Languages & Literatures
with

Alexander Arguelles

Welcome! I have devoted my life to learning as many languages as I can, as well as I can, so that I can read literature in them with pleasure and understanding.  The purpose of this site is to share the benefits of my knowledge and experience with others who have similar aspirations.

Becoming polyliterate is truly a task of lifelong learning, and if you would like to achieve this, I would like to guide you in doing so as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

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What You Will Find Here

  • A Questions & Answers page where you can send me detailed written requests for consultation and guidance that I can answer in such a way as to form an ever-growing indexed resource and reference center.

  • A virtual Academy where you can read and discuss literature with me in French, German, Spanish, and Latin; engage in English-language seminars to go through the Great Books of Western and Eastern civilization; or join a support group for teaching yourself foreign languages.

  • Updated and expanded Great Books lists for Western, Middle Eastern, Indic, and East Asian civilizations.

Latest Q&A Submissions

Parallel Methods for Multiple Languages

June 4, 2022

Dear Professor Arguelles, I am a Romanian native speaker, currently living in Canada. I am currently studying multiple languages at once, namely French, Italian, Spanish, and German. I find that it is best when I learn these languages from material that is the same. I was wondering if you could recommend some methods that are from the same publishing company for each one and therefore have a parallel, or even ideally, identical structure and content. I like to cross reference the word/grammar for each language at the same time. It makes more sense to me to see what the same

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On Passive Listening and How to Incorporate it into a Study Regimen

June 3, 2022

Dear Professor Arguelles, I hope all is well. Long overdue, here is my question on listening: I was wondering how you approach the role of listening in your language study. Like the rest of your study methods, I assume you approach listening somewhat systematically as well. On the one hand, you have said that you listen to audiobooks while running and shadowing clearly involves listening and repetition of the heard content. On the other hand, however, you haven’t said much about how to approach more “passive” listening, such as when you are walking around doing errands, on the train, or

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Long-Term 7-Language Learning Strategy for Philosophy and Theology

June 2, 2022

 Dear Professor Arguelles, I appreciate your responses on YouTube. It is a pleasure to be answered byyou as your videos have been helping me develop my interest in languagelearning. I am a 25 years old, single, and from Brazil. I plan to have my life focused mainly on studies, so I will be able to devote a lot of time on that. My main goal is philosophy and theology. Since I am Catholic, the literature of the Church is a precious treasure I want to acquire. Not only that, I want to be polyliterate too, since I value erudition and

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[Franciscan philosopher Roger] Bacon was right to say that the conquest of wisdom passes through the knowledge of languages…Bacon was right that the first duty of a scholar is to study languages! – Guglielmo da Baskerville