The Polyglots

The Polyglots
Author: William Gerhardie
Publisher: Melville House
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1612191894

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The Anglo-Russian author William Gerhardie was hailed by writers including Graham Greene, Edith Wharton, Evelyn Waugh and others as a “genius,” and this, his long-out-of-print second novel, is generally acclaimed as his comic masterpiece—not to mention “the most influential English novel of the twentieth century,” according to William Boyd. It tells the unforgettable tale of an eccentric Belgian family living in the Far East during the turbulent years just after the First World War, which displaced them, and the Russian Revolution, which impoverished them. Recounted by a conceited young English cousin who visits during a military mission, the story is filled with a host of fascinatingly idiosyncratic characters—depressives, obsessives, sex maniacs, and hypochondriacs—often forced to choose between absurdity and tragedy. Yet Gerhardie depicts them as both charming and poignant, as they each struggle for love and safety in tumultuous times . . . and the protagonist finds his conceit shredded as he falls head over heels in love with one of them. Gerhardie’s portraits of Europeans in exile, attempting to escape from the era’s upheavals, draws on his own experiences as an officer in the British Mission. He has summoned up a world adrift, where war and revolution have broken up the old order, but nothing has come to replace it. And he does it with unforgettable humor and a sharp eye for the absurd. Hilarious, poignant, panoramic in scope, The Polyglots redeems, from the Babel of the interwar period, a stirring vision of love and human sympathy.

The Polyglots

The Polyglots
Author: William Gerhardie
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2008-08-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9780571244423

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'William Gerhardie is one of our immortals. He is our Gogol's Overcoat. We all came out of him.' Olivia Manning 'He is a comic writer of genius ... but his art is profoundly serious.' C.P. Snow First published in 1925, this is perhaps the most acclaimed of William Gerhardie's novels and was celebrated by Anthony Powell as 'a classic'. Like his first novel, Futility, The Polyglots draws largely on personal experience. It is the story of an eccentric Belgian family living in the Far East in the uncertain years after World War I and the Russian Revolution. The tale is recounted by their dryly conceited young English relative, Captain Georges Hamlet Alexander Diabologh, who comes to stay with them during a military mission. Teeming with bizarre characters - depressives, obsessives, paranoiacs, hypochondriacs, and sex maniacs - Gerhardie paints a brilliantly absurd world where the comic and the tragic are profoundly and irrevocably entwined.

The Polyglots

The Polyglots
Author: William Alexander Gerhardie
Publisher: Longmans, Green
Total Pages: 390
Release: 1925
Genre: Belgians
ISBN:

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Polyglot: How I Learn Languages

Polyglot: How I Learn Languages
Author: Kat— Lomb
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Language and languages
ISBN: 1606437062

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KAT LOMB (1909-2003) was one of the great polyglots of the 20th century. A translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world, Lomb worked in 16 languages for state and business concerns in her native Hungary. She achieved further fame by writing books on languages, interpreting, and polyglots. Polyglot: How I Learn Languages, first published in 1970, is a collection of anecdotes and reflections on language learning. Because Dr. Lomb learned her languages as an adult, after getting a PhD in chemistry, the methods she used will be of particular interest to adult learners who want to master a foreign language.

The Polyglots

The Polyglots
Author: William Alexander Gerhardie
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1970
Genre:
ISBN:

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Babel No More

Babel No More
Author: Michael Erard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2012-01-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1451628277

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A “fascinating” (The Economist) dive into the world of linguistics that is “part travelogue, part science lesson, part intellectual investigation…an entertaining, informative survey of some of the most fascinating polyglots of our time” (The New York Times Book Review). In Babel No More, Michael Erard, “a monolingual with benefits,” sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like the nineteenth-century Italian cardinal Joseph Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages, as well as those of living language-superlearners such as Alexander Arguelles, a modern-day polyglot who knows dozens of languages and shows Erard the tricks of the trade to give him a dark glimpse into the life of obsessive language acquisition. With his ambitious examination of what language is, where it lives in the brain, and the cultural implications of polyglots’ pursuits, Erard explores the upper limits of our ability to learn and use languages and illuminates the intellectual potential in everyone. How do some people escape the curse of Babel—and what might the gods have demanded of them in return?

