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Topic: | Re:Could Piaget read German? |
Posted by: | Horst Pfeiffle |
Date/Time: | 2008/8/22 16:15:44 |
Dear Jeremy, Les and Richard, please don't overestimate how widespread knowledge of German is in French-speaking Switzerland. During my stays in Switzerland I occasionally tried to talk to Piaget in German, but he always managed somehow to turn the conversation back into French. And as far as I am aware and can remember, he also spoke French with Bärbel Inhelder. I think Piaget had sufficient passive knowledge of German to read scientific and philosophical texts in the original ?but I have my doubts as to whether he actually read the German version of Hegel’s Logic, which he would certainly have come across in his later years. In his active dealings with the German language, Piaget probably felt the same as most French or English native speakers, who ?for whatever reason ?generally tend to save themselves the effort of learning a foreign language, because they expect people will talk to them in their mother tongue. But you can probably get more accurate information about Piaget’s foreign language skills from former members of staff at the Piaget Institute in Geneva. Cheers, Horst |
Topic(Point at the topics to see relevant reminders) | Date Posted | Posted By |
Could Piaget read German? | 2008/8/22 16:13:36 | Jeremy T. Burman |
Re:Could Piaget read German? | 2008/8/22 16:14:12 | Leslie Smith |
Re:Could Piaget read German? | 2008/8/22 16:14:48 | Richard Kohler |
Re:Could Piaget read German? | 2008/8/22 16:15:44 | Horst Pfeiffle |