Alexander Sabino Argüelles (often spelled Arguelles; born 30 April 1964) is an American linguist notable for his work on Korean. He is highly committed to the learning of foreign languages, and 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 as "a legendary figure in the community".

He has taught in Korea, Lebanon, Singapore, and Dubai, and was a Group Director of Immersion Language Programs at Concordia Language Villages in Bemidji, Minnesota.

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

Contents

• 1 Language learning
• 2 Notable works
  • 2.1 On Korean
  • 2.2 Other works
• 3 Notes
• 4 References
• 5 External links
  • 5.1 Interviews
  • 5.2 Other links

Language learning

Highly driven, Argüelles devotes an average of nine hours a day to language learning, though stated that in his twenties he spent as much as sixteen hours daily learning. 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 2019 that he had learning resources in his library for 142 languages.

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

Interviews

• August 2006
• July 2008
• July 2009
• December 2010
• January 2012
• March 2012
• April 2012
• June 2012
• February 2014
• January 2017
• September 2017

Other links

• Alexander Argüelles's channel on YouTube
• Alexander Argüelles's old website on the Wayback Machine