copied from page 141 in Active Grammar.
Exercise 1: "too / lies / He / many / told."
Page 141 in Active Grammar:
"too / lies / He / many / told."
Exercise 2: "I don't like this weather. It's too hot."
"I don't like this weather. It's too hot."
Exercise 3: "There's not enough salt. Can you buy some more?"
"There's not enough salt. Can you buy some more?"
Exercise 4: "I don't feel very well. I've eaten _____."
"I don't feel very well. I've eaten _____."
Now, I'm not going to show you all the cases of plagiarism I found,
because this video would end up being very, very long.
So here's what I did instead.
I made a spreadsheet where I catalogued every instance of plagiarism I found.
And I've shared this spreadsheet publicly. There's a link in the description as well as in the comments.
For each entry, I've included the page number in Elight's book . . .
and just for reference, I'm looking at the third printing.
I think that the previous and later printings might be a little bit different. I'm not sure.
Anyway, there's the page number, the number of the exercise or activity,
a photo that I took of that exercise and uploaded,
as well as a link that takes you to a page with the same content.
Now, one thing to note is the link may not take you to the original source.
In some cases it'll take you to a page in India or Russia or Spain or Turkey
that also copied.
So, it doesn't exactly prove where Elight copied from,
but at the very least it proves that their work is not original.
If I was able to find the original source, though, that is listed in the last column.
If you look at this spreadsheet, you'll see that I found over 100 cases of Elight copying.
I honestly couldn't believe it. I thought I would maybe find . . .
ten. At most twenty.
Over 100.
And there is one more that I want to show you in detail.
On page 335 of Elight's book, it says:
"Diwali means the festival of light. It's my favorite time of year."
And here we've got the same thing:
"Diwali means the festival of light. It's my favourite time of year."
And where did Elight copy from?
The British Council.
Now, the British Council is an organization I admire.
Their website has got loads of free resources for English learners and English teachers to use
Teachers can find lesson plans, writing assignments, games, activities,
and they're free to download and print those resources and use them in their classroom.
And here Elight is, deliberately plagiarizing those free resources, in order to profit off their $14 book.
If you're wondering how to describe that situation in English,
I think "disgusting" would be an appropriate term.
Oh, and if you want to have your stomach turned just a little bit more,
check out this gem from the front matter:
"No part of this book is permitted for copying or distribution in any form or by any means—
electronic, audio, blah blah blah—
without the prior written consent of the author, Phan Kieu Trang,
or a representative of Elight Education LLC.
Any copying without the agreement of the author is illegal, and in violation of Vietnamese publishing law,
international copyright law, and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works."
Unbelievable.
Evidently, Trang and her little team of helpers at Elight feel that . . .
Copying and plagiarism are very, very wrong . . .
unless they're the ones doing it.
Now, some of you might be thinking, "Oh, well, maybe Elight got permission to use all that stuff."
I don't think so.
If you look at the front matter of any serious book, you'll see something like this:
"The author and publishers are grateful for the permission to reprint the following copyright material: "
and then a long list of attributions.
In the front matter of Elight's book, there is no such thing,
nor is there in the back matter.
So, that's basically all I want to say about the book itself,
but there are a few extraneous points I want to make.
I'm sure some people are going to watch this video and say:
"Oh, this Dan guy is just trying to destroy his competition!"
First of all, it's ridiculous to say that Elight and I are in competition.
Have you been to Hanoi?
Have you seen how many English centers and private English teachers there are here?
Have you seen how many English-teaching channels there are on YouTube?
For a guy like me to succeed by destroying his competition,
he would have to destroy a lot more than just Elight.
Also, this situation really is not . . .
The important parties in this case are not Elight and me.
They're Elight, Elight's customers, and the people whose work Trang and Elight have plagiarized.
I mean, if you can't see the negative effect that this book has on the people who have bought it
and are trying to use it to learn English,
as well as the negative effect that it has on the general community of English-language learners and teachers,
if you can't see that, I really don't know what to say to you.
