Comnon Sense Spanish PDF by Richard S. Rosenthal (1917)
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| Comnon Sense Spanish |
Richard S. Rosenthal’s Common-Sense Method of Practical Linguistry. The Spanish Language (edited by Raymundo del Pueyo, 1917) is one of those early 20th‑century manuals designed to make Spanish accessible to English speakers through what Rosenthal called “practical linguistry.”
Form prefece
Some years ago, in an address delivered before the students of one of our prominent universities, an authority pointedly set forth the futility of the language‑teaching methods pursued in our colleges.
In a clear, conclusive, and elaborate argument, he showed that the study of Latin and Greek, as then taught, was practically worthless: few students could read the ancient classics with ease and enjoyment, and not even the teachers themselves were able to use these tongues colloquially.
He closed his speech with an eloquent appeal to the college authorities, urging that greater attention be paid to the study of modern languages. Since then, many of our leading universities have endeavored to act upon his advice.
But were his suggestions carried out in the right spirit? Have the results he foretold and expected been achieved? Can our present college graduates express themselves with fluency and correctness in French, German, Spanish, or Italian? Or is it rather the case that, despite all efforts, the modern tongues have remained just as lifeless to our students as the so‑called dead languages?
In our times—when international intercourse is constantly increasing, when steam and electricity unite the whole world into one great brotherhood, when the deep thoughts of philosophy and the marvelous discoveries of science are no longer confined to any one tongue but are almost simultaneously expressed by all the great civilized nations—
THE PRACTICAL MASTERY OF MODERN LANGUAGES
has become an absolute necessity.
It is no longer sufficient to teach pupils the intricacies of German declensions or the grammatical technicalities of French. Civilization today demands higher and more practical results.
LINGUISTRY MUST BE TAUGHT IN PLACE OF PHILOLOGY.
Our students must not only know the grammatical peculiarities of French and German, but must be able to use foreign languages as readily and correctly as their own. They must not only be acquainted with the classical masterworks of France or Germany, but must also speak and understand the practical, everyday language of common life.
Everybody knows how languages are taught in our seminaries, schools, and universities. For four, five, even seven years, young men and women study various textbooks, manuals, and grammars. They learn to parse, analyze, decline, and conjugate; they can repeat whole pages of grammatical rules and foreign words by heart; they are capable of taking a piece of classical French or German and rendering it into smooth English; they frequently know the grammars of these tongues better than the natives themselves. And yet, upon GOING ABROAD, they are unable to ask for the common necessities of life in idiomatic French or German, nor do they understand the polite utterances of even a waiter or a chambermaid.