Tongue Tied

Imagine mastering 15 languages in 26 years. The sheer math—gaining near fluency in a new foreign language every 1.73 years—might boggle the mind of even the most jaded Harvard overachievers. Now imagine learning 15 languages with the knowledge that you’ll never parlez francais in Paris or practice Czech in Prague. In fact, you’ll never leave North America.

“It’s a bit of a conundrum for friends,” Dean Hunt, Schoenhof’s Foreign Books employee and long-time language maestro, admits with a chuckle. Because, despite the fact that Hunt knows French, German, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, Czech, Polish, Ukranian, Finnish and a smattering of Slavic languages, he hasn’t ventured off this continent in 18 years. “I hate flying,” he says, at home with the store’s obscure volumes and multilingual clientele. Hunt leans back decisively in his swivel chair, his bespectacled eyes crinkling into a smile. “I’m an armchair traveler.”

The Soviet Union, the destination of Hunt’s last intercontinental voyage, no longer exists, but the memory lives on. “The last time I flew, the one thing I hated about it was being enclosed like that,” he says, his voice lowering. “It’s just you have no control. I mean, once you’re up there…” He trails off into edgy laughter.

Hunt’s inability to travel seems like a tragic psychological twist of fate.

“I’m told I’m cheating myself often enough by friends,” he says ruefully. “I’m damned if I do, I’m damned if I don’t. Boats take too long, planes I hate.” Yet Hunt has made peace with his flying phobia. “I’m 40 years old,” he says. “I don’t plan on overcoming it anytime soon.”

Hunt finds alternate ways to practice language. “Spanish is an everyday language for me,” he says. A network of Italian e-mail penpals has helped his Italian improve “dramatically.” His eyes glisten as he describes his Canadian experiences: “If I go to Quebec, French is ever so much a part of me, ever so much more a part of me,” he says fervently. “It’s—it’s in my ears, on the street, on the radio, the TV. It’s everywhere.”

Is there a method to the madness of Hunt’s crazy language skills? Hunt shrugs modestly. “I’ve been told by everybody that I have a gift for it. How do you define a gift? It’s there.”

A co-worker interjects: “His memory is extraordinary. I mean, I’ve never met anybody whose memory is so incredible. You can point out a date to him and he remembers exactly what he was doing that day.”

Hunt tries to downplay her praise, but concedes, “I can remember exactly where I learned this particular word or learned this particular phrase…I don’t know how I do it.”

Unless dramatic technological changes render airplanes an anachronism, Hunt will stick to his armchair and Schoenhof’s. But if teleporting does come into vogue, you’ll find him in one of two places. “I’d have to choose two: Sweden and Greece. Automatically, automatically.” He snaps twice.

Beam him up, Stockholm.