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Thomas De Quincey on language learning
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Thomas De Quincey on language learning
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
sirgregory wrote:But it's still better than Xbox, right?
And Xbox is still better than drugs, right!
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
I am delighted to see Thomas De Quincey quoted here. While we're at it, this is one of my favorite quotations from his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater:
My father died when I was about seven years old, and left me to the care of four guardians. I was sent to various schools, great and small; and was very early distinguished for my classical attainments, especially for my knowledge of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease; and at fifteen my command of that language was so great that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric metres, but could converse in Greek fluently and without embarrassment—an accomplishment which I have not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which in my case was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore; for the necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, &c., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, &c. “That boy,” said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a stranger to me, “that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you and I could address an English one.” He who honoured me with this eulogy was a scholar, “and a ripe and a good one,” and of all my tutors was the only one whom I loved or reverenced.
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
I think its very sensible advice for how to plan out language learning. I don't have the exact quote with me, but I think I remember Montaigne saying something similar about people wasting too much time on language learning, unless its taught in a way where people are raised with it and pick it up as a matter of course. I remember when I first started I tried learning a bunch without knowing how long it would take, how to even study efficiently, and what I would end up doing with them, and this can definitely end up being a big loss of time if it goes beyond brief dabbling/curiosity where study is still enjoyable for its own sake. Now I'm mostly interested in closely related languages where there's much less study time before integrating language learning with other interests. I don't plan on starting new language families without considering study resources and how much I'd actually end up using it.
A lot of times I see people make the assumption that someone who speaks a lot of language must also know a lot of other things. This can be somewhat true in that it usually requires discipline to study and curiosity to learn. But it can also be a tremendous time sink, and someone who spends a lot of time learning languages for their own sake is not spending that time learning other things. Some of the most brilliant people I've met only know 2-3 languages.
Though the one point I'd add is that I think the perspective of some of these quotes is sometimes limited by the learning materials available in their time. I won't harp on it because I've discussed it before, but I think a lot of modern tools like the internet, audiobooks, and pop-up dictionaries make it much easier to integrate language learning and other hobbies earlier. So I'm still optimistic people interested in languages can find more ways to integrate language learning with their interests sooner. But its still very important to consider how to study a language, how much time it will take, and what you'll end up using it for.
A lot of times I see people make the assumption that someone who speaks a lot of language must also know a lot of other things. This can be somewhat true in that it usually requires discipline to study and curiosity to learn. But it can also be a tremendous time sink, and someone who spends a lot of time learning languages for their own sake is not spending that time learning other things. Some of the most brilliant people I've met only know 2-3 languages.
Though the one point I'd add is that I think the perspective of some of these quotes is sometimes limited by the learning materials available in their time. I won't harp on it because I've discussed it before, but I think a lot of modern tools like the internet, audiobooks, and pop-up dictionaries make it much easier to integrate language learning and other hobbies earlier. So I'm still optimistic people interested in languages can find more ways to integrate language learning with their interests sooner. But its still very important to consider how to study a language, how much time it will take, and what you'll end up using it for.
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
If anybody was curious what his advice to a professed philologist was, here is the section right before:
And the source is letter 3 from "Letters to a young man whose education has been neglected", in The Art of Conversation and Other Papers (1863) [archive.org, Google Books].
To a professed linguist, therefore, the natural advice would be—examine the structure of as many languages as possible; gather as many thousand specimens as possible into your hortus siccus, beginning with the eldest forms of the Teutonic, namely, the Visigothic and the Icelandic, for which the aids rendered by modern learning are immense. To a professed philologist, I say, the natural advice would be this.
And the source is letter 3 from "Letters to a young man whose education has been neglected", in The Art of Conversation and Other Papers (1863) [archive.org, Google Books].
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
For consideration in the event down the road that the current motto of this forum may need refreshing, I nominate De Quincey's line: "The barren and ungenial labour of language-learning"
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
How do modern polyglots measure up in this regard? Earlier this year Steve Kaufmann did a lengthy video on the invasion of Ukraine and I was impressed by his expert level knowledge of the conflict. His careers in diplomacy and the timber industry must have also entailed a great deal of learning.
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
In one of his essays he recommends double-translation as a good method:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18862
Chap. IV. On the best method of acquiring Languages.—
The Experimentalist had occasion to observe 'that, in the Welsh towns which are frequented by the English, even the children speak both languages with fluency:' this fact, contrasted with the labour and pain entailed upon the boy who is learning Latin (to say nothing of the eventual disgust to literature which is too often the remote consequence), and the drudgery entailed upon the master who teaches Latin,—and [Pg 200]fortified by the consideration, that in the former instance the child learns to speak a new language, but in the latter only to read it,—first drew his attention to the natural mode of learning languages, i. e. learning them from daily use.
