Alexander Arguelles Rainforest Interview

An informal interview conducted on a bench in the rainforest section of the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The first third consists of general questions about language learning, the middle part has a discussion of my vision for a language institute, and the final portion is a conversation in Dutch with some passing tourists.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Alexander
• Arguelles
• Dutch
• Nederlands
• polyglot
• polyglottery
• polyliteracy
• multilingual
• time
• management
• motivation
• self
• discipline
• foreign
• language
• study
• learning
• acquisition
• success
• habit
• formation
• exercise
• routine
• mental
• fitness
• physical
• practice
• self-improvement
• productivity
• efficiency
• intensive
• training
• institute
• academy
• lesson

[Iceland1944]

Dr. Argueulles, have you ever been interested in Quechua? If so, are there any good sources out there in English or German? My wife is from southern Peru, so that is why I am interested. I also have a thing for "dying" languages. I learn Icelandic too, as you may have guessed.

[ProfASAr]

@Iceland1944 Though I've never had time to study them, one of my motives for visiting Peru and Bolivia 15 years ago was to get materials for Quechua and Aymara, but it is all in Spanish. Since you have a native source to help you, you may do well by listening to an audio drama new testament in Quechua (you can find these in many dialects on the language museum pages of my website) while you read the text in German or English - you can then ask your wife to explain the logic of the wording.

[jmichaelrout]

It's very nice to see that your students are as in awe of your abilities and determination as we, your viewing audience, are. You should consider self-publishing your own foreign language learning manuals and a language learning memoir if you can't find any publisher willing to do it. You would sell at least several thousand and make a lot of us very happy.

[ProfASAr]

@jmichaelrout Thank you, but self-publishing wouldn't be very fulfilling, and the ms. wouldn't get the professional editing I feel it needs.

[lokijeong]

Before you finish your book (which I know you're searching for a publisher for) you should finish the Korean Modern Fiction Reader! And do more interviews!

[ProfASAr]

@lokijeong I do indeed need to deliver the ms. of the Korean Fiction Reader within the next few months. I'll feel more fulfilled, though, when and if I ever finally get to publish my book detailing the kind of thing that I talk about here. 

[SchwarzerMannn]

wow that was awesome when you switched to dutch! i could actually understand most of the dutch conversation but im not sure if i could actually learn dutch without being a little frustrated..as the dutch love switching to english..i like how you didnt let them switch to english at 28:41 when they tried changing the language to english. hats off to you! great video :)

[labanp]

seeing a polyglot in action is always interesting, especially when tackled with a random langauge out of the blue.

[alkantre]

I have only studied Dutch for about 24 hours during my lifespan, but I could follow the Dutch conversation pretty well.

[bossendenwoodconvict]

Has anyone noticed how young the professor looks for his age? This is another advantage of studying so many languages... You rarely go out in the sun and so you don't age as quickly.

[Iceland1944]

@ProfASAr I will do so, sir. I was able to purchase one book for Quechua with two audio cd's while in Peru. The book is in Spanish, but that is no problem for me. I just prefer German. Thank you for the advice, as always. I wrote to you once about bringing up a bilingual baby. He is nine months old now and we are speaking to him in Spanish and German. He will learn English just by living here in the U.S. The main thing we need to focus on now is consistency.

[ProductofWit]

@SchwarzerMannn They were speaking Dutch also at that moment actually. ;)

[ProductofWit]

Befriending a native speaker also helps. Nice hearing those Dutch girls. ;)

[Iceland1944]

Hoe zegt men "Gimme a Dutch Rub" in het Nederlands?

[Kouziren]

I thought it might be worth mentioning to anyone interested in the idea of "polyliteracy", that there have been several quite heated and intense discussions on this very subject in the Lessons in Polyglottery sub-forum on the HTLAL site in the last couple of months.

[lvh18081978]

This video is very useful and for teaching listening and speaking.