{"id":30858,"date":"2015-04-19T01:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-19T05:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=30858"},"modified":"2018-01-11T16:32:09","modified_gmt":"2018-01-11T21:32:09","slug":"qotd-learning-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/04\/19\/qotd-learning-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Learning languages"},"content":{"rendered":"

… they have a way of teaching languages in Germany that is not our way, and the consequence is that when the German youth or maiden leaves the gymnasium or high school at fifteen, \u201cit\u201d (as in Germany one conveniently may say) can understand and speak the tongue it has been learning. In England we have a method that for obtaining the least possible result at the greatest possible expenditure of time and money is perhaps unequalled. An English boy who has been through a good middle-class school in England can talk to a Frenchman, slowly and with difficulty, about female gardeners and aunts; conversation which, to a man possessed perhaps of neither, is liable to pall. Possibly, if he be a bright exception, he may be able to tell the time, or make a few guarded observations concerning the weather. No doubt he could repeat a goodly number of irregular verbs by heart; only, as a matter of fact, few foreigners care to listen to their own irregular verbs, recited by young Englishmen. Likewise he might be able to remember a choice selection of grotesquely involved French idioms, such as no modern Frenchman has ever heard or understands when he does hear.<\/p>\n

The explanation is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has learnt French from an Ahn\u2019s First-Course<\/em>. The history of this famous work is remarkable and instructive. The book was originally written for a joke, by a witty Frenchman who had resided for some years in England. He intended it as a satire upon the conversational powers of British society. From this point of view it was distinctly good. He submitted it to a London publishing firm. The manager was a shrewd man. He read the book through. Then he sent for the author.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis book of yours,\u201d said he to the author, \u201cis very clever. I have laughed over it myself till the tears came.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am delighted to hear you say so,\u201d replied the pleased Frenchman. \u201cI tried to be truthful without being unnecessarily offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is most amusing,\u201d concurred the manager; \u201cand yet published as a harmless joke, I feel it would fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

The author\u2019s face fell.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts humour,\u201d proceeded the manager, \u201cwould be denounced as forced and extravagant. It would amuse the thoughtful and intelligent, but from a business point of view that portion of the public are never worth considering. But I have an idea,\u201d continued the manager. He glanced round the room to be sure they were alone, and leaning forward sunk his voice to a whisper. \u201cMy notion is to publish it as a serious work for the use of schools!\u201d<\/p>\n

The author stared, speechless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the English schoolman,\u201d said the manager; \u201cthis book will appeal to him. It will exactly fit in with his method. Nothing sillier, nothing more useless for the purpose will he ever discover. He will smack his lips over the book, as a puppy licks up blacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The author, sacrificing art to greed, consented. They altered the title and added a vocabulary, but left the book otherwise as it was.<\/p>\n

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel<\/em><\/a>, 1914.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… they have a way of teaching languages in Germany that is not our way, and the consequence is that when the German youth or maiden leaves the gymnasium or high school at fifteen, \u201cit\u201d (as in Germany one conveniently may say) can understand and speak the tongue it has been learning. In England we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,79,62,1117,57,41],"tags":[400,460,134],"class_list":["post-30858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-education","category-europe","category-france","category-humour","category-quotations","tag-language","tag-textbooks","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-81I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30859,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30858\/revisions\/30859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}