The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-09-28

"There has been a noticeable increase of
late in the number of people who come to us
to learn Spanish" said Mr.. A. Gonard, of the
BerlitE School Of Languages, to SUNDAY HER
AID reporter the other day. "a few years ago
scarcely any one thought of learning It, either
for purposes of study or of business. Fewer
people even turned their attention to 1t than to
any other European language. French, Ger
man, and Italian were studied much more COM
monty than Spanish. Nowadays, however, we
teach great deal of Spanish. Students OF
languages and literatures are beginning to APP
preciate its beauties and to learn the value OF
Spanish authors, whom they desire to read in
the original. Then the greater interest which
Americans are taking in Mexican and South
American AFFAIRS and the increasing relations
that have sprung up between the Northern and
Southern divisions of the Continent are making
Spanish Of much greater value in business than
1t even was before. Here in Washington there
are not so many students Of Spanish who ex-
pect to make use of the language in business,
but in New York, Chicago Boston, and st.
Louis there is large and growing demand for
clerks and Others who can read and write the
language. And we have had o number of
pupils ourselves who learned it with the expec-
tation of making use of it in business
"Do Americans seem to find any great diff
Guilty in learning the language ?''
mo, Spanish is comparatively easy Ian
guage to learn-much more so than French or
German. There are no silent letters in it, and
the sounds are mostly full and open"
Chow do you find that Americans compare
with the people of other nations in capacity for
learning foreign languages ?" the reporter
asked.
"Americans, l find" the gentleman said, "ac-
quire French, for instance much more readily
than English students do, and their pronuncia-
tion of French is much more accurate than that
of the English. The American tongue seems to
be more flexible than the English and more
capable of giving the finer shades of French
pronunciation. l think the Americans also
speak better German than the English. Taught
in England before l came to this country, and
was not long here before / noticed these differ
| ences."
~ suppose French is still in the lead as
| fashionable language, isn't it?'
"Ihat depends upon what you mean bv a
| fashionable language. It'll spoken very widely,
and we have the advantage of our Academy
Franqaise, which makes it fixed language, not
| subject to any of the varieties Of form and in
Election which exist in other tongues to such an
extent as to be almost dialect. French is still
the favorite language of the higher class of peo-
pie among all nations, so 1 suppose 1t might be
called the fashionable language. Young ladies
| who wish to be considered accomplished con-
tinue to learn French first of all when they begin
| to study foreign languages"
SIS Russian studied here at all ?''
SIN America? Yes; we teach little in our
| New York school. In Washington No: we
have never had any call to teach it."
you make 1t a specially, do you, to employ
only natives of country to teach its Ian
guage ?''
ENTIRELY. We prefer, indeed, that person
to teach French or German shall not be able to
speak word of English. In that case the
pupil is compelled to think right from the be-
| ginning in the language to be spoken, and not
allowed to frame English equivalents in SEN
| 1aT mama vNr1f f1r
word. That is the only natural method of
teaching language. We have very few chill
| dren as students. There is no satisfaction in
trying to teach children languages, and parents
! are beginning to learn this. Most of our pupils
are grown young men and women as rule"
'Do you find men or women the more apt in
| learning languages ?'
''There is little if any difference One young
| lady during the past season learned French in
fifty private lessons so as to be able to speak it
| fuently and to be able to join our highest class
composed for the most part of persons who had
been studying for several years. AS arule it re-
| quires three lessons week for two or three
years to learn language well. They may not
| then be able to sit down and engage in a parlor
| conversation among Frenchmen, but they can
| speak it and write it with considerable ease.
quite number OF people above middle age
who have nothing else to do, and consequently
| can devote great deal of time to their study
| The grammar is the hard part of it, Americans
anu EnRllSu never 40 learn our grammar, either
French or German. If they have studied Latin
it helps them, but there are certain parts of our
verbs that they seem never to understand. The
English grammar is very easy, and even after
they know that, which is not always the case
they find great difficulty in getting a compre-
hensive and detailed knowledge of ours. The
French and the Germans do not have nearly so
much trouble with speaking dramatically your
language as you do ours, but the English Ian
guage has other difficulties in it which offset
that advantage, and it is considered difficult
language to learn to speak"
"Do you find the American girl intellectually
behind or ahead of her French and German con-
temporary?n
'She is ahead of them inasmuch as she has
some knowledge of branches which the French
girls never study, Latin and Greek, for instance,
but her knowledge of those branches is so very
superficial as to amount to little. No,
wouldn't like to say the American girl is intel
lectually, the superior of our European young
| women.n
Novelties in JeweIry.
| From the jewelers. Weekly.
The heavy chain bracelet of Roman gold which
was so popular last season has been revived, and
promises to enjoy continued favor.