And if you really think that I'm a villain or that I'm a busybody,
and Elight is just an innocent victim,
there's a very easy way for you to support them.
Buy the book.
If you don't need the book or you already have it, buy it as a gift for a friend.
Sign up for one of Elight's classes.
You know, support them with your money, rather than just supporting them with your mouth.
Another question or accusation that I'm sure some people are going to throw out is:
"Well, why do you hate Elight so much?
They're not the only center that's put out a book like this with mistakes and plagiarism.
Why are you singling them out?"
Well, I haven't seen those books.
If you want to tell me the title and the author,
maybe I'll check it out.
Maybe a few months from now I'll make a video exposing them.
I have no sympathy for plagiarists. Any of them.
I will admit, though, I have a particular dislike for Elight. And here's why.
It's because of posts like this,
where Trang says that the success of the book has exceeded her expectations,
and part of the reason for that success is the creativity involved.
Or the fact that she's now going around to competitions like Vietchallenge 2018
and talking about how she wants to take Elight international.
She's basically going out and posing as this great entrepreneur and educator,
who the youth of Vietnam should admire and emulate.
And to me it just seems like a total fraud.
That's the thing about Elight and Phan Kieu Trang that really . . . doesn't sit well with me.
One more accusation I'm sure some people will make is:
"Oh yeah, what about YOUR videos, Dan?
You've used copyrighted material."
Now, it's true that I've got a few videos, like this one, this one, and this one,
that include a lot of copyrighted material.
But, in each of those cases, I'm commenting on that copyrighted material,
and because of that, those videos fall well within the parameters of fair use.
Fair use is the reason there are loads of reaction channels on YouTube,
as well as film review channels which regularly use large chunks of copyrighted material
without any legal trouble.
Copyright is not as simple as saying:
"Oh, this thing is copyrighted. This person used it. That's against the law."
It depends on how you use it.
In some of my videos I also use photos that I didn't personally take,
like this one from my recent video about pronouncing names,
or this one from my Tet video.
But I get the majority of those photos from Pixabay,
which is a collection of copyright-free images.
I also sometimes use images that I get through Google Image searches,
but I always select "Labeled for reuse" in the search tools,
so my search is limited to copyright-free images.
The music that I use mostly comes from incompetech.com, which is all copyright-free,
and in some cases, like the song you're listening to right now . . .
it comes from artists who I've found on Soundcloud,
and I've contacted them before using their songs.
And some of them say, "Yeah, you can use my song as long as you pay to download it,"
others say, "No, you don't need to pay. Just give me some credit in the description."
And I do that.
When it comes to copyright, I've been a pretty good boy.
Not perfect.
In my very early videos, I used copyrighted music,
and in one case, YouTube caught it, and I'm not able to monetize that video.
Like most YouTubers, I've made a few mistakes with copyright.
But I don't think that what Elight has done with this book can be called a mistake.
They made a deliberate effort to copy a lot.
And in spite of all of that, I'm sure some people are just going to say:
"Well . . .
you're still a bastard, anyway!"
Fine.
If you want to think that about me, you've got every right to.
I'm not trying to prove to you that I'm a perfect human being.
I'm not.
But whether I'm a saint or Satan himself
does not change the facts of what Trang and Elight have done with this book.
That's all I've got to say in defense of myself.
But there is one final note I want to make for all of you.
If you feel pissed off about this . . .
good.
I'm pissed off about it, too.
However, I hope everyone will keep it in perspective.
What Trang and Elight have done with this book is completely wrong,
but it's not the worst thing that anyone has ever done.
Ok?
If you want to say something critical about them, or if you want to make a joke about them,
I think that's fine.
But don't go around throwing out meaningless insults like . . .
"Trash!"
"Animals!"
"Dregs of society!"
I think Trang and her team at Elight absolutely have to take responsibility for this book,
but you also have to take responsibility for what you say.
I'm not a fan of Trang . . .
at all.
But, she is still a human being.
Try to remember that as you discuss this.
And let's keep the conversation sane, civil, and objective.
That's all I've got to say. Take care.
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