Introducing WordBrewery, a new language-learning website

This is the first update to Wide Awake Minds in several years, but I am touched to see that we still get a lot of search traffic from people discovering our content. As you have probably guessed, WAM has been on hiatus while I pursued other projects. But I wanted to write a quick post today to bring one of those projects to your attention: WordBrewery, the language-learning website and app I am developing.

WordBrewery teaches high-frequency vocabulary in context with real sentences from news sites around the world. It tests each sentence for its expected usefulness to language learners at different levels, so learners only see sentences that will introduce and reinforce the most important vocabulary. It can never run out of fresh content, and it is aimed at motivated learners as well as learners at or above the intermediate level. WordBrewery also has a blog (RSS) about language learning that Wide Awake Minds readers will find valuable.

Currently, WordBrewery users can browse curated sentences packed with high-frequency words, retrieve definitions and example sentences for any word, add words and sentences to study lists, and export those lists to CSV files to make flashcards using Anki or other software. We are gradually adding language courses, quiz games, native-speaker audio, and edited sentence translations.

I need your help spreading the word about WordBrewery so learners who would find WordBrewery helpful can learn about it and try it out. Please take a moment to do one or more of the following:

• Visit WordBrewery and click "Get Started"
• Share this post on or
• Subscribe to WordBrewery's blog
• Sign up for occasional email updates about WordBrewery
• Follow WordBrewery on Facebook or Twitter

Thank you so much for reading and for helping me make this exciting project a success.

Interview: Polyglot and self-educator Alexander Arguelles, Ph.D. (Part 2 of 2)

(This is part two of my two-part interview with Alexander. The introduction and first part of the interview can be found here. Thank you, as always, for reading.)


Wide Awake Minds (WAM): Your educational accomplishments, style, and scholarly output seem to be quite different from those of most people in academia. For instance, it seems like you may have originally chosen your particular Ph.D. program (in History of Religions at the University of Chicago) because of what you wanted to learn and know rather than because of your desire to join that particular field as a scholar. Is that true?


Alexander Arguelles (AA): Yes, it is true that I never aspired to join the particular field of history of religions as a scholar. Right after college I did have some other reasons for ending up there, but the main one was that I believed I could do more comparative historical philological work there than I could anywhere else, and I think I was right in that. Quite frankly, I don’t see a Ph.D. as a certificate to be a specialist expert in the narrow realm where it was minted, but rather as a license to learn, and as proof that one has completed the whole formal schooling process. That’s what going there meant to me – completing the schooling process. I discovered when I was quite young that getting good grades was easy and brought many rewards (such as scholarships) in terms of both being taught some things and being given the freedom to teach oneself even more, so that is what I kept on doing as long as I could.

Unfortunately for me, my concept of what a Ph.D. represents is rather rare, and as a result my own academic career has definitely suffered. I was happy to head out into the wider world to get actual exposure to languages when I was a bit younger, but now I would be quite content to go “home” and have an office on the Quads or in Morningside Heights or any other Ivy League town. It doesn’t seem I’ll ever get one, though. I’ve applied for a fair number of professorships advertising for people with international experience and innovative approaches to foreign languages, but I’ve never been gotten any interested responses. It appears I have published in the wrong way – I’ve been told that full-length books like my multilingual dictionary and my analytical guide to Korean verbal conjugation - which I think are far more scholarly than my dissertation and which certainly took a lot more time and energy – are “just reference works” and that they “don’t count” – the only thing that counts being articles in scholarly journals.

I clearly remember my first advisor at the University of Chicago telling me to enjoy my graduate school years because, once I was a professor, I wouldn’t have nearly as much time to continue to explore and learn new things. As I’ve since had occasion to observe, he was all too often right. Many of my colleagues, instead of continuing to widen their horizons throughout their careers, only have time to delve deeper into their specific area of specialization. I think that is a shame, for I believe the primary duty of a scholar ought to be to continue to learn and study new things throughout life. Particularly in the area of foreign language learning, I think it is a travesty that linguists conduct research by theorizing and by testing on and observing others rather than by learning languages themselves so that they know first-hand what works and how that process works.

Interview: Polyglot and self-educator Alexander Arguelles, Ph.D. (Part 1 of 2)

Interviewer: Ryan McCarl

Featured self-educator: Alexander Arguelles, Ph.D.

Self-educator’s position: Language Specialist, Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization

Date: 21 December 2010

A "polyglot" is a person who knows many languages, and Alexander Arguelles is one of the foremost self-taught language learners in the world. In many ways, Alexander embodies the ideals of self-education and liberal education that are promoted on Wide Awake Minds. He has spent countless hours over the years on self-directed education with the aim of developing an "encylopedic mind," and he sees the learning of languages as his "passport" on a lifelong educational journey.

