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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


Entire Thread

Topic(Point at the topics to see relevant reminders)Date PostedPosted By
Could Piaget read German?2008/8/22 16:13:36Jeremy T. Burman
     Re:Could Piaget read German?2008/8/22 16:14:12Leslie Smith
     Re:Could Piaget read German?2008/8/22 16:14:48Richard Kohler
     Re:Could Piaget read German?2008/8/22 16:15:44Horst Pfeiffle

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