Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 5149 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese*
| Message 25 of 82 25 November 2010 at 4:51pm | IP Logged |
Otto Liddenbrock from Jules Verne is known by Axel, your nephew as "a man knows many of
languages of world". In the book A Jouney to Center of Earth, I saw him speak German, Old
Norse, Latin, Icelandic and Danish. And I only red the begin.
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Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6871 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language
| Message 26 of 82 25 November 2010 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
John Clark from the Tom Clancy novels is an accomplished polyglot. I know he speaks Russian and Spanish like a native, as well as a dialect of Arabic (Sum of All Fears). In "Debt of Honor" he goes to the DLI to learn some survival Japanese but doesn't speak the language. I think he speaks some others but I'm not sure of it how.
His partner Domingo "Ding" Chavez also is talented: Spanish, English and Russian at a native or near native level.
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patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7018 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map
| Message 27 of 82 26 November 2010 at 12:06am | IP Logged |
I'd forgotten about that book. One of Clancy's better ones, in my opinion.
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unch Triglot Newbie France Joined 5050 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Irish, Russian, Esperanto
| Message 28 of 82 06 February 2011 at 11:31pm | IP Logged |
When reading the Count of Montecristo by Alexandre Dumas, I remember being impressed when I learnt that some characters were multilingual. I got really exited at the idea as I could only speak English at the time and wished that I were also familiar with different languages
If I remember correctly however, there were some inconsistencies relating to this. Early on in the novel Dantes is said to speak, maybe, 4 languages, as a result of a sailor's life or growing up at an international port.
Then later when Dantes meets the Abbe, he is awe stricken that the Abbe speaks several languages - 5 modern languages (French, German, Italian, English and Spanish) + some Greek learned with the aid of ancient Greek. I think it can be assumed that he also spoke Latin?
I believe that the Abbe subsequently teaches Dantes some or all of his languages.
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Neutrin0 Tetraglot Newbie France Joined 5833 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Kabyle, French*, English, Spanish Studies: Japanese, German, Italian
| Message 29 of 82 08 February 2011 at 11:46pm | IP Logged |
Ireneo Funes in the Jorge Luis Borges' short story "Funes el Memorioso" speaks his native Spanish and has learnt with great ease ("sin esfuerzo") English, French, Portuguese and Latin.
Edited by Neutrin0 on 09 February 2011 at 10:06pm
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darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6043 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin
| Message 30 of 82 14 February 2011 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
Dr Brennan in Bones speaks Spanish, French, Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Norwegian (I think) and German. I can't remember if she knows Russian as well
Sherlock Holmes definitely knew Latin and French and I have a vague memory that he might have known Italian but it's been a while since I read the books.
Professor Lidenbrock form a Joruney to the Centre of the Earth could read Latin, Old Icelandic and had knowledge of Spanish, French, Italian, Greek and Hebrew not including his native language which I think was German
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Gorgoll2 Senior Member Brazil veritassword.blogspo Joined 5149 days ago 159 posts - 192 votes Speaks: Portuguese*
| Message 31 of 82 18 February 2011 at 12:07am | IP Logged |
Elwin Ransom from Space Trilogy by C.S Lewis was known for his abilitie of learning
languages. He knew 20 or more.
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Felipe Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6033 days ago 451 posts - 501 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Italian, Dutch, Catalan
| Message 32 of 82 18 February 2011 at 1:24am | IP Logged |
I always thought it would be awesome to write a story in which the text would be written according to what language is spoken in the part of the world where the main character is. So, the story starts out in Spain, everything is written in Spanish. But then for some reason the plot takes the reader to Italy, so now everything is written in Italian, etc. A book in the style of Tom Clancy might end up being in English, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Icelandic, German, Mandarin, etc. and would go back and forth between all of these.
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