Alexander grew up hearing his father, another self-taught polyglot, teach himself languages by reading aloud from foreign language texts. By the time he was completed his undergraduate degree at Columbia University, Alexander had been exposed to the "Great Books" method of liberal education and had "obtained a solid foundation in six languages: French, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit."

After graduating from Columbia, Alexander pursued a Ph.D. in History of Religions at the University of Chicago, where he wrote a dissertation on Old Norse and developed his abilities in a number of other ancient and modern languages while making the decision to work systematically at becoming a polyglot later in life. After graduate school, Alexander gravitated away from traditional academic research and toward a career of language learning and teaching. During one five-year period, Alexander devoted himself nearly full-time to the study of languages.

Alexander's website reports that he has achieved his goal of being able to comfortably read classic books in their original languages with little or no use of a dictionary in over 30 languages, but he has a considerable knowledge of many others as well. He has managed to build a personal library of language learning resources for over 150 languages, and he has reviewed different language learning materials in a series of YouTube videos. His published books include a multilingual dictionary as well as reference materials on Korean, German, and French. His website, www.foreignlanguageexpertise.com, is a treasury of resources on language learning, great books, and liberal education, and self-education.

Here is a video of Alexander demonstrating some of his language learning routines to Michael Erard, a writer who profiles polyglots (among many other fascinating projects); my interview with Alexander begins below the video:



(This is part one of my two-part interview with Alexander. The second portion of the interview will be posted in the next few days. Thank you, as always, for reading.)


Wide Awake Minds (WAM): When did you first take an interest in learning? Why did you decide to make it your goal to "develop an encyclopedic mind," as you put it - and what do you mean by that term?

Alexander Arguelles (AA): I have always loved learning. I have been an inveterate reader from my earliest years, and from boyhood onwards I have always carried several books around with me wherever I go, together with a notebook for writing down quotes as well as my own observations and reflections. By early adolescence, I had developed a taste for both serious literature and for histories of all sorts: chronicle-type (important names, dates, battles, events, dynasties, etc.), historiography, the history of ideas, histories of philosophy, histories of literature, other cultural histories, etc.

I don’t remember just when I first consciously articulated the desire to develop an encyclopedic mind in those precise terms, but it was certainly a long time ago, and even before that I was working in the same direction.

What do I mean by the term? There are three main components: first and foremost, I want to have a wide ranging and well organized knowledge of facts; second, I want to have a deep understanding of both the true connections between those facts that are actually related and also of the patterns that are represented by those that are merely parallel phenomena; third, I want to digest all of this, to have it available for immediate access right inside my head.

Why? Well, I suppose I am simply enamored of the idea of making my brain a repository of knowledge, a primary reference source that goes with me wherever I go and in which I have facts ready at hand without needing to look them up in external sources. What do you do with all the footnotes at the bottom of the pages of an annotated scholarly work? I suspect most people tend to skip them altogether, but if you do read them the first time you read the work, and you then read it again, it is simply a much richer and more meaningful experience upon that second reading because you already know the content of the explanatory footnotes. Going through life with an encyclopedic mind is rather like that, that is, a more satisfying experience when you know most of the context that you otherwise have to get by reading footnotes if you even bother to look at all. Conducting yourself in the conscious light of what others have done and thought is more fulfilling than living without that awareness.

There is so much to know that there is always something new to learn, and while it is always wonderful to do so, still it is somewhat mortifying to first realize that you are completely ignorant of something. I mean, when I first learn the name of an important historical personage or of an ancient civilization, I am excited to add that information to my encyclopedia, but I also feel a twinge of shame that I knew nothing about it before.

In reality, whenever I move around the world I ship a large physical library around with me, but I really like the idea of having no possessions, and I think it would be nice to have nothing physical, but to still have a full rich world of knowledge inside my mind. I haven’t written it yet and maybe I never will, but I have a fleshed-out dystopian novel in my head in which exactly that is all that is left – what is inside our heads. I fear that for most people that would leave them with very little indeed, but I think it would be magnificent to be able to sit down and write out an encyclopedic work such as Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Maius.

Self-education and language learning

For most Americans seriously attempting to learn a second or third language, adopting the mentality of a self-educator or self-directed learner is mandatory, even if it is unconscious: most school districts and colleges do not insist that their students become genuinely proficient in a world language, so students themselves must take the initiative to enroll in classes, study abroad, and otherwise create their own opportunities for language study. Language study is not for everybody. But it is much more fun, interesting, and feasible than most people think.

