BILINGUALISM AND CULTURE
I intuit that for the average language student, bilingualism refers to the mastering of two languages, right? "In my book", the definition is amplified, engulfing culture as well. And by "culture" I refer to history, music, religion, philosophy, or, in short, the framework of a person´s intellectual baggage which must be duplicated or mastered in the two languages of the true bilingual speaker. If we talk to a Spaniard about Alexander the Great , we must say Alejandro Magno . Saying Alejandro el Grande will sound weird to him. If a Spanish-speaker talks about the Las mil y una noches , he should remember that The Arabian Nights will be more comprehensible to the English speaker. El lago de los cisnes turns into Swan Lake , as The Flight of the Bumblebee will be better understood than El vuelo del moscardón . An Englishman should not quote The Merry Wives of Windsor and instead mention Las alegres comadres de Windsor . The British cross the English Channel whe...