Freud's Spanish: Bilingualism and Bisexuality

Even while he was alive, very few people knew that Freud could speak, read, and write Spanish. It was a well-kept secret, one that Freud would occasionally divulge, but only under the right circumstances: when his translator sent him the first Spanish versions of his books; when a young Peruvian forwarded a copy of the first Freudian book published in Latin America; when a Mexican judge mailed him an article on psychoanalysis and the law. In all of these cases, Freud confessed he could read Spanish, usually with a mixture of surprise and joy, like a little boy revealing his aptitude at an exotic sport: ‘In my youth,’ he wrote to one of his Latin-American disciples in 1934, ‘I had the pleasure of learning your beautiful language, and thus I'm in the position to appreciate [your article].’1 Freud marvels at his own ability to understand the language, as if he could not believe his eyes, his ability to understand a tongue so far removed from his everyday life in German-speaking Vienna. On the few instances that Freud would be reminded of his fluency in Spanish, he experienced a moment of derealization — much like when, in 1904, upon visiting the Acropolis for the first time, he had trouble acknowledging that the magnificent site before his eyes was indeed real and thought to himself: ‘So all this really does exist, just like we learned at school!’2 He had a similar reaction each time he was reminded of his ability to understand Spanish — except that, unlike Greek history, he did not learn it at school.

But how did Freud learn Spanish? And when did he get to use it? As we will see in the pages that follow, this was a language that occupied a very special place in Freud's affective life. Unlike the other languages he