viernes, 22 de marzo de 2024

NABOKOV - READING MOVING YOUR LIPS


 

In the Preface to his The Defence, Vladimir Nabokov, lashes out against book reviewers and others, saying: "... I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers - and, generally persons who move their lips when reading...". As I understand it, those who read moving their lips are equated in intellectual stature to hack reviewers. I promote reading a foreign language with the lips and in a whisper. Reading in the brain does not exercise the mechanical part of the language: throat, lips, teeth, alveolar ridges, nose, air, vocal cords, and even the saliva that make language what it is. We may scoff at those who read with their lips as ignorant intellectual dwarfs but in language learning it is essential to drill out loud moving the lips, the tongue, and everything else. Perhaps Nabokov, a polyglot himself, was blinded in this instance by his dislike of book reviewers, probably rightly so. So, you should practice the language you are studying by reading aloud, in a hush, but out loud. You will thank me for it.        

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