The phonic and syntactic richness of Portuguese, more than the nature of its people or the flair of its authors, places its poetry among the most remarkable in world literature. As a vehicle for expressing the primitive impulse represented by poetry, its possibilities are so varied and its effects so unique that, even when worked on by ordinary hands, it sometimes achieves results worthy of sincere admiration.
Tag: languages
The Countless Facilities That Are Available Today…
There is a certain irony in the fact that the countless facilities that are available today for learning every language imaginable are not enough to understand them in depth, since, after a certain level, to understand them is to understand their difficulties. In other words: the countless and valuable incentives for learning hardly allow the student to go beyond the surface of the language studied; if he wants to do so, he has to abandon them and face the difficult, using the most archaic processes, although they are proven to be essential. There is no way out: there comes a time when it is necessary to put aside the jokes and sink into the difficult originals.
Learning a Language Is a Matter of Hours of Study
Learning a language is a matter of hours of study. The primary function of the method therefore comes down to keeping the student stimulated, so that he can study more and therefore learn faster. Secondly, it is up to the method to guide learning according to the student’s objectives, i.e. among the four fundamental skills in the study of a language (oral and written comprehension; oral and written expression), it is up to the method to focus more on the one or ones that are most desired. In all cases, progress won’t be very far without a solid foundation in all four. In all cases, progress is directly proportional to dedication. The rest is useless talk.
Language Is Ingrained in Thought Itself
I have never written a line in English, among the hundreds of thousands that have come out of my head, that was not a translation of a thought conceived in Portuguese. Not even in an email. And to imagine the battle fought by so many writers of the last century, who voluntarily adopted a new language to create literature… A writer for whom language is limited to a vehicle of expression is inconceivable. Language is ingrained in thought itself, which is constructed through it. The logical structure of thought is based only on the syntactic structure of the language in which it is shaped; the two are inseparable, and the former cannot flourish without the latter. Words in different languages follow one another and are organized in different ways; this is evidence not of a formal difference, but of a distinction between the genius of the men who develop them. Changing it, when one is already old, seems like a shock of tremendous proportions.