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Lee Harvey Oswald | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6098 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 1 of 4 13 November 2007 at 3:09am | IP Logged |
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Fluent in Russian. Some controversy about when and how this happened. He seems to have been ostentatiously learning the language while a US Marine, prompting little more than a raised eyebrow from his superiors, which I find odd considering it was US environments of the 1950s. He took and failed a Russian language test yet seems to have been rather good at the language not too long after when invited to dinner by a fellow Marine's aunt who was studying the language. There has been some speculation that he received special language training, perhaps at the defence school in Monterey, California, suggesting a relationship with intelligence services. He certainly became fluent during his temporary defection to the USSR.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6098 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 2 of 4 02 December 2007 at 9:22am | IP Logged |
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Oswald apparently would not allow his Russian wife to learn English when they came to the USA. It would seem he was worried he would lose his fluency in Russian if the home language was English. It is almost as if a Russian wife was his personal foreign language immersion project. What Oswald wanted to do with his fluent Russian is anyone's guess.
Towards the end of his life he appears to have become interested in learning Spanish. Perhaps like so many who have successfully learned one foreign language, he decided to learn another. Edited by William Camden on 02 December 2007 at 9:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jirpy100 Diglot Newbie South Africa Joined 6088 days ago 31 posts - 32 votes Speaks: Afrikaans*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 3 of 4 02 December 2007 at 10:33am | IP Logged |
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Maybe he wanted to travel to another communist country: Cuba. The Soviet Union's close ally. Edited by jirpy100 on 02 December 2007 at 10:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6098 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 4 of 4 02 December 2007 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
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That is one theory. It has been claimed that he travelled to Mexico and tried unsuccessfully to obtain a Cuban visa there. Others claim this was not in fact Oswald.
On the subject of language ability, Oswald seems to have suffered from dyslexia, which must have made it harder for him to learn languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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