My own interest in self-education began as an interest in world languages. I started learning Japanese through books, audio, Internet resources, a summer abroad in the Tokyo area, and friendships with native speakers in middle school and high school. My experience learning Japanese and gaining access to Japanese culture was so exciting and opened so many doors that I decided, as I was entering my junior year of high school, to learn French and Spanish as well. I completed eight "years" of the high school language curriculum - French 1 through 4 and Spanish 1 through 4 - in two years, a fact that suggests that highly-motivated high school students can learn languages much more quickly and effectively than the standard curriculum expects them to. In college, I took classes in Japanese (advanced), Italian (high-intermediate), Norwegian (high-elementary), German (reading/translation), and Latin (elementary).

Language study continues to play an important part in my self-education. My current focus is on advanced Japanese, intermediate Chinese, and beginning Polish. I am reading Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, a classic of Japanese literature, one paragraph at a time with help from an online dictionary. I plan to do the same in Norwegian with Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.

There is a large, vibrant, and growing online community of language learners - self-educators who have decided, for whatever reason, to take up the study of foreign languages as a hobby, an academic interest, or a career decision. Two particularly recommended websites are Unilang and How to Learn Any Language; I also give the highest recommendation to Barry Farber's book How to Learn Any Language, which was a major inspiration for me. In the near future, this blog will be interviewing Professor Alexander Arguelles, one of the world's foremost language learners - you can read about Professor Arguelles' astonishing accomplishments on his website.

I have always enjoyed reading arguments for learning particular languages, so I've put my own list together of suggested languages for English-speaking high school students, college students, and self-educators of any age who are considering taking up a second or third language.

These are in a very rough order according to how strongly I recommend them for most English-speaking Americans. Should you choose to begin studying another language, your personal needs and interests should be the decisive factors in your decision. The absence of a language from this short list should not be taken to mean that that language or its people and culture are unimportant.

-Chinese. It's by far the most-spoken language in the world; it's not quite as difficult as it looks and seems, as its grammar is fairly simple; and Chinese speakers are spread across the world, with their voices and influence growing very rapidly. From a career perspective, the work opportunities for Americans fluent in Mandarin Chinese are limitless. The economic, political/military, and cultural growth of China has been arguably the single most important historical development of the last few decades.

-Spanish. It is probably the easiest language for native English speakers to learn; the number of native Spanish speakers in the U.S. is outpacing the number of native English speakers; the literary achievements of the Spanish-speaking world are incredible and growing; learning Spanish can help non-Spanish-speaking Americans build their empathy with and connections to the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S.; and students can travel cheaply and easily to Latin America to study, work, and serve as they work to become fluent.

-Arabic. The primary language of the Arab peoples of the Middle East and North Africa as well as around the world, and the language of the religion of Islam. Of enormous importance in the realms of business (think Dubai and oil), religion, and, above all, global peace, understanding, tolerance, and security. Arabic is also the most-spoken language in Africa, followed by Swahili.

-German and French. The languages of many of the most important and impressive works of scholarship, literature, and culture of the Western world. Germany and France, along with the U.K., are also the powers at the heart of the European Union, a major and growing force in world politics and business.

-Russian. The language of the world's largest country, of enormous consequence in the worlds of politics and global security, literature and culture (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Tchiakovsky, Shostakovich, and so many others), and business (Gazprom, etc.).

-Hindi/Urdu. The primary language of India and Pakistan - a region of massive and growing importance in the worlds of business (IT and so much else), culture (Bollywood and literature), religion (Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism), and global security (India/Pakistan, India/China, Kashmir, nuclear weapons and proliferation).

-Japanese. My adopted second language and the language of one of the most influential countries of the world, especially in the realms of business (automobiles, electronics) and culture (manga, movies, music, literature, food).

-Portuguese. The language of Brazil, home to the 2016 Summer Olympics, the heart of South America, and one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. As Brazil continues to grow, the importance of Portuguese as a world language will grow as well.

-Korean. Don't be fooled by Korea's size: visit any U.S. university town or major city, and you will a vibrant community of Koreans. The ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and brilliance of the people of South Korea has made them a major force in global business (automobiles, electronics), scholarship, and culture. Korean history and literature are incredibly rich areas of study that most Westerners remain entirely unaware of. And North Korea continues to present one of the most pressing global security and human rights challenges of our time.

