18 The Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, new srries,
it seems certain that adults with a hundred times their power of mind and with suitable books and teachers and regular study could not fail to attain to a real knowledge and ready colloquial use of a new language, and that without being years about it, unless they were altogether wrong in the method of study they adopted. In fact he cannot help declaring it as his opinion that when this subject is fairly grappled with by men, the great supposed obstacles to intercourse of strange languages will be found, comparatively speaking, a mere bugbear; and that the acquisition of a new language for all the ordinary purposes of life will be found to be within the reach of almost all with a comparativ,s}y very small expenditure of time and labour.
Before proceeding to propose a system of study of living languages, it may be well to make some remarks on the mistakes that are commonly made at present, and the chief difficulties that are usually met with, as well as on the time generally expended, on such study.
A great many of the common mistakes can easily be traced to the circumstance that almost universally the students have previously been accustomed to study dead languages, and from their not observing that almost all their ideas have been formed from that study, while the principal points to be attended to in the study of living languages are exactly those that are of little or no consequence in that of dead ones, and vice versa. In learning Latin or Greek, for instance, the sole objects usually are to be able to read so as to understand the writings of highly educated men and (but as very secondary) to write elegant formal essays. The following are therefore the leading points aimed at;
- 1st. A knowledge of the character,
- 2nd. A knowledge of the whole vocabulary of the language, including a multitude of words seldom or never used colloquially in the ordinary business of life.
- 3rd. A readiness in perceiving the meaning of long involved formal sentences, such as are found in grave prose and in poetical writings.
