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Professor Arguelles’ Books | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7253 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes  | Message 33 of 38 20 April 2008 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Makrasiroutioun and Rebecka, thank you so much for your continued interest in my book. I will make the table of contents public soon in an open pitch to get an agent or editor interested in it because I am afraid it is just not something that I will ever be able to polish off on my own, to my own satisfaction. Thank you, Rebecka, also for your interest in actively studying at an academy of Polyglottery. I was not engaging in idle fantasy in articulating my pedagogical philosophy, and I truly hope and pray to lay the initial foundations of some form of that institution in the very near future.
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7253 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 34 of 38 04 May 2008 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have put the chapter outline for my book on my website. At this point, I am blatantly fishing for a professional editor/agent to push me through the necessary polishing and final production. It is just not something that I can do on my own – I bog down in the mire of details every time I try. For this reason, I will not self-publish this work, or make any kind of e-book out of it, or even publish it anywhere where I will have to do all the final preparation on my own. No, sorry, I will either do this one right, in a big way, or not at all.
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| JasonChoi Diglot Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6356 days ago 274 posts - 298 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin | Message 35 of 38 30 May 2008 at 3:57am | IP Logged | |||||
Has anyone purchased these CDs? I'm curious to know if the North Korean articles are read with a Northern dialect. -Jason Edited by JasonChoi on 30 May 2008 at 3:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5258 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 36 of 38 01 February 2012 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was also fortunate to get hold of a copy. Seeing it first mentioned here on this thread I ordered it straight from the publisher's website (ldlp.com) in May 2010. The search function of their website was defective, you could only find and track down the book searching for its ISBN number, 9953860564, without dashes, and it was listed under "Alexander", not "Arguelles". The shopping process was also a somewhat tricky matter, but eventually I got through and received an automatic confirmation. But afterwards everything went on smoothly. Price of the book was a mere $20 plus $9 shipping cost from the Lebanon to mainland Europe. Shipping took 9-10 days, the packaging was good and the book arrived in good shape complete with formal invoice. It is just that their website didn't work as it should. So, if anyone wants to have his/her own copy of Professor Arguelles' multilingual dictionary I suggest you directly contact the publisher, maybe they still have stock (I would guess so). Just now their online shop appears to be in the process of reconstruction, so if you want the book you might have to contact them via e-mail (click on the 'LDLP Shop' tab on their website). Good luck! [EDIT Feb 4, 2012: Price of the book (without shipping) was only $20, not $29 as I had originally written] Edited by Kronos on 04 February 2012 at 12:36pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6916 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 37 of 38 02 February 2012 at 12:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Book can be found at this store in London
And this on-line store in New York How does this book compare with Harrap's Five Language Dictionary (same languages and same number of entries): Harrap's Five Language Dictionary Edited by translator2 on 03 February 2012 at 4:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5258 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 38 of 38 04 February 2012 at 3:09am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know the Harrap's, but they both seem to be organized in a different manner. An Amazon reviewer writes: "The book is laid out alphabetically like one large spreadsheet, with one column for German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. There is just one problem, the book is laid out alphabetically irrespective of language. So instead of the left main column being just English or French, it is all the languages. Example one entry on the left column will be by the way(eng) and the next entry is calbagar(span) etc." In Prof. Arguelles' dictionary the order is also alphabetical, but the headwords are all in English. English is the language of reference here. Sequence of entries is like: faculty, fade, fail, and so on throughout the whole book. The layout is that of a common dictionary, without special columns. Each entry starts with the English word, followed by the closest equivalents in each of the other three languages, often accompanied by synonyms in order to indicate the specific meaning. In the case of incongruities among the languages there are several entries for the English word, for instance five entries for "fail" (not succeed, fail a test, etc. - of which each has a somewhat different vocabulary in one or several of the other languages). The book does not give example sentences or phrases, but it was never meant to replace ordinary bilingual dictionaries anyway. I have not used the book much and I can only speak for German as this is my native language, but my impression is that the dictionary has obviously been prepared with considerable diligence. There are only few mistakes or awkward choices in translation - probably not more and not less than in any bilingual dictionary of the big publishing houses. There are some minor blunders and inaccuracies though. I just had a look, scanning a number of pages for mistakes and checking for difficult words. Here are some noticeable slips: "jinx", with the specification of "person who brings bad luck", has been given the German equivalent "Unglücksrabe", although the German word would refer to a person who is befallen with bad luck rather than passing it to others (synonymous with "Pechvogel"); anyway I admit the distinction is not entirely strict and I had myself to consult a German-German dictionary in order to become sure about it. "philandering" has curiously been translated by the relatively innocuous "Flirten" (flirting), "martial arts" by "Kriegskunst" (an outdated or literary synonym for "Kriegsführung" = "military strategy") instead of the correct "Kampfkunst" or "Kampfkünste" (methods of self-defense). "petroleum" is translated with the false friend "Petroleum" (kerosene, (UK) paraffin - used in lamps or for cleaning purposes) instead of "Erdöl" (or Rohöl, = crude oil). However, the very next headword "petroleum product" is correctly translated as "Erdölprodukt". -- It has to be noted that all these are exceptions, there are not many of them. On the other hand the dictionary wisely translates the somewhat tricky term "marmalade" as "Orangenmarmelade", which is accurate since the German word "Marmelade" without further specification can refer to all varieties of jam, or adds the explanatory term "Zimmerflucht" to "Suite" (of rooms), which is very fine German indeed. As a general rule the translations into German are accurate, reflect contemporary usage, and are sufficiently aware of nuances in meaning. There are occasional slips as noted above, but only one in a couple of pages. I feel this book would be of greater use, for language learners at least, if it was structured by theme rather than merely in alphabetical order; in fact this was intended and there is a classification list at the beginning of the book, but due to technical reasons this system could not be integrated in the present edition. I think two languages (Russian and Korean) were already prepared but eventually not included, and some other languages like Italian and Arabic proposed. In its present, maybe truncated form it yet has more than 20,000 entries, each of them duly translated into French, Spanish and German. To compile this dictionary must have been one helluva work. Generally such books are prepared by teams of specialists, not one single person as main author, at least nowadays. So much about the book. I do not really know what to do with it, but I am glad that I have it. As it includes only more or less frequent vocabulary, one could maybe make good use of it mining for new words in advanced stages of learning any of the four languages covered. 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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