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Guardian Article on Alexander Arguelles | ||
Tags: Alexander Arguelles | Press Article | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5590 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 31 19 March 2012 at 2:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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I really wonder how much of this article was in the professor's own words. In his posts
on this forum and his channel on youtube, he has always stressed the difficulty in deciding "how many languages he speaks." Most of the time he ignores the question or gives a complicated answer about what languages he can speak, how many he read, how many he can write, etc. For him to say that he can speak 50 just seems so uncharacteristic of him. I'm positive the writer of this article misquoted him. I'm also curious as to why the article focused much more on his spoken abilities. The Professor has usually said that reading in the languages has been his chief goal, with speaking being a secondary concern. Otherwise, it was an interesting article. I'm very glad that the writer made a point of saying that success in language learning comes from the amount of time devoted to studying and not some magical talent or method. Btw, the Professor is an amazing polyglot. I totally second everything Serpent just mentioned. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 18 of 31 19 March 2012 at 10:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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If you really want to lean about Professor Arguelles, Michael Erard has written extensively about him and his learning methods in "Babel no more - The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners". And acording to the book, for prof. Arguelles the aim is above all to be able to read literature in the original languages, not necessarily to speak and converse in them.
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| Lauren_Webb Newbie United Kingdom veritaslanguagesolut Joined 4695 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes | Message 19 of 31 19 March 2012 at 11:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought this was a really interesting article, and was impressed that they did mention
how much time and effort he has dedicated to language learning. So many articles seem to credit polyglots' "gift for language", and it can be quite frustrating to read! As they say, "talent is just a fancy word for hard work". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 31 19 March 2012 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Professor Arguelles is an extremely focused language learner, and given his study program it is understandable that he has spent more time on studying and telling about languages and reading stuff in them than on making the usual kind of multilingual Youtube videos. And precisely therefore the 'Dutch video' is very welcome because it shows him being taken off guard in one of his minor languages and still being able to have a perfectly reasonable conversation in it. Edited by Iversen on 19 March 2012 at 2:49pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 21 of 31 19 March 2012 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
If he can really speak 20 languages as well or better than his Dutch, then that is impressive. He seemed to be a bit rusty at first but after 3 minutes or so, he got more comfortable. His understanding seemed to be very good. The Dutch ladies certainly were convinced he could speak Dutch. In the Dutch segment, I found his body language unusual, and a bit laborious and struggling. After most sentences, he seemed to be very relieved he had managed to get through them. Then he slammed down his arms and uttered a big sigh of relief, as if to say 'Whew! I got through that effort!". It looked like such hard work that he would be exhausted after struggling through a short conversation. I would find it tiresome to talk to him like that. I suppose it is some sort of a bridge or crutch that helps him manage in his less-fluent languages. I hope he doesn't speak that way in all his languages. I hope it is not a technique that I use, or would consider using. I would be concerned that it was putting an extra burden on my language partner in the conversation. The Dutch ladies didn't seem to notice or mind. In any case, his capabilities are quite impressive. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6438 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 31 19 March 2012 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
His strong languages are nothing like that; a German friend of mine says he's the best non-native speaker of German she's ever heard, for instance. He was still managing a reasonable conversation in one of his weaker languages, with no particular preparation. In general, I think people are fairly accepting of body language which shows that a certain amount of effort is involved. His body language wasn't a "technique"; it's a common side effect of putting some effort into a conversation where you need to reach for what you're saying. You'll notice similar in some of Benny's youtube videos, for instance. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5225 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 23 of 31 20 March 2012 at 4:34am | IP Logged | |||||
When you re-read what you wrote, doesn't it strike you as just a bit, I don't know, petty, nit-picking, or hyper-critical? As you note, "the Dutch ladies didn't seem to notice or mind," so why should you? If you really need to over-analyze every gesture or utterance other people make, keep it to yourself, because it doesn't do anything to encourage conversation, let alone the making and sharing of videos in a polyglot community. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5225 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 24 of 31 20 March 2012 at 4:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought to pose the question about the uncharacteristic number claims directly to him among the comments of the video he posted earlier today On the Difficulty of Learning Foreign Languages. Here's what I wrote and what he wrote back:
The interview that The Guardian published about you on Friday 16 March 2012 bears the title "Experience: I can speak 50 languages," and in it, you are quoted as saying that you can read three dozen languages and that you speak most of those fluently. In the past, you have always shied away from giving any numbers and insisted on nuanced discussions of fluency, so I can't help but wonder if you are really claiming these figures now. Jonzwelet 3 hours ago Reply @Jonzwelet No, no, no, absolutely not! I suspect a copy editor stepped in with a catchy title. I truly enjoyed giving that interview as the interviewer was genuinely interested in the intellectual side of polyglottery, and we spoke on the phone for several hours. Since he had to condense all of that into a single page article, I don't mind that he did a lot of first-person paraphrasing for me, but you clearly know already that I myself would never quantify my knowledge in this fashion. ProfASAr 36 minutes ago 14 persons have voted this message useful |
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