http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/09/05/xylophones-and-zebras-part-ii-learning-spanish/ The blog of John D. Cook Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:42:11 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/09/05/xylophones-and-zebras-part-ii-learning-spanish/comment-page-1/#comment-6268 Jim Archer Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:21:00 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=359#comment-6268 When I took first-year Russian as a freshman, our professor taught us the alphabet on Monday and gave a test — not a quiz — on the alphabet on Friday. She wanted us to quickly overcome the "fear" of believing that the language was more difficult than it was. She also pointed out that most of the exceptions in Russian dealt with scientific achievements made elsewhere for which the Russians wanted to take credit — e.g. television, radio. The Russian pronunciation for these words violated every grammatical rule, but because their pronunciation was similar to English we never had to worry. When I took first-year Russian as a freshman, our professor taught us the alphabet on Monday and gave a test — not a quiz — on the alphabet on Friday. She wanted us to quickly overcome the “fear” of believing that the language was more difficult than it was. She also pointed out that most of the exceptions in Russian dealt with scientific achievements made elsewhere for which the Russians wanted to take credit — e.g. television, radio. The Russian pronunciation for these words violated every grammatical rule, but because their pronunciation was similar to English we never had to worry.

]]> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/09/05/xylophones-and-zebras-part-ii-learning-spanish/comment-page-1/#comment-6084 Luis Pericchi Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:07:12 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=359#comment-6084 I feel the same regarding the press, and with Mathematical Analysis (as opposed to Calculus)...the exception is highlighted and not the real life...a single counterexample does not invalidate the efficacy of a vaccine! I feel the same regarding the press, and with Mathematical Analysis (as opposed to Calculus)…the exception is highlighted and not the real life…a single counterexample does not invalidate the efficacy of a vaccine!

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