Some short passages of dialogue are in untranslated French. I can understand some of it, e.g.:
"'La nuit, le jour, c'est la meme chose pour les Neo-Europeens.'" (p. 171)
(Night and day are the same for New Europeans.)
However, it is a scandal that I cannot speak French fluently. From 1961 to 1967 in a boarding school in the Republic of Ireland, we were "taught" Latin, French and Irish - expect that we gained no ability or fluency in any of them. But then that was not regarded as necessary in the life styles for which we were being prepared. They must have improved teaching techniques since then. If I were to be put through that schooling again, then I would try to gain some proficiency in all three languages but, like most of us at that age at the time, I was incapable of seeing it that way while we were being force fed "subjects" called "French" etc. What a waste of time and opportunity.
19 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I recall Stirling commenting the most effective methods of teaching anything has not changed from Sumerian times in Mesopotamia. That is, intense drilling and memorizing/studying.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The best way to learn a language is to speak it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course, along with the drilling/memorizing/studying.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, immersion among native-speakers is good, too.
I was at school in Ontario for my later teen years and we learned French in the classroom and then spoke it with some Quebecois students, which helped. I can still follow a movie in French, or read a newspaper.
Though trying to read Proust... that was a step too far!
Lenin learned English in conversation with an Irishman and spoke it with a Dublin accent.
Getting the sounds of another language right is the hardest part, and naturally you pick up the accent of the people you learn it with.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I also recall how, in DAGGERS IN DARKNESS, Luz O'Malley was able to interrogate captured officers of the Mad Baron using French. Because that language was what many educated Russians studied in school.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it was also useful to have a language the servants didn't speak...
In the eighteenth (maybe) century, a dinner guest in an aristocratic English household expressed philosophical scepticism about religious beliefs while the servants were in the room. Afterwards, his host said, "Not in front of the servants..." For their purposes, it would have been helpful to speak French.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: You could also do that speaking Latin!
Paul: I read as well of how George I could not speak English when he succeeded Queen Anne as King in 1714, so he and his ministers used French for conversing.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And I think that that was why one government minister had to become Prime Minister to conduct cabinet business.
Paul.
Poul made that point in STAR PRINCE CHARLIE.
That is, the Hanoverians were the start of the retreat of English monarchs from actual executive authority.
George I because he couldn't speak the language, and George III because he -did- exercise executive authority... and screwed up bigtime (American War of Independence) and then went mad for a long time.
Plus his son, the Prince Regent, was more interested in banquets and parties and collecting art than in politics.
Not that this would have been much of a consolation to the Scottish Highlanders and Jacobites of various types. The Duke of Cumberland (George II's son) earned his nickname of "Butcher" rather thoroughly.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I think the office of the prime ministry really took form in George II's time (r. 1727-1760). I get the impression George I was a fairly "active" monarch even if he had to speak French with his ministers.
Mr. Stirling: I basically agree, with the caveat that George III did have PMs who took care of the day to day stuff, such as the Earl of Bute and then Lord North. I think it was William Pitt the Younger who established the prime ministry as we now see it.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, that was when it 'jelled'.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I have sometimes thought the House of Commons has gained too much power at the expense of the Lords. That it might not be a bad idea if the upper house regained some of its former power. To be a bit more like the US Senate, which sometimes checks/restrains the House.
Ad astra! Sean
From SM Stirling:
Britain was an oligarchy/aristocracy that very gradually morphed into a democracy.
There were other European countries -- Poland, for example -- where assemblies of notables dominated, but only the British one where that was combined with effective executive authority.
'tis why it's called the "Mother of Parliaments". It actually is.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, altho medieval England was not the only nation to have legislative bodies. Many, even most European states had them as well.
The point I was trying to suggest was wondering if the House of Commons has now become too powerful. But I'm used to a US Senate which can often thwart the lower house. An idea I approve of, power checking power.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the US Senate was modeled on the 18th-century House of Lords.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! And I think Alexander Hamilton argued for making US Senators hereditary. While the drafters of the Constitution did not go that far, they came close, with Senators getting six year terms of office and originally being elected by the legislatures of the States, not by direct popular elections. To make the Senate less likely to be swayed by popular passions, as would be the case with the lower House. They wanted power to be opposed by power, ambition to be checked by rival ambition.
Anderson, in one of his letters to me, discussed how he disliked the XVII Amendment, because it abolished indirect election of Senators for direct popular elections. Because it helped undermine the decentralized Federal character of the US.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment