LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  Bilingüe (plurilingüe, polígota)  fue Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (1882-1947), quizá el mejor alcalde que ha tenido Nueva York, que hablaba y daba discursos en inglés, italiano, yiddish, francés, serbio, alemán y húngaro. Durante una campaña política le acusaron de ser antisemita y en vez de explicar que su madre era judía, retó a su contrincante a un debate en yidis. El oponente, judío, declinó. Bilingüe (plurilingüe) fue Arthur Koestler (1905-1983), que escribió sus artículos periodísticos en alemán, húngaro, inglés, francés y hebreo. Escribió novelas en húngaro, alemán e inglés. En su biografía Arrow in the Blue describe su relación con los idiomas y cómo tenía pesadillas, cuando gritaba en varios a la vez. Bilingüe (multilingüe, polígloto) fue Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), conocido principalmente por su novela  Lolita. Aprendió inglés y ruso, y a los cinco años, francés. Su madre le leía por la noche en tres idiomas. Aprendió alemán en Alemania. Aparte de lingü...

In an article of mine, and apropos of the supposed lack of interest of Spaniards in language learning, I mentioned Hispanic polyglots like Juan Valera , Eduardo Benot , Ángel Ganivet , Unamuno ... but somehow I forgot Don Pascual de Gayangos (1809-1890), the great Arabist, who made translations into English. Rereading Edward Rice 's Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton , I came across this: "One of the few fortuitous experiences of the year for Burton came when Dr. Greemhill introduced him to don Pascual de Gayangos, the Spanish Arabist." Sir Richard Burton spoke 29 languages, read them, and wrote in them. He became a famous Arabic translator, like Gayangos. A chance encounter of two linguists and Arabists.

Dr. Alexander Argüelles is a polyglot who speaks 100 languages. He holds a Ph.D. from Chicago and explains on YouTube his modus operandi in language learning. He invests (or invested) 16 hours a day, seven days a week, studying Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Farsi, Korean, Turkish, Irish (?), Greek, Latin, Finish, Russian at the same time. He has (had) time to interact with his two children, cook, go to church, go for runs, and chit-chat with his wife. Dr. Argüelles makes me feel (pardon my French) like an intellectual piece of shit. After a lifetime of working on my English and Spanish, I am having a hell of a time trying to put together a phraseological dictionary in both languages. The amount, and diversity, of idioms, are truly daunting. I am ready to quit and throw in the towel just about every day, but Dr. Argüelles seems to have no problems mastering and using all those diverse languages. He has many balls (languages) in the air, and I can hardly cope with two. When God dished out inte...

I refer to Lýdia Machová, Steve Kaufmann, Gabriel Wyner, Robin McPherson ... as examples of "polyglots" who claim they speak 6, 7, 8, languages fluently and add a new one to the list every two years or so. Each one of them claims he/she has the right method to acquire a new language. First, the important thing to do is to keep away from "traditional" "boring" methods. They all advise students to learn vocabulary but not "memorize" vocabulary. All these international poliglots have something in common: they have no idea how the brain works. They are so immersed in learning languages they skip everything else, even reading, which they say is boring. I have always thought that a language was a tool to open a culture, a history, a way of life, a literature. To me a new language is a challenge to research all that is behind the language of a people. We learn French to do business, to make new friends, to get in touch with its literature, to di...