The Philosopher's Demise: Learning French

by Richard Watson

Release Date: June, 2003

Edition: Paperback

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The Philosopher Thinks Too Much

When Richard Watson tries to learn to speak French decades after having learned to read it fluently, he has trouble. He tries very hard, hires a tutor, labors hours every day over exercises and audio tapes, but it just won't come. He spends months in France and still, he can't pass his exam.

Watson is a philosopher, therefore he must analyze the situation to death. He dissects his failure, perhaps it is because French sounds un-masculine, maybe he doesn't like the French, perhaps it is something deeper. Well, seeing as how he has evidence that his French really has improved by the time he leaves France, maybe he just set his goals unrealistically high.

The self-analysis gets tedious sometimes, but the story is interesting and understandable. Everyone has difficulty learning something, no matter how smart they are. And the observations of different cultures are eye-opening. Watson's story about an American who speaks fluent Japanese, traveling in Japan, being refused lodging in an inn because he didn't speak Japanese, even though the lengthy conversation with the proprietor took place entirely in Japanese, was amusing.

On NOT Learning to SPEAK French

No, this is not a book about "learning to speak French", as the subtitle indicates -- rather it is a book about a man trying to overcome his linguistic shortcomings in fluently speaking the French language, while skewering the Alliance Francaise (language school), French scholars of Descartes, and French bureaucracy, all in one extended essay (too short to be dignified as a "book", really). It passes all understanding that the author believes that anyone other than his nearest and dearest care about his traumas in taking French lessons or being snubbed by his fellow scholars in Paris (or being stung by a yellow jacket in the good old U.S. of A., for that matter). A total waste of a long afternoon. Watson and the reading public would have been better served had he just bought a set of Pimsleur CDs and then shut up.