Fluent Forever

Fluent Forever
Author: Gabriel Wyner
Publisher: Harmony
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2014-08-05
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 038534810X

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • For anyone who wants to learn a foreign language, this is the method that will finally make the words stick. “A brilliant and thoroughly modern guide to learning new languages.”—Gary Marcus, cognitive psychologist and author of the New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero At thirty years old, Gabriel Wyner speaks six languages fluently. He didn’t learn them in school—who does? Rather, he learned them in the past few years, working on his own and practicing on the subway, using simple techniques and free online resources—and here he wants to show others what he’s discovered. Starting with pronunciation, you’ll learn how to rewire your ears and turn foreign sounds into familiar sounds. You’ll retrain your tongue to produce those sounds accurately, using tricks from opera singers and actors. Next, you’ll begin to tackle words, and connect sounds and spellings to imagery rather than translations, which will enable you to think in a foreign language. And with the help of sophisticated spaced-repetition techniques, you’ll be able to memorize hundreds of words a month in minutes every day. This is brain hacking at its most exciting, taking what we know about neuroscience and linguistics and using it to create the most efficient and enjoyable way to learn a foreign language in the spare minutes of your day.

The Way of the Linguist

The Way of the Linguist
Author: Steve Kaufmann
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2005-11
Genre: Linguistics
ISBN: 1420873296

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The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.

Polyglot Notes

Polyglot Notes
Author: Yuriy Ivantsiv
Publisher:
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2020-05-09
Genre:
ISBN: 9781716950353

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The practical manual clearly describes how to build your learning, how to develop your memory, why you forget how to develop your language skills to automatism, how to create a language environment for yourself, what a cultural shock is, and how to overcome it. As well as many other topical issues that people face when learning a language. Each person throughout his or her life has to deal with different cultures and languages one way or another. Knowledge of language greatly facilitates the interaction of a person with another type of culture, improves social status, provides career growth, provides great opportunities for self-expression and dissemination of ideas, opens up prospects for modern education, improves financial situation, contributes to the achievement of your goals and objectives. However, in the process of learning many people necessarily face difficulties, which they lack experience and necessary knowledge to overcome. This practical manual will become a desktop assistant for a large audience: for those who want to or are already learning a foreign language, do it alone or with a teacher, individually, in a group or educational institution (school, college, university, academy). The workshop will help to structure and organize your individual language learning process and will give you the opportunity to independently determine the methodology of learning a language that will be interesting and not burdensome. The title of the manual reflects its content: current issues and possible solutions. The material is presented in a concise and concrete manner. The methods presented in the book can be immediately applied in language practice. Each person can choose the method that is interesting and most adapted to him or her, as well as suitable to his or her pace and lifestyle, so that language learning becomes a natural and exciting process.

Harmony of Babel: Profiles of Famous Polyglots - 2nd Edition

Harmony of Babel: Profiles of Famous Polyglots - 2nd Edition
Author: Kató Lomb
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2018-01-18
Genre: Language acquisition
ISBN: 1532366116

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In the 1980s, the distinguished interpreter Kat- Lomb researched and interviewed polyglots to discover how they learned their languages. In 1988 she published her findings in "Harmony of Babel." The book became immediately popular in Dr. Lomb's native Hungary. In 2013 TESL-EJ of Berkeley was proud to publish the first English translation of "Harmony of Babel." The English edition attracted many readers worldwide and Dr. Lomb's fame spread. The success of the English translation prompted the translator and editorial team to prepare a new edition of "Harmony" featuring an introduction and the transcript of an interview Dr. Lomb did for Hungarian television in 1974. As with the first edition, readers will learn how some of the world's greatest polyglots think about, and use, their languages. Their views, grounded in real-world experience, will be of particular interest to linguaphiles who are seeking to supplement their theoretical knowledge of language learning.