Just came across this interesting article amidst a very busy week (and more busy weeks awaits). The Chronicle Review published an article "The World Beyond Reach" , questioning the logic and appropriateness of cutting advanced foreign language courses in the universities, as a means to minimize spendings.
It has been 2 months since I re-immerse myself into the world of languages. People around me generally speaks and write 3 -4 languages. Sometimes, I get new friends who tries to speak to each other in classical Latin and Greek, or Japanese and Korean which they have learnt off books. And I have to remind myself that, I am in the linguistics school after all. I have not found the same enthuse in myself to try my hands at new languages yet, after failed attempts to master Japanese and Indonesian 10 years ago. But at least, it was really fun learning new languages and the experience helps me in completing my current readings. I could probably afford to try another sure to fail attempt at Russian or Spanish, I would love to, but I simply could not afford the time now. How pragmatic can one get?! As pragmatic as the university mentioned in the article?
I definitely see the value in learning new languages, at a conversational level. Perhaps I have been stuck too long in a system which requires me to be at my best for everything, such that efforts which would never lead to mastery are sometimes deemed as ineffective use of time. I seek to sit on both ends of the pole, where I would eventually be able to say that I am really good at something, while remembering that being able to try out everything at hands is a fortune in itself. So perhaps, I should really start learning my Russian characters, despite the busy schedule, just to get things going a bit!
没有评论:
发表评论