Alexander Argüelles
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Alexander Sabino Argüelles (born 30 April 1964) is an American linguist notable for his work on the
Korean language Korean is the first language, native language for about 81 million people, mostly of Koreans, Korean descent. It is the national language of both South Korea and North Korea. In the south, the language is known as () and in the north, it is kn ...
. An avid language learner, he was profiled in Michael Erard's ''Babel No More''. He is one of the polyglots listed in Kenneth Hyltenstam's ''Advanced Proficiency and Exceptional Ability in Second Languages'', and has been described by ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' as "a legendary figure in the olyglotcommunity". Argüelles is highly proficient in 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Catalan, Swedish and Korean, and has a knowledge of more than 60 languages.


Career

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 Bemidji ( ) is a city and the county seat of Beltrami County, in northern Minnesota, United States. The population was 14,574 at the 2020 census. According to 2022 census estimates, the city is estimated to have a population of 15,946, makin ...
,
Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
.


Language learning

Argüelles reportedly devotes an average of nine hours a day to language learning, 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. Argüelles is highly proficient in 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Catalan, Swedish and Korean, 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. He stated in late 2022 that he had learning resources in his library for 155 languages.


Personal life

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


Notable works


On Korean

*Argüelles, Alexander, and Jong-Rok Kim (2000). ''A Historical, Literary and Cultural Approach to the Korean Language''. Seoul: Hollym. *Argüelles, Alexander, and Jong-Rok Kim (2004). ''A Handbook of Korean Verbal Conjugation''. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press. *Argüelles, Alexander (2007). ''Korean Newspaper Reader''. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press. *Argüelles, Alexander (2010). ''North Korean Reader''. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.


Other works

*Argüelles, Alexander (1994). ''Viking Dreams: Mythological and Religious Dream Symbolism in the Old Norse Sagas''. Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago. *Argüelles, Alexander (1999). ''프랑스동사변화안내: La Conjugaison des Verbes''. Seoul: ''신아사''. *Argüelles, Alexander (2006). ''English French Spanish German Dictionary''. Beirut, Lebanon: Librairie du Liban.


Notes


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Arguelles, Alexander 1964 births 21st-century lexicographers American academics of Mexican descent American expatriates in Germany American expatriates in Lebanon American expatriates in Singapore American expatriates in South Korea American expatriates in the United Arab Emirates American lexicographers American orientalists American philologists Columbia University alumni American Koreanists Linguists from the United States Living people Social scientists from Chicago University of Chicago alumni Linguists of Korean