p. 24 | Learning to Speak a Foreign Tongue

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1907

Learning to Speak a Foreign Tongue

By W. C. Fatterbert

I READ with much interest, in the Bulletin of the educational convention at College View, the discussions concerning the study of Latin and modern languages, and would venture an opinion concerning the matter.

The study of any second language makes that of a third easier and more interesting. This seems especially true if one has learned two languages in childhood.

Here in Mexico are thousands of Americans, of whom quite a number, especially the missionaries, are well educated, yet it is a luxury to hear Spanish well spoken among them. There are several reasons for this. Some come here after middle life, and so find it hard to master another tongue. Another cause seems to be inherent,—the average American is satisfied with English, and prefers to let others learn it to exerting himself to learn Spanish. Mexicans learn English, which is much more difficult than Spanish, and learn it well, with less opportunity for practise. Then those who come here, as a rule, come either as missionaries or to seek wealth, and are too anxious to get to work to spend sufficient time in study. The more patient German gets a grammar, hires a teacher, mingles in Mexican society, and soon learns to use the language quite correctly. Americans are inclined to be clannish.

Now our schools give courses of two or three years in various languages. Some of the teachers are not even natives of the country of which they teach

the language.

One fourth of the student's time each year is spent on one of these languages. The classes are generally large ones, and he gets but little practise for tongue or ear. I believe he should have at least two years of Latin, which, of course, he must get in school, but that he had much better get his modern language from the people among whom he expects to labor. There he can devote his whole time, for from six to nine months, to hearing, reading, writing, and speaking,—to learning the language as it is spoken by the people. There, too, he will learn, what is almost as important, the manners, customs, and habits of thought of the people, without a knowledge of which he ought not to begin work as a missionary among them. These can not be learned from books, nor from travelers, for these are too narrow to be reliable.

I learned Spanish in college, from text-books, with the so-called Castilian pronunciation, which I forgot while crossing the Rio Grande; then I had to forget most of the remainder before I could learn to speak at all correctly. I believe I would speak it much better now had I studied it all here.

In six to nine months one will not have learned Spanish or any other language, but will have acquired a correct basis for future study, and will understand nearly all the conversation he hears. With the house servant, the street peddlers, at the market, everywhere, he will be hearing and learning. What is saved in time and money at college will more than make up for the added expense in the field.

W. C. FATTERBERT, M. D.

Celaya, Mexico.