-Italian. One of the most beautiful languages in the world, and the language of an incredibly rich culture. Italian literature and film help to constitute one of the most important cultural traditions in the world. Dante is only the beginning - think Primo Levi, Eugenio Montale, Umberto Eco, and Federico Fellini, for starters.

-Swahili. The primary language of eastern Africa, and an important language to learn for those wishing to connect with, work with, and assist some of the most destitute and voiceless communities on Earth, including the people of Rwanda and the Congo.

-Hebrew, Biblical and modern. The language of the Hebrew Bible (known to Christians as the "Old Testament") and of the state of Israel. Of enormous importance in politics and peace, culture and literature, and religious studies.

-Norwegian or Swedish. These Scandinavian languages are not too difficult for English speakers to learn, and each of them has a rich and underappreciated literary tradition waiting to be discovered by the curious reader. These countries are also famous for their political systems; they are regularly cited as the countries with the highest standard of living in the world.

-Polish. Polish is very difficult, but Polish literature is one of the most important and least-appreciated literary traditions in the world. I study Polish in the hopes of reading the work of Czeslaw Milosz, my favorite writer, in the original.

-Farsi/Persian. The language of the people of Afghanistan and Iran. Of enormous and growing importance in the world of global security and peace, of culture, and of religion. If the U.S. and the West can achieve a comprehensive peace with Iran, the role of Persian as a world language could grow considerably. In the meantime, studying the language and literature of Iran can serve as a reminder of the common humanity we share with the Iranian people.

-Greek (Attic, Koine, and Modern) and Latin. These "classical" languages were the heart of the education of well-read Westerners for centuries, and they remain popular among high school and college students interested in the humanities. Arguments for learning them include the ability to understand English word roots and the ability to access the classical literary and philosophical traditions (Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Virgil, Cicero, etc.), the New Testament, and the language of Europe and the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages in their original language.

-Turkish. Turkey is in many ways the bridge between the West - the U.S. and Europe - and the Middle East. It is an important and often overlooked part of the "equation" of peace and security in its region. And economic growth has elevated Turkey's importance in the global economy.

Feel free to create your own lists, or link to alternative lists, in the comments - I would love to hear others' thoughts.

The art of memorization

Memorization gets a bad rap in education circles, but it remains a fact of life for students and adults in many settings: anatomy and other subjects in pre-medical or medical school; "black-letter" legal rules and terminology in law school; dates and locations in undergraduate history survey courses; the names and dates of artworks in art history courses; and vocabulary and grammatical structures in the study of world languages.

In the professional world, there is an acute need to remember names and faces: all of your networking will come to naught if you can't remember anyone's name. And if you are a K-12 teacher, you are expected to learn something like 150 new names within the first week or two of each school year.

It is helpful to approach memorization tasks as challenges requiring a clever solution rather than as pure drudgery.

As a new preservice teacher, I have worked hard to memorize every student's name in my first few encounters with my mentor teacher's classes. The kids noticed my effort, and several complimented me on it - I am convinced that it has helped me build their trust and allowed me to project an image of competence despite my lack of experience. I used several tricks: immediately addressing each student by name, using the seating chart as a crutch when necessary; memorizing names in pairs or rows according to where students sit; repeating the names as often as possible; and frequently testing myself, never allowing myself to glance past students I don't know or get away with not knowing a student's name.

I am also currently taking a survey course in early American history to fulfill a certification requirement. I will be tested later today on my knowledge of the first sixteen Presidents and their years of service:

George Washington (1789-1797); John Adams (1797-1801); Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809); James Madison (1809-1817); James Monroe (1817-1825); John Quincy Adams (1825-1829); Andrew Jackson (1829-1837); Martin Van Buren (1837-1841); William H. Harrison (1841); John Tyler (1841-1845); James K. Polk (1845-1849); Zachary Taylor (1849-1850); Millard Fillmore (1850-1853); Franklin Pierce (1853-1857); James Buchanan (1857-1861); Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865).

One's first instinct when looking at a list like this is to despair - or to fall back on that favorite excuse of students everywhere, demanding to know why one needs to learn this. I saw the list and immediately envisioned myself writing the names and dates over and over again, making flash cards, and in general wasting my time on a very frustrating activity.

But then I thought it through again and devised a strategy that enabled me to memorize the list in less than two hours:

1. Break up the task. I find it especially helpful to break it up "vertically" rather than "horizontally" - rather than memorize three Presidents at a time, memorize all of the Presidents' last names and first initials in order before even looking at the dates.

