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Professor Arguelles’ Books

 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery Post Reply
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sarguy
Groupie
United States
Joined 6325 days ago

59 posts - 60 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 38
10 November 2007 at 1:20pm | IP Logged 
Dear Professor,

Thank you once again for all the time you've put into helping us understand languages better.

I'm an anthropology student and am specifically interested in languages. I read in one of your posts that you had written a book and were editing it for publication. I'd love to purchase a copy when it's released. What will the title be, and when is it due out?

Thanks again,

Tom

Edited by Fasulye on 02 February 2012 at 8:57pm

1 person has voted this message useful



ProfArguelles
Moderator
United States
foreignlanguageexper
Joined 7016 days ago

609 posts - 2102 votes 

 
 Message 2 of 38
11 November 2007 at 5:24pm | IP Logged 
Mr. Tom Sarguy, thank you for your inquiry. I do not remember exactly what I wrote about my theoretical book before, but I am afraid that I do not feel I have much progress over the past few years in making this work presentable. For a long time I planned on calling it The Path of the Polyglot: Reflections on a Decade of Language Learning. I had hoped to finish it shortly after that decade was over, but since I have not yet done so, I am thinking of trying to streamline my whole style and call it something more like Principles of Polyglottery.

What I have now is over 400 pages long. Most of the middle chapters are in relatively decent condition, but when concentrate my energies on this project, I cannot stop myself from brainstorming continuously about it. I throw my thoughts about points to be covered into the introduction and conclusion, and whenever I attempt to edit these, I get sucked into a time-absorbing morass from which, for the sake of my sanity, I must eventually tear myself away in order to return to the study of languages. I want this book to contain everything I know about language learning, and I am never content with the way I have phrased anything when I reread it. Completing objective projects such as reference works is relatively easy: I just published a Korean Newspaper Reader of over 250 pages, which truly only cost me several measurable months of mental concentration. Finishing this book, however, feels more like trying to finish the novel I have also been striving all my life to write, but I am at least much further along with the book in question thanks to its more substantive quality.


Edited by ProfArguelles on 11 November 2007 at 5:24pm

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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6199 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 38
11 November 2007 at 5:34pm | IP Logged 
At the risk of being presumptuous: have you seriously considered splitting your work into several parts? There strike me as several reasons to do so:

- You have already written a large amount of solid material, which could be of great benefit to a number of people. It would be a great pity for it to end up like many of Tolkien's works, constantly revised and never finished over a lifetime.
- Some topics, such as a review of materials, are fundamentally more time-bound than the more timeless advice that you'll have to offer. The human mind does not change rapidly; what books and courses are in print/available does, unfortunately.


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sarguy
Groupie
United States
Joined 6325 days ago

59 posts - 60 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 38
11 November 2007 at 7:49pm | IP Logged 
Ah! Volte, I can't say if the Professor would go for it, but I will cast a vote as one who would certainly purchase this work volume by volume!

Thanks again, Professor!

Thomas Pentzer (sarguy)
1 person has voted this message useful



mumusik
Newbie
Korea, South
Joined 6066 days ago

38 posts - 38 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 5 of 38
15 November 2007 at 6:31pm | IP Logged 
where can i get a copy of the korean newspaper reader?
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ProfArguelles
Moderator
United States
foreignlanguageexper
Joined 7016 days ago

609 posts - 2102 votes 

 
 Message 6 of 38
18 November 2007 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
I am getting the message that there are those out there who are impatient to get their hands on a lengthy treatise over which I have agonized in addition to the weekly missives that I can compose in lieu of going to church. This does make me want to finish at least a first edition of my theories more than ever, and the louder and clearer I hear these voices, the more I am likely to prioritize this, so please do keep after me in this thread. In the meantime, those who might like to see my Korean publications can get them straight from Dunwoody Press: http://www.dunwoodypress.com/
1 person has voted this message useful



mumusik
Newbie
Korea, South
Joined 6066 days ago

38 posts - 38 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 7 of 38
23 November 2007 at 9:57pm | IP Logged 
선생님,

A Handbook of Korean Verbal Conjugation은 어떤 학생을 워한 책입니까? 저는 중급학생인데요... 맞을 겁니까?

Korean Newspaper Reader에도 관심이 있습니다. 그런데 못 찾았는데... 아직 안 나온 것 같습니다...

부탁합니다.

professor,

what level of student is the handbook of korean verbal conjugation aimed at? i'm somewhere around intermediate level...

also, i couldn't find the korean newspaper reader. maybe it hasn't been released yet?

thanks for your help!
1 person has voted this message useful



ProfArguelles
Moderator
United States
foreignlanguageexper
Joined 7016 days ago

609 posts - 2102 votes 

 
 Message 8 of 38
25 November 2007 at 5:38pm | IP Logged 
The Handbook of Korean Verbal Conjugation is designed for all serious intermediate and advanced students of the language. The Korean system of conjugation is extraordinarily complex (over 600 endings for action verbs, and close to 500 for adjectival ones), and this book contains systematically classified information that is unavailable elsewhere.

I received my author’s copies of The Korean Newspaper Reader last month, but the recordings have not been made yet, and I imagine they want to release them together, so you may have to wait a bit for this. This book contains 50 articles, 25 North Korean and 25 South Korean, on similar themes on a generally broad range of topics. The first readings are for those at FSI level 2, the final ones for those at 3+. I do hope to have produced a substantive and valuable work that should be of value for all students of the language.

One reason I am not more motivated to complete my theoretical work as swiftly as some would like to read it is the fact that I am frankly frustrated with my past publishing history. My dictionary is a case in point. I do not want to go into detail, but there were broken contractual promises in both Europe and Asia, and although I finally succeeded in getting a portion of it published in 2006 by the Librairie du Liban, supposedly the largest linguistics publisher in the Middle East, and although they did an excellent job in the production of the work, their distribution leaves a lot to be desired. I have 5 handsomely printed and bound copies of my 735-page English French Spanish German Dictionary, as they titled it, and I did see copies in Beirut bookstores before being forced to flee from the land, but yet when I look for it on their site, even using the ISBN 9953-86-056-4 from the back cover, I cannot find it. This is terribly demoralizing. It is also a shame, because I honestly believe many people on this forum could make very profitable use of it. I feel like I have been transported into that story by Borges about an enigmatic version of an encyclopedia that causes great bibliographic quandary.



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