IT is unlikely that Alex Lugo will ever find himself lost for words. If he can't muster anything to say in English, then he has wide vocabularies in four other languages from which he can draw. Words are the tools of his trade.

The owner of the Algomas School of Languages teaches Spanish, French, German and Italian at his classroom in the CedarPark Centre in Hamilton.

His fascination for languages was sparked by an early encounter with a Spanish phrase book and from that point onwards he showed a remarkable aptitude for learning foreign tongues.

Mr. Lugo's love of languages still burns ardently, even after 20 years of teaching them to others.

"When I was about nine years old I had the shocking experience of discovering that not everyone in this world speaks English," said Mr. Lugo. "I happened upon a Spanish phrase book and from that chance encounter I started to learn languages and I suppose I have been doing that ever since."

Mr. Lugo started learning Spanish in high school and by his late teens he was fluent.

"I can't say I have mastered anything yet," he said modestly. "When I was about 16 or 17, we used to get a lot of South American cruise ship passengers here. I took advantage of that to chat with people.

"On one occasion, I was with a person from Colombia, one from Venezuela, one from Chile and one from Ecuador. We were sitting around chatting and they tried to figure out what country I was from. They only named Spanish-speaking countries. I took that as being evidence that I could speak Spanish quite well."

As for French, he set himself a learning target which he met in a matter of months.

"I taught myself O-level French in my last year at the Sixth Form Centre," said Mr. Lugo. "I started in December and took my exam the following June. I studied it for about 90 minutes a day, five days a week and three hours on Saturday, on top of everything else I was doing. I did that for six months, sat the exam and passed it."

After he studied Spanish with French and Italian at university, he made use of what would otherwise have been wasted time to add German to his repertoire.

"I started learning German when I was away in England doing a one-year PGCE teacher training certificate," recalled Mr. Lugo. "There was a 60-minute bus ride to and from the various practice centres where we spent six weeks at a time.

"After the first week, it became just a long, boring bus ride. That is when I decided to learn German. I studied for two hours a day on the bus.

"At the end of June I went to Germany for a month, where I studied for four hours a day, five days a week, for a month."

Although Mr. Lugo's learning history illustrated a considerable linguistic ability, it is equally apparent that much hard work has gone into the learning process. That is a lesson he is keen to stress to his clients.

"I find learning languages exciting. I think the key to learning them is dedication and putting the time in. You don't have to be a rocket scientist. You just have to maintain a regular contact with the language.

"It's not enough to just come to a lesson once a week without doing any study or homework. Like I say to my students, 'Imagine how much progress you would make if you went to your weekly piano lesson and then didn't see a keyboard for another week'.

"You have got to practise if you want to improve. It's the same with languages and with lots of other things in life. When I started learning languages, you couldn't get the range of tapes and books you can these days. I had to go to the library and use the old linguaphones.

"I had to practise speaking the words quietly so I wouldn't disturb the other customers. I also used to listen to different languages on short-wave radio. When you're learning a new language you have to try and take every opportunity you can to get exposure to it. That is something I recommend to my students."

On sale in the shops, some book-and-cassette language kits claim "Learn Spanish in Three Months". Was this a con? Mr. Lugo felt it was a question of levels of competency.

"If you mean, 'be bilingual in three months', I would say 'probably not'," said Mr. Lugo. "But I would say it is possible for someone to become reasonably proficient in a language in three months, but for some people it would take six months and for others a year.

"I would say it's probably a sales pitch, but if somebody is fortunate enough to have the time to put in several hours a day, then in three months a lot could be accomplished."

Mr. Lugo has no shortage of people coming to Algomas, hungry to learn. Enough to keep him working six days a week and up to 12 hours a day.

"There are enough clients to keep my head above water," said Mr. Lugo, who has been in the CedarPark Centre for the past ten years after eight years in another location. He also taught in the public education system for a time, at the Berkeley Institute and for a three-month stint at Whitney.

Away from his language school, Mr. Lugo exercises his knowledge of the language he grew up with by composing the Mastermind Crossword that appears weekly on the back page of the Mid-Ocean News. The composing process differed in difficulty from week to week, he said.

"Some days I sit at the computer and as I put one word in, the next one just seems to come along," said Mr. Lugo. "Other days I've had to abandon it and start again and I've known it to take three days."