1. Carlos do Amaral Freire
The linguist who has learned more than 100 languages

2. One of the greatest scholars of the 21st century
He has been engaged to his project for 40 years.
He studied more than 100 languages,
he mastered 60
On average, he has studied 2 new languages a year
He has translated 60 languages into Portugese
His poetry anthology is called Babel de Poemas.

3. Response from Carlos
My interest in studying foreign languages came about early on – when I was still a gymnastics student – when I realized that reading translations of foreign classics was an enormous disadvantage. That is, I realized that only by reading the original could I enjoy the esthetic pleasure that only the original can fully offer. Later on I became captivated by the fascination of studying and discovering, through languages, so many other worlds, cultures and different ways of thinking.

4. Response from Carlos
This was mainly due to the many travels I would have later on. My knowledge of foreign languages gave me the opportunity to make friends with a lot of people in many different parts of the world. Perhaps mastering foreign languages offers us a more effective tool for obtaining knowledge and accepting what is different.

5. About the Chinese language…
Chinese is very simple in linguistic terms. That is, it is a simple language in comparison to Indo- European languages, which are complex. I think that this is precisely the reason why learning it ends up being so difficult for Westerners like us. We are used to complex linguistic structures, like that of Portuguese. Chinese is extremely concise. It has no gender or numeral grammar and its verbs are not conjugated. Simple is not a synonym for easy. When it comes to Chinese, the word is an antonym. Its simple structures become difficult and confusing because we don’t know how know how to compare them to our own.

6. Thank you for your attention!
15th May, 2015