Sunday, March 3, 2019

Learning French with Henry Neville

So the son of Richard Carew went to France with Henry Neville when Neville went there as ambassador in 1599. He talks about it in this book about learning Latin:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A42982.0001.001/1:5?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
After my return and short staying here I was sent by my Father into France with Sir Henry-Nevill, who was then Ambassadour Leiger unto Henry the Fourth, that there I might learn the French Tongue, which Language, though it seemed very hard to me in the beginning, because mine ignorant made me unable to distinguish one word from another, and so imagine that those people used to talk much faster then we did.

In a little time, when by often-hearing their talk, I began to discern the distance of one word from another, I found they used to talk rather more deliberately then we do; and so by reading and talking, I learn'd more French in three quarters of a year then I had done Latin in above thirteen.

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