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Fernando de Castro

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
Jinx
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 Message 1 of 7
15 October 2012 at 5:31pm | IP Logged 
A fellow student in my Catalan course just posted this link to a radio interview with a Galician man named Fernando de Castro who claims to speak about 15 languages. The interview is in Catalan, but at the beginning he says "good day" in several languages.

I can't find any information about him online, and I'd be interested to know if anyone else here has heard of him.
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hrhenry
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 Message 2 of 7
15 October 2012 at 5:44pm | IP Logged 
Here's an article about him (in Spanish) discussing his translations -
http://www.radio.cz/es/rubrica/pocodesol/la-odisea-de-traduc ir-del-checo-al-gallego

It looks like he's also done some Hungarian>Galego translation, in addition to the two
Czech works mentioned in the article:
http://www.lho.es/index.php?pagetype=translators&id=680

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 15 October 2012 at 6:24pm

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Ogrim
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 Message 3 of 7
15 October 2012 at 6:15pm | IP Logged 
Interesting. From what I can make of the short interview he mostly discusses language policy in Catalonia (a hot topic right now). However, he also says that for him learning languages is about communicating with people, rather than an academic interest.

To me his catalan sounds very good, and the interviewers seem quite impressed as well.
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Iversen
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 Message 4 of 7
17 October 2012 at 11:28am | IP Logged 
Molt interesant! I enjoyed the discussion, not least because of several small side remarks (like when a lady mentioned Scots), and because the speed is totally on a par with even the most agitated discussions between native Catalans (which I sometimes have heard on TVC). If he can keep up that level in his other languages he must be quite good - even though Catalan must be fairly easy for a Spaniard from Galicia. It is good language training for me too.
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Ogrim
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 Message 5 of 7
19 March 2013 at 4:45pm | IP Logged 
I've come back to this old thread because I recently came across two different interviews with Fernando de Castro. This is an interview in Spanish in the newspaper "El PeriĆ³dico de Catalunya" (it should exist in Catalan as well as this paper is issued in both languages), and the other one is from a blog called "ontranslation" and is in Catalan.

He makes some interesting points around learning languages, and also about other, more political issues, which I will not quote here. However, it does emanate from the interviews that knowing 16 languages has not made him rich, he works as a language teacher and he enjoys it, but apparently he has not really found the kind of job he wants.


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Jinx
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 Message 6 of 7
22 March 2013 at 2:40pm | IP Logged 
Just read both the articles... good stuff. I like his thoughts on language politics. I get an impression of him as someone who doesn't over-dramatize or glorify being a polyglot (at least not too much). He seems pretty down-to-earth about it, unlike some celebrity polyglots. Thanks for the links, Ogrim!
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boaby
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 Message 7 of 7
24 November 2013 at 12:35am | IP Logged 
Last year, he was also interviewed for a Catalan morning show on TV3.

And, recently he presented a multi-lingual video for "The Catalan Project", with versions subbed for CT, EN, DE, FR, and ES.

He has a fascinating range of languages (mostly European) and to my ear his phonological skills are absolutely superb.


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