This mode never fails with living languages: but how is it to be applied to dead languages? The Experimentalist retorts by asking what is essential to this mode? Partly the necessity which the pupil is laid under of using the language daily for the common intercourse of life, and partly his hearing it spoken by those who thoroughly understand it. 'Stimulus to exertion then, and good models, are the great advantages of this mode of instruction:' and these, he thinks, are secured even for a dead language by his system: the first by the motives to exertion which have already been unfolded; and the second by the acting of Latin dramas (which had been previously noticed in his Exposition of the system).
But a third imitation of the natural method he places in the use of translations, 'which present the student with a dictionary both of words and phrases arranged in the order in which he wants them,' and in an abstinence from all use of the grammar, until the learner himself shall come to feel the want of it; i. e. using it with reference to an experience already accumulated, and not as an anticipation of an experience yet to come. The ordinary objection to the use of translations—that they produce indolent habits, he answers thus: 'We teach by the process of construing; and therefore, even with the translation before him, the scholar will have a task to perform in matching the English, word by word, with the language which he is learning.'[Pg 201] For this natural method of learning languages he alleges the authority of Locke, of Ascham, and of Pestalozzi. The best method, with those who have advanced to some degree of proficiency, he considers that of double translations—i. e. a translation first of all into the mother tongue of the learner, and a re-translation of this translation back into the language of the original. These, with the help of extemporaneous construing, i. e. construing any passage at random with the assistance of a master who supplies the meaning of the unknown words as they arise (a method practised, it seems, by Le Febvre the father of Madame Dacier, by others before his time, and by Condillac since)—compose the chief machinery which he employs for the communication of dead languages.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18862
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Re: Thomas De Quincey on language learning
In a typical German gymnasium (high school) today two foreign languages are obligatory, in the language sector it is three.
A new language is a vehicle through which you can acquire knowledge De Quincy never dreamed of (despite his opium consumption) because he was a child of his time.
This is the language offer from a gymnasium nearby, it is not untypical.
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However, in this extract De Quincy looks very modern:
bilingual texts
don't expect a learner never to make mistakes in a situation he has not yet experienced
reverse translation
bidirectional translation
transfer of the already learnt to new contexts: you can't expect a learner to get all right (see above), a master must be sitting next to you giving the necessary prompts and corrections
A new language is a vehicle through which you can acquire knowledge De Quincy never dreamed of (despite his opium consumption) because he was a child of his time.
This is the language offer from a gymnasium nearby, it is not untypical.
SPRACHEN
Einen Schwerpunkt am xxxxx-Gymnasium bildet der Bereich der Sprachen. Allen Schülerinnen und Schülern bieten sich vielfältige Möglichkeiten die eigene Sprache weiter zu entwickeln oder fremde Sprachen neu zu erlernen.
Neben den für alle obligatorischen Fremdsprachen Englisch und Latein oder Französisch bieten wir bei der Profilbelegung ab Klasse 8 im sprachlichen Profil Spanisch als dritte Fremdsprache an.
Darüberhinaus kann von allen Italienisch ab Klasse 9 als weitere Fremdsprache gewählt werden.
Eine Italienisch-AG in Klasse 8 und eine Japanisch-AG ergänzen das sprachliche Angebot an der Schule.
In verschiedenen Austauschprogrammen ergeben sich vielfach Gelegenheiten die eigene Sprachkompetenz im Kontakt mit “native-speakern” weiter zu verfeinern. Aber auch muttersprachliches Theater sowie regelmäßige Aufenthalte internationaler Gastschüler an unserer Schule bieten diese Erfahrung.
Nicht wenige Schülerinnen und Schülern nutzen dann in Klasse 10 die Chance und lassen sich das Erlernte im Erwerb des französischen Sprachzertifikats (DELF) bestätigen.
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However, in this extract De Quincy looks very modern:
But a third imitation of the natural method he places in the use of translations, 'which present the student with a dictionary both of words and phrases arranged in the order in which he wants them,' and in an abstinence from all use of the grammar, until the learner himself shall come to feel the want of it; i. e. using it with reference to an experience already accumulated,
bilingual texts
and not as an anticipation of an experience yet to come.
don't expect a learner never to make mistakes in a situation he has not yet experienced
The ordinary objection to the use of translations—that they produce indolent habits, he answers thus: 'We teach by the process of construing; and therefore, even with the translation before him, the scholar will have a task to perform in matching the English, word by word, with the language which he is learning.'[Pg 201]
reverse translation
For this natural method of learning languages he alleges the authority of Locke, of Ascham, and of Pestalozzi. The best method, with those who have advanced to some degree of proficiency, he considers that of double translations—i. e. a translation first of all into the mother tongue of the learner, and a re-translation of this translation back into the language of the original.
bidirectional translation
.These, with the help of extemporaneous construing, i. e. construing any passage at random with the assistance of a master who supplies the meaning of the unknown words as they arise (a method practised, it seems, by Le Febvre the father of Madame Dacier, by others before his time, and by Condillac since)—compose the chief machinery which he employs for the communication of dead languages
transfer of the already learnt to new contexts: you can't expect a learner to get all right (see above), a master must be sitting next to you giving the necessary prompts and corrections
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