It is interesting that thanks to the internet and audio learning courses, the need for `foreign governesses' is obviated. Bodmer does make an interesting case for learning most European languages with a little basic grammar and maximising the utility of a large English vocabulary by learning a few useful thum rules to guess etymology and appropriate sound change to get the synonym in other European languages. However, this very style of pedagogy shows quite clearly that this kind of paratrooper immersion would work best for English speakers only in Germanic/Romance languages.The Loom of Language wrote:The greatest impediment, common to most branches of school and university education, is the dead hand of Plato We have not yet got away from education designed for the sons of gentlemen. Educational Platomsm sacrifices realizable proficiency by encouraging the pursuit of unattainable perfection. The child or the immigrant learns a language by blundering his or her way into greater self-confidence. Adults accept the mistakes of children with tolerant good-humour, and the genial flow of social intercourse is not interrupted by a barrage of pedantic protests. The common sense of ordinary parents or customs officials recognizes that commonplace communication unhampered by the sting of grammatical guilt must precede real progress in the arts of verbal precision. Most of us could learn languages more easily if we could learn to forgive our own linguistic trespasses. Where perfectionist pedantry has inserted the sung of grammatical guilt a sense of social inferiority rubs salt into the wound. According to the standards of educated adults., very few adolescents can speak and write the home language with fluency and grammatical precision before eighteen years of age. To be able to speak more than two new languages without any trace of foreign accent or idiom is a life-work.
So linguistic polish is a perquisite of prosperous people whose formal education has been supplemented by the attentions of foreign governesses and by frequent trips abroad It is the cultural trademark of a leisure class Indeed no type of knowledge has moie ostentation value. No one who wants to speak a foreign language like a native can rely upon this book or on any other Its aim is to lighten the burden of learning for the home student who is less ambitious. One of the useful results of recent attempts to devise languages for world citizenship has been to show how educational practice, dictated by anti-social theories which gratify the itch for Ieisure-class ostentation, exaggerates the difficulties arising fiom the intrinsic characteristics of language. The intrinsic difficulties depend on the large amount of
effort expended before tangible results of self-expression or comprehension bring their own reward. Self-assurance depends on reducing this period of unrequited effort to a minimum. Pioneers of international communication such as C K Ogden, the inventor of Basic English, have made a special study of this, because the success of their work depends on the ease with which a language for world-wide use can be learned. Whether their own proposals prosper or fail, they have revolutionized the problem of learning existing languages
And if you're interested the book is available on the internet archive:
http://archive.org/details/TheLoomOfLanguage
http://archive.org/stream/TheLoomOfLang ... guage.djvu
