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Tags: Alexander Arguelles | Introduction | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7255 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes  | Message 1 of 2 22 January 2005 at 12:00pm | IP Logged |
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May I suggest that we all fill out all the given fields to identify forum members as accurately as possible? I have no problem whatsoever addressing my posts or replies to either 15 year old enthusiasts or 60 year old professionals, but it would help me know how to tailor my wording to those who have been my main "conversation" partners (victor, manna, thomaskim, etc.) if I knew who they were. I myself am a 40 year old polyglot Dr. of linguistics, truly competent in most Western Eurorpean languages + Korean, conversant with many other "exotics," and currently attempting to immerse myself in Arabic, so that anyone who is passing through Beirut is welcome to pay me a visit.
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7255 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 2 of 2 24 January 2005 at 12:25am | IP Logged |
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OK, I'll try to give a list of sorts, but I don't feel very comfortable doing so because it is precisely when you do know many languages that the questions of what a language is and what it means to know a language become very blurry.
I know the whole Germanic family, having essentially majored in older Germanic philology and written my doctoral dissertation on Old Norse. On the Western side, I know German itself best, having lived in the country for a number of years so that I am near native overall. Dutch is not far behind, and when I have used it to converse with Afrikaaners, they thought I was speaking that dialect. Frysk is harder, but when I went to the academy to get materials for it, the people there were happy to speak it to me, and I was happy to understand them; that was years ago, and I have now thoroughly studied those materials. On the Northern side, I do know Swedish rather well now, and neither Danish nor Norwegian are problematic either. I have never actually encountered living modern Icelandic, but on the basis of my experience, I could certainly cope with it within a few days of immersion. I also know the whole Romance family, being thoroughly versed in Latin and probably near native overall in both French and Spanish. Italian is not far behind them now, and as for Portuguese, well, just several weeks ago I bought a used car from a dealer who was from Brazil and we did all of our negotiating in Portuguese and he does not seem to have cheated me, so I guess it must be all right too. I have Catalan as well, though I have never been able to give it the time it deserves, and Occitan too, though I never could find anyone to speak it to me in the South of France. Romanian is the hardest of the lot, but if I ever get actual exposure to it, I am sure that I will be able to cope. I wish that I could say that I knew the whole Slavic family as well, but I went at it too late and after I was involved with too many other things. I do have a thorough command of Russian now, and I have studied a good deal of Polish, Czech, Serbocroatian, and Bulgarian, though I have never actually been exposed to them. I would also like to have the whole Celtic family, but after getting an overview of all the members, and after spending some time studying Breton, I have decided to concentrate on Irish only as it has far and away the most literature. I'm ready for immersion in it, but I haven't gotten there yet. In college I could read Ancient Greek well, and I now believe my Modern Greek could also really take root if I could get to spend some time on its soil to plant it. Of more exotic I-E tongues, I know Persian the best. I have spent over a thousand hours on it and can read its literature without too much toil now. I have also shadowed so much that I am confident that I could communicate if given the chance in Tehran, but I have never yet had that chance. In college I could also read Sanskrit passably, but that has now given way to Hindi-Urdu, regrettably the only Indic language for which I have built a solid foundation. My father (also a polyglot as well as a poet) did not transform himself into an Indologist until after he retired, so perhaps I will also get the whole Indic family in my old age. Of truly difficult East Asian languages, I know Korean best, having gone to the country for the specific purpose of learning it, spent nine years there, and married a Korean lady. I’ve published a number of reference works on the language as well as translations of the literature, but strange to say this is the one language that I can speak better than I can read. On the basis of Korean, I studied a substantial amount of Japanese and was once able to converse in it, but that was years ago and I regrettably put it on pause and have never had the time to take it off again. I was planning to go for modern Chinese only after I had "mastered" both Korean and Japanese, so I haven't gotten there yet. However, I did memorize thousands of characters and was able to read classical literary Chinese texts very laboriously some years ago, but I have since let my characters get very rusty. I am currently attempting to immerse myself in Arabic, but Beirut turns out not to be the best place to do this as everyone, especially at the university where I teach, uses French and English officially. I want to focus on the classical literary language first. I speak it with my private tutor several hours a week, and can feel that I have made enormous progress in the four months that I have been here, though of course I have put in several hours of dictionary work each and every single day as I work through the texts of modern short stories. As for the Lebanese dialect spoken around me, I honestly already do understand the gist of everything that is being said. So, I think that's about it. I've studied many other languages as well, but let them go, which was a tremendous waste of time. I've also committed many other blunders on my way to becoming a polyglot, the main one being putting my drive to do so on hold for too long while I wasted years on theory in graduate school at the University of Chicago. At any rate, these are the results of a good foundation plus a solid decade devoted entirely to language work. I'm now really overloaded and not even attempting to learn anything more until when and if I have really mastered the ones I have mentioned. I'd like to do something else with my life besides learn languages, wonderful as it has been. I'm starting by writing a guide to doing so for others, so that they can hopefully do so more efficiently. I honestly believe that anyone with interest, motivation, and drive, who has the time, and who devises the right method, can become truly competent in as many languages as I have and even more if they get started earlier. Once you know how to do so, learning languages is not hard. However, perfecting them is much more difficult, and the real challenge lies in balancing your time between them all. I would not recommend learning as many languages as I have learned, but I truly believe that the mark of a well-educated person should be a knowledge of half a dozen. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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