Thread replies: 6
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1
File: IMG_0113.jpg (641KB, 1464x1986px) Image search:
[Google]
641KB, 1464x1986px
LEARNING MANY LANGUAGES. The learning of many languages fills the memory with words instead of with facts and thoughts, and this is a vessel which, with every person, can only contain a certain limited amount of contents. Therefore the learning of many languages is injurious, inasmuch as it arouses a belief in possessing dexterity and, as a matter of fact, it lends a kind of delusive importance to social intercourse. It is also indirectly injurious in that it opposes the acquirement of solid knowledge and the intention to win the respect of men in an honest way. Finally, it is the axe which is laid to the root of a delicate sense of language in our mother tongue, which thereby is incurably injured and destroyed. The two nations which produced the greatest stylists, the Greeks and the French, learned no foreign languages. But as human intercourse must always grow more cosmopolitan, and as, for instance, a good merchant in London must now be able to read and write eight languages, the learning of many tongues has certainly become a necessary evil; but which, when finally carried to an extreme, will compel mankind to find a remedy, and in some far off future there will be a new language, used at first as a language of commerce, then as a language of intellectual intercourse generally, then for all, as surely as some time or other there will be aviation. Why else should philology have studied the laws of languages for a whole century, and have estimated the necessary, the valuable, and the successful portion of each separate language?
>>
>>9852490
>and in some far off future there will be a new language, used at first as a language of commerce, then as a language of intellectual intercourse generally, then for all, as surely as some time or other there will be aviation
I'm glad English is my mother tongue.
>>
>>9852490
>Implying the human brain has a "limit of knowledge" he can't extrapolate when the most amazing feature of the brain is its cappacity to always improve itself
Shitty bait but made me wast 30seg typing this shit 5/10
>>
>>9852490
I also think the learning of languages is a pretty pointless affair unless there is a specific reason for wanting to do so. If it is just to say "I'm a polyglot" and get recognized by normies, then please stop. If there is a specific culture or literature you want to connect with, then by all means, please do so. But one doesn't get better at writing English prose or poetry by spending their days grinding vocabulary on Anki or working through grammar books and watching movies and reading children's books in a foreign language. If your primarily goal is to write better, then I would spend more time writing in the language you plan to write in.
>>
>>9853205
Or, you know, you do it because it's interesting and because it expands your mind?
>>
>>9853209
If your only goal in life is to just pursue things that make you feel good, then by all means, I guess. It's certainly a better use of time then most other things. If you have literary ambitions or something of the sort, in my experience it has been more beneficial to focus on the language you want to work in.
Thread posts: 6
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1