2. Memorize the last names in pairs and chunks: I had trouble with the second half of this list, so I first solidified my understanding of the first half, then remembered "Tyler-Polk-Taylor" before moving on to "Fillmore-Pierce-Buchanan-Lincoln." I then wrote the list - last names only - out from memory a few times, then waited a day and did it again. The first names are easy and can be picked up gradually as you move through the activity.

3. Having the last names and first initials down pat, I looked at the dreaded dates for the first time. Before banging my head against these, I paused to notice a few things:

-The range of dates is 1789 (NOT 1776), President Washington's inauguration, to 1865, the assassination of President Lincoln.

-Because of the safeguards for Presidential succession built into the Constitution, there has never, ever been a time in the history of the United States since 1789 that we have not had a President. Therefore, you only need to memorize the first date of every pair. The second date of each pair - i.e., the last year of each presidency - is identical to the first year of the next presidency.

-A single presidential term lasts four years; two complete terms last eight years. Are there any Presidents in the list who served less than a single term? There are only three: Harrison (1841), Taylor (1849-1850), and Fillmore (1850-1853). I memorized the length of each of these three short presidencies first.

-Only five of the 16 Presidents on this list served two full terms, so I memorized these five: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson.

And that is all the information you need to memorize to complete the list! The list begins with Washington in 1789 - he served two terms, so you add eight years to get (1789-1797) - and so on.

It's a lot more fun and sensible than flash cards.

On language learning textbooks

Over the years, I've accumulated a decent library of world language textbooks and readers. Even those I do not get around to studying usually yield some benefit - I can get a feel for the sound and structure of each language with only a few hours of reading, and such kernels of knowledge can often serve as bridges and conversation-starters with native speakers. And then there is the physical presence of the books: the diversity of the languages represented is a reminder of all the things I hope to study and places I hope to travel.

I have also learned something from the texts about the many ways foreign languages can be taught and how teaching methods have changed over time. The improvement in recording technologies has revolutionized language learning; it is difficult to imagine, but many earlier students of world languages had to study without ever hearing their target language spoken. Today, the primary (and, in my experience, most effective) method of instruction is to have the student listen to and memorize conversations carried on by native speakers in various contexts (the train station, the post office, the dinner table, etc.). Grammar is learned intuitively; one comes to understand the workings of the past tense by hearing a voice actor discuss his or her day at work. It’s a long way from the older methods, still used in the most widely disseminated Latin and Greek textbooks (Wheelock’s and Mastronarde’s), of memorizing paradigm after paradigm and carrying out drill after drill.

Language textbooks are invariably infused with knowledge of the cultures where the language is spoken. For instance, Latin is learned through readings about the orations of senators and the deeds of heroes and gods; Norwegian is learned by listening in on the conversation of tourists in Oslo who are admiring the sculptures in the Frognerparken; and Italian is learned through texts about the history of coffee or the many courses of an Italian dinner. Most dialogues in contemporary language textbooks have settings - some are universal, but many are specific to a particular time and place. It’s hard to imagine an elementary Russian textbook that does not teach the reader how to ask for directions to Red Square.

The experience of learning how to find one’s way around the Kremlin, and “asking” directions during the lulls on the audio track provided for that purpose, with soft voices and the sound of traffic in the background to add authenticity, is qualitatively different from the experience of reading about Red Square in a history book or travel guide. In secondhand accounts, the reader is one more step removed from the experience of physically being in Moscow. The language learner, however, can to some extent simulate that experience. And if one’s attitude when reading secondhand accounts of another place’s history and culture is one of looking upon a culture from “above,” one’s attitude as a language learner is much more humble. Even the cows of ancient Greece understand Attic Greek better than we ever will, someone once quipped. There is some truth to that. The student of languages is a student in the fullest sense of the word; his highest aspiration is to speak a language as well as a native speaker - any native speaker, regardless of age or station. He may believe, consciously or not, that there individuals in his home culture with whom he has nothing to discuss and from whom he has nothing to learn - but abroad he is stripped of that elitist attitude, because everyone reads, writes, and speaks better than him.

I continue to learn a lot and derive a great deal of pleasure from my library of language textbooks, and I’ve become a collector almost by accident; the collection is a byproduct of two of the things I love most: languages and books. By letting go of the dream of ever mastering all the languages represented in my collection, I have given myself a freer hand to purchase the old Russian text with “Printed in the Soviet Union” stamped in red ink on the frontispiece, and the grossly outdated handbook of Japanese grammar written to assist American servicepeople in the postwar occupation of Japan. Even if these are all but useless as instruments of language study, they serve a different purpose by providing that pleasure of owning something rare that is the province and privilege of the collector.