I question whether it is appropriate for a student to label publicly a Department’s work as being one of “a monotony of drills, exercises and endless translations “ with the approval of a school’s faculty advisor.   While “The Classic is an open forum for the expression of student views,” to me the First Amendment is diminished if used as a smoke screen to hurt the feelings of teachers, who give so much of themselves daily to the students.

Learning a foreign language requires a different learning process and different skill set from other disciplines. I believe that I know French because of the mastery acquired with the ins-and-outs of the complex French grammar. If immersed in the language, I would speak fluent French within a few weeks, without dismembering the language, because of my prior acquisition of the required building blocks.

I learned English as a second language at age fourteen. I took it upon myself to translate Charles Dickens’, beginning with the churchyard first chapter when Pip encounters the escaped convict.  That effort in translation was a sturdy stepping stone in my desire to speak proficiently in English. By chapter three, I felt that I could communicate with Dickens himself.

Yes, Zion, you are right, and I agree! Let’s speak more, but let’s write even more, or else we will revert to communicating in such sound or written bytes as “me Tarzan, you Jane.”