October 7, 2010
In The Conduct of Life, Emerson in his usual self-reliant manner treats the difficulties of learning a foreign language by advising the reader "to read the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you know every word and particle in them, and can pronounce and repeat them by heart." I have decided to follow this advise to the best of my abilities now that I'm learning French. I'm thinking about buying a copy of The Imitation of Christ or Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet since they both have simple prose and sublime depth. This way reading a dozen pages over and over will not be linguistically difficult or intellectually boring.
Posted by amin at October 7, 2010 6:42 AM