First buttembly language encountershow to get started 570

Morten Reistad

Interesting. Of course Greek texts had a great impact on European music history too, both via the Latin theorists who were known in the Middle ages (some of their works being little more than paraphrases of identifiable Greek originals), and later more directly in the time of the Renaissance and early modern humanists, some of whose engagement with Greek musical writings (without, however, ever having heard a note of actual ancient Greek music, of which vanishingly small number of fragments survive) led, among other things, to the birth of opera.

Yes, I'm afraid it is. For first-language English speakers here, one language very imperfectly learned in high school (to satisfy requirements for getting in to college) and possibly revived for a semester or two (to satisfy requirements for getting out of college) is pretty much the norm. Not too many many college grads are even close to being comfortable reading a newspaper in their foreign language.

If it weren't for Americans who speak a langage other than English at home, we would scarcely have bilingual citizens at all.

That of course would never happen in an English-speaking university in a technical field.

However, what is require depends on the field of study. Mine happens to be one of the more language-intense ones.

For doctoral level work in musicology the requirement at my university was pbutting an exam in reading German, plus one chosen from French, Italian, Latin, or (with departmental approval) another language relevant to the candidate's special area of interest. The exam consisted of translating into written English prose one extended pbuttage of prose and one reasonably short poem. These exams can be taken at any time during the first two and a half years of study. (NB that's the first two and a half years of post-bachelor degree study.) Things I recall translating for these exams included French program notes on Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and the lyrics of a Schubert song. The special-area exam (taken after approximately three years of postgraduate study and before starting full-time research on the dissertation topic) included an lengthy excerpt from a primary (i.e. historical) source in one's prefered langage to translate and write a commentary on. (I got a 17th-century German textbook on composition and was able to identify the author from clues in the text even though it was something I hadn't read before, so that went pretty well!). One component of that exam is an essay to be written in 24 hours on an buttigned topic, with access to the library and your personal books and notes, etc. permitted. Of course the question is framed so that it isn't anything that has been directly answered in the musicological literature, and so that it requires recourse both to primary and secondary sources. I was asked to write about a particular major Renaissance music theorist's treatment of fugue (which at the time meant something like "imitative counterpoint" in general rather than the specific genre of fugue as we know it from the Baroque period onward). To do this properly I found that I had not only to locate the relevant pbuttages in his thousand-odd pages of published writings (and large, densly printed pages they were!), but also to discover how his definitions of terms related to fugue had changed from the first to the third edition of his best-known work. To buttist me there was a published English translation and commentary of the third edition only, which did not comment at all on the point in question, and whose translation was too free (and-or in some small details important to my investigation actually incorrect, by my reading) to use as a basis for addressing the question. The essay came out pretty well, I thought. I finished off by conjecturing that the definitions of terms connected with imitation in his first edition, being less systematic than what he had worked out by the third edition, might actually reflect better the common usages of practicing musicians at the time, so that our insight into Renaissance musical thought is not getting everything it can if we only read (or translate!) the third edition -- the Romantic idea that the version that was last touched by the hand of the master must be superior being, therefore, as suspect in the case of music theoretical writings as it has proven to be in the case of musical works themselves. One notable feature of the secondary literature was that (as of that date) all previous writers who had come near to addressing the question seemed either to have read the first edition or the third, but not both!

Note that Italian was NOT one of the languages that I had offered to meet the departmental requirements, but as I had elected the history of music theory as my special area of study, it was taken as a matter of course that I should be able to deal with it on this level.

This is pretty typical of what is required as a minimum in the field.

It doesn't stop some students from complaining about it, though!

Naturally, for doctoral studies in areas that are less historically oriented (e.g., musical composition or music theory), the language requirements are correspondingly less intense, but a reading knowledge of at least one of German, French, or Italian is normally required. And, as I said, doing history of theory is really asking for it with both barrels, as the subject area is (at least) pan-European pretty much by definition.

Donaldson is very good, though there is not a lot of pronunciation practice as such. You do get an introductory chapter on pronunciation (with audio illustrations), and most of the Dutch text from the book read (or in the case of dialogue, acted) by native speakers with a variety of local accents.

I'm similar, though I might increase the count somewhat above 4-5 depending on the page!

I've found the Dutch TV news broadcasts (which can be viewed on the Internet) to be quite helpful. (Having the video helps -- at least can count on being able to pick out what the international stories are about from the video footage if you've been following the news in your own language!)

Exactly! Even though I was just pbutting through (a few hours waiting for a train to DYsseldorf), it was a real treat for me to pbutt through Brussels after I was at last able to do that -- and to switch to either language myself for basic communication. They totally don't expect that of visting foreigners! Just being able to order a sandwich in Dutch, and then at the next stall in the food court a waffle for desert in French (those being the first languages of the employees who happened to be on duty at the time), I had such an encouraging feeling that all my years of language study had, after all, not been entirely wasted...

Nice one!

I have indeed heard that compared to other languages of the region it's a relatively straightforward one for westerners to learn.

-- Roland HutchinsonÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWillÊplayÊviolaÊdaÊgambaÊforÊfood.

NB mail to my.spamtrap at verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam.ÊÊIfÊyourÊmessageÊlooksÊlikeÊspamÊIÊmayÊnotÊseeÊit.