Alexander Argüelles Explained

Alexander Argüelles
Birth Date:30 April 1964
Birth Place:Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Spouse:Park Hyun-Kyung[1]
Children:2
Discipline:Linguist
Thesis Title:Viking Dreams: Mythological and Religious Dream Symbolism in the Old Norse Sagas
Thesis Year:1994
Doctoral Advisor:Wendy Doniger[2]
Academic Advisors:Ioan P. Culianu[3]

Alexander Sabino Argüelles (born 30 April 1964) is an American linguist notable for his work on the Korean language. An avid language learner, he was profiled in Michael Erard's Babel No More.[4] He is one of the polyglots listed in Kenneth Hyltenstam's Advanced Proficiency and Exceptional Ability in Second Languages,[5] and has been described by The New Yorker as "a legendary figure in the [polyglot] community".[6]

He has taught in South Korea, Lebanon, Singapore, and Dubai, and was a Group Director of Immersion Language Programs at Concordia Language Villages in Bemidji, Minnesota.[7]

He is the son of the poet Ivan Argüelles and the nephew of the New Ageist José Argüelles.

Language learning

Argüelles reportedly devotes an average of nine hours a day to language learning,[8] though he has stated that in his twenties he spent as much as sixteen hours per day. He advocates working on multiple languages daily for shorter periods (as little as 15 minutes), working on different areas in different languages, from reading novels, to writing grammatical exercises. He sets daily goals to language learning and has recorded his daily progress in logbooks going back over 20 years.[9]

Argüelles is highly proficient in 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Catalan, Swedish and Korean,[1] and is accomplished in many more, such as Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, which he had studied by the end of college. He has studied over 60 languages to various degrees of proficiency.[10] He stated in late 2022 that he had learning resources in his library for 155 languages.[11]

Notable works

On Korean

Other works

External links

Interviews

Other links

Notes and References

  1. Lim Yan Liang (2012). 'One man, 50 languages'. The Sunday Times (Singapore), 1 April.
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20170311203603/http://divinity.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/imce/pdfs/employment/doniger_CV.pdf 'Wendy Doniger: Curriculum Vitae'
  3. Anton, Ted (1992). 'The Killing of Professor Culianu'. Lingua Franca, Vol. 2, No. 6.
  4. Erard, Michael (2012). Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners. New York: Free Press.
  5. Hyltenstam, Kenneth (ed.) (2016). Advanced Proficiency and Exceptional Ability in Second Languages. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
  6. Thurman, Judith (2018). 'Maltese for Beginners'. The New Yorker, 3 September. (Published online as 'The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages'.)
  7. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-arguelles-3799756/ LinkedIn
  8. Web site: How Many Languages is it Possible to Know?. 27 February 2013 . Mentalfloss.com. 10 September 2020.
  9. Web site: A Polyglot's Daily Linguistic Workout. Youtube. 10 September 2020.
  10. Web site: I could speak a different language every week for a year. New Scientist. 25 January 2017. 10 September 2020.
  11. Web site: The World's Largest Language Library: 155 Languages. ProfASAr. 1 January 2023. 30 June 2023.

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