The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-10-30

NOT TO BE THOROUGHLY ACQUIRED
FROM TEXTBOOKS ALONE.

The Prime Necessity Of Teaching a Lam
guage by Beginning at the Wrong
End of the LIne-Easy to Teach
Baby TO Talk Correctly.
NJ Michel Breal delivered before the Sor-
bonnie a noteworthy lecture upon the method
Of learning foreign languages. in which ne
boldly condemned all scientific systems IN
vogue, and declared TO his Partisan auditors
that If he himself knew how to speak very
few languages. although ne could read
number, it was owing TO the imperfection OF
his cary linguistic training. some OF his
remarks viii have much interest Tor Amer
lean readers,
The main point he attempted to establish
in his lecture Reproduced by The Revue
Politisue ct Literature, was the prime ne
cessty OF teaching language by ear 10
teaching living language by the eye, &C
coriing to any system, no matter now
scholarly the method or how apt the pupil,
was likely to produce very Indifferent re-
suIt5-for the simple reason that such a sys-
TEN itself Is a sub eTsiun of the natural Law.
Speech being the primitive medium OF the
communi. alton of ideas by sounds, anu
written language only the subsequently De
veloped art of fixing those ideas by durable
signs, it Is obviously controverting nature
commencing at the wrong end Of the
ine-to attempt to teach language first by
the eye The conse9 uences OF this false
method in educational establishments are
truly lamentable In the French lyces, ac-
cording to NJ Baeal, it is he'd that ten
years study are rec uisite for the learning
of English!
NOT LEARNED FROM BOOKS ALONE.
The French government has learned to
appre late the iupys7ibiiity of thoroughly
learning a foreign language out OF books
alone. and those pubhc-schOol instructors
who are educated by the state are now sent
to England to learn English, to Germany to
learn German. They are placed in private
families, and generally learn the language
tolerably we'll in one year, very we'll IN two
years To be "a e to reada language Is one
thing to speak ii another, The germans
seem to reco5 nize that speaking is rather
question of mental habit than learning
they do not say he knows French" but he
can French, n-er kann franzOSish.
a language should be learned by the
adult Just as it is acquired by the child
This acknowledgement truth is well mani
festeI by the facility with which soldiers,
servants. mechanics and others master an
idio1n during a comparatiy ely brief sOjOurn
in a foreign country And when a language
has thus been acquired orally, it becomes
easy enough then for any educated person
to learn its photography, its grammatical
laws and niceties, and the beauties OF its
literature but let it Re well understood
that no book can teach pronOunciatiOn-that
no printed system can train the ear,-that
no cabinet study can ever teach one to
think in anOth + language than ones own; =
and this it Is absolutely necessary to do be
fore language can be thoroughly mastered.
THE TIME To TEACH LANGUAGES.
The time TO teach languages then, IS not
after the mimi has become well developed,
but while it is still shaping. 1t is as easy to
teach baby to speak in two or three Ian
guages as in one. Suppose, also, the case
of q father who always talks French to the
child. while the mother always talks Eng
Iish The child, says NJ. Breal is not at all
astonished because his mother speaks diff
ent language from the other people whom he
knows
/ He simply thinks that is his mothers
way of talking:-that is the way his mother
calls things--all tie acts of his life have an
other name when his mother mentions them.
In his little head there is develop special
group or representative ideas, of which the
figure OF his mother forms the center. The
child does not translate he does not know
what translating means:-he does not know
that he is speaking two languages, nor even
what language is. He only knows that
his mother will not answer him if he calls
his dol a pOupee instead of doll Chill
dren have been known to evince the great
est amazement on hearing other persons
speak the very language which they haC
thou hit to be the unique and special ldlom
of their mOther,-so intimately were the
two ideas associated for them Let the
years pass-let the same education continue
and the two languages are at the child's dis
position. They are developed together but
in a parallel way, and without intermiXing
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