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Guardian Article on Alexander Arguelles | ||
Tags: Alexander Arguelles | Press Article | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5731 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 25 of 31 20 March 2012 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks, Zwlth. I saw his video and that comment a few minutes ago.
That certainly sheds some light on why the article seems so uncharacteristic of the professor's writing style and habit of beating around the bush about how many languages he knows. As long as the professor doesn't mind the paraphrasing, it's fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5868 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 26 of 31 20 March 2012 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think I "over-analysed" it. The distracting mannerisms were throughout the entire conversation. I found them distracting and I suspect others would too. I would think that someone who has devoted his whole life to language learning would be very open to suggestions and improvements. I don't think he would be hyper-sensitive about constructive comments. I'd hope he would welcome them if they might improve his conversational skills. If I had such a habit and didn't realise it, then I would want to know about it. HTLAL isn't all about patting everyone on the back and overlooking things that might improve their languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 27 of 31 20 March 2012 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
While you found them distracting, you might find as you converse more in other languages that a certain amount of hand motion will keep conversations going much better than awkward silence, when you need a moment to think. For a language one doesn't speak often, I don't think suppressing such movements is a benefit at all: it simply leads to conversations awkwardly dying. I severely doubt the Professor is aware of those movements, given that he's the uploader of the video, and he does not have this mannerism in languages he speaks more frequently. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5868 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 28 of 31 20 March 2012 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think you're right about that. However, I am not really a hand-waving kind of guy. Maybe a little would help. I have a friend who speaks second languages much better than I do, but he puts that awkward "ah" everywhere throughout his conversation. It gives him time to think, but it is hard to listen to him for very long. I prefer if I can to use Splogs connectors as pause words. You have to consciously think about using them in a way that it gives you time to think. Sooner or later, they may become transparent as you develop the habit. Hopefully it doesn't go too far and become a bad habit. But I am convinced connectors are the way to go. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6441 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 29 of 31 20 March 2012 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Connectors are lovely, and definitely better than going "ah". Physical gestures are somewhat complimentary. I've tried using strings of connectors as long as some of the handwaving in that video. The result is very, very confused interlocutors who try to extract meaning and can't. Other than speaking Dutch more often so that he has less need of extralinguistic help, I don't honestly see much way for Professor Argüelles to have done better, and I think he did fairly well. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zorrillo Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 6386 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, French, Sign Language, Spanish, Polish Studies: Greek, Georgian, Indonesian | Message 30 of 31 20 March 2012 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's amazing how people can perceive something so differently. I never once noticed anything remotely distracting about his mannerisms. In fact I was struck by how relaxed he looks, with his arm casually resting on the bench, chatting away in a "weaker" language with no hint of panic or concern. If I got ambushed in one of my weaker languages, I'd be a nervous wreck. He didn't look that way at all, which is why he is one of the greats.
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 31 of 31 20 March 2012 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought the article was pretty fair, especially for a summary of a long conversation. I found it easy to infer that it was a question and answer with the questions removed. So, for instance, his comments on Esperanto and a "sole world language" seemed like two responses to two questions, and not one long thought, or suggestion that Esperanto aimed to be a sole world language.
I'm mostly humbled, though, by the sheer amount of work he and other modern polyglots put in towards maintaining their languages. I used to think that there would be some magic number of languages (five? seven?), or CEFR level, where you could just start to cruise. But between this and Babel No More, it seems as if they are putting as much work into maintaining their skills as I do in learning them. To me that's more impressive than actually learning that many languages in the first place. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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