POPULAR ERRORS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—The reading of Dr. V. Stefansson's "Popular Errors— I." in the Spectator issue of September 22nd turned my thoughts again to a question I have often-pondered—viz., how it is that people without any schooling in languages apparently sooner acquire a working knowledge of a foreign speech than those who have had a training in linguistics.
In my country a fair percentage of ship's officers has received a sound teaching in modern languages (English, French and German) during four or five years previous to going to sea. Yet when at, say, a Baltic or Eastern port it has always struck me that very often a common seaman or fireman picked up a working knowledge of the speech sooner than those who had benefited by the study of other languages. Is it that at the -outset, at least, the better educated man is at a disadvantage—that he has to unlearn much, whereas the unschooled mind is at once free to proceed ?
After a while, of course, the lack of training retards further progress, and it is then that the better educated scores. But I have experienced that it is-quite possible that people pick up sufficient knowledge of a foreign language for daily use within a short space of time.—I am, Sir, &sc., A DUTCH SEA CAPTAIN.
[Is not the reason that the educated man remembers his books all the time ? He thinks of grammar and construction ; he tries to translate his own language into another according to the rules. Meanwhile he generally forgets even to imitate the sounds of the other language. We have heard an illiterate Englishman very quickly pick up French phrases which in his mouth sounded more like French than did the efforts of the average cultured Englishman.—En. Spectator.]
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