LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

 I met Silvano Corrêa at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when we were both undergraduates in the late 1950s. Born in Brazil and now living in São Paulo , Silvano has been my friend for almost seventy years. I have always regarded him as an honest, upright, optimistic, idealistic, and God-fearing man. I have had a few disappointments in friendship over the years, but with Silvano, I have always felt safe. Some time ago, he sent me, in book form, a collection of letters he had written to Brazilian newspapers, decrying the state of affairs in his country and in the world at large. Minhas Cartas, expressões de um idealista is a compilation of his views on government, politics, and society in general. Silvano has now published his memoirs, Seven Lives of Silvano: one story, seven ways, just one purpose (Amazon Books, 2026), in which he recounts his different stays in Brazil and the United States. This is, to my mind, a fine memoir of a bilingual and bicultural man and ...

  Cada idioma, cada cultura, tiene sus grandes literatos, científicos, descubridores, artistas, políticos, que son desconocidos en otras culturas. El reto de los bilingües es el de estar en contacto y al día de quien es quién, en nuestro caso, en español e inglés. Toda persona culta en los Estadaos Unidos sabe perfectamente quién es Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr , de quien los monolingües hispanos no han oído hablar. Ser culto ya es difícil, ser culto en dos idiomas lo es mucho más porque exige el doble de tiempo y el doble de esfuerzo. Pero vale la pena. Hablar dos idiomas exige dominar dos culturas. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) escribió Autocrat of the Breakfast Table y nos dijo: "Beware how to take hope from any human being." "The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving." "Poverty is evidence of limited capacity." "All men want to reach old age and grumble when they get it."

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...

Nothing shows better the character, grit, determination and self-discipline of people than when they are trying to master a foreign language. The determined student has a goal in mind and pursues it to the end, scoffing at trivial hurdles that plague the faint of heart: lack of time, procrastination, vacation, illness, more pressing matters, excuses, parties... Excuses, excuses, excuses! A second language is a second culture, a second cuisine, a second history, a second way of doing and interpreting things... almost a second life, a second secret life where we can ensconce from time to time and feel safe when the going gets rough in our first language. I admire those who get to master more than one language and esteem them, and feel they are superior. They show determination and discipline. They are professionals and use no excuses. No less!