free book on teaching languages

General discussion about learning languages
mcthulhu
Orange Belt
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:01 pm
Languages: English (native); strong reading skills - Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Farsi; fair reading skills - Polish, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Portuguese; beginner/rusty - Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
x 590

free book on teaching languages

Postby mcthulhu » Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:17 am

Otto Jespersen's How to Teach a Foreign Language, which just appeared on Project Gutenberg, might be worth a download: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54943, in multiple formats. It's an English translation of a Danish original, published in 1904. The prose is old-fashioned; but I think it has a lot of common-sense observations about both teaching and learning foreign languages.

Sample quotations:

"Why must we learn how to pronounce the foreign languages at all? Well, in the first place, it must be because there is the possibility that we may meet natives some time later. Otherwise we might, perhaps, be satisfied with reading the foreign words according to English principles of pronunciation, French pain like English “pain,” Werther as “worth her,” etc. I have known old parsons who have taught themselves English so as to be able to read novels, and who read English with Danish vowels, pronounced the k in knight, etc. For a superficial “getting the gist” of shilling shockers and penny dreadfuls, this is sufficient perhaps, but I maintain that for a penetrating, delicate comprehension of real works of literature this manner of reading is not enough. Language cannot be separated from sound, and that is the sum of the matter; only he who hears the foreign language within himself in exactly or approximately the same way as a native hears it can really appreciate and enjoy not only poetry, where phonetic effects must needs always play an important part, but also all the higher forms of prose. Then there is the mnemonic benefit of a correct pronunciation. (...) The very first lesson in a foreign language ought to be devoted to initiating the pupils into the world of sounds..."

"Where the pupils formerly had to commit to memory paradigms, rigmaroles and rules, which all had to be taken on faith, we let them investigate for themselves and thus get an insight into the construction of the language."
6 x

mcthulhu
Orange Belt
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:01 pm
Languages: English (native); strong reading skills - Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Farsi; fair reading skills - Polish, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Portuguese; beginner/rusty - Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
x 590

Re: free book on teaching languages

Postby mcthulhu » Fri Jun 23, 2017 12:04 pm

It also has some humor to recommend it:

The story goes that a Swedish dialectologist who was on a tour to investigate how extensively the strong form dog (died) was in use, asked a peasant: do you people here say “jag dog” or “jag döde”? The peasant was not a grammarian; he answered sensibly: well, when we are dead we generally do not say anything.

I remember a lady’s dismay when a Frenchman used the combination [stane] in a sentence; she could not understand the sentence until I repeated it, inserting [sɛtane]. “O well,” she rejoined, “if he had only said [sɛtane]; we always said it that way in school.” (Cette année.)
1 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests