How must have Vivekananda mastered English ?
Every interviewer of his time said his command over English can only be described as Perfect!
His writings are rich in vocabulary. He uses apt words. Words describe ideas. Few ex in an article i read today: Sophistry, vindication, dogs in the manger, weal, coterie, etc..
How did he learn all this ? Writing is one thing. How did he master spoken english ?
I can Imagine this:
Vivekananda has read many books. He must have had a dictionary. With his great concentration power and memory, these beautiful words, which describe certain ideas perfectly , stuck in his mind or memory.
He must've practiced speaking what he had written ?
When I write I think freely, But when I speak, there are many distractions, but still he mananges to get hold of tough words.
I just went through an Old blog post that I had written when I was preparing for my GRE. I saw usage of new words in my post. They were well used and conveyed exact meaning.
I remember how I read during the GRE days - I liked reading words because they conveyed ideas, wisdom, thoughts.. People have coined terms to represent an Idea, a characterisitc, etc.. so these tell us about the
existence of various things in the world