John Stuart Blackie and Learning Languages
Michael Gilleland at Laudator Temporis Acti has posted some rules for learning languages, originally written by John Stuart Blackie in the late nineteenth century. They’re worth a look. Blackie advocates learning all languages, even “dead” ones like Greek and Latin, the same way — a breath of fresh air from an era known for its adherence to grammar-translation methodology. He says, for example, that you should never let a reading knowledge of the language substitute for the ability to use it; that you should avoid your mother tongue as much as possible; and that you should learn the nominative and accusative forms first and then use them to construct simple sentences about everyday objects.
This advice is quite similar to Christophe Rico’s method, which I’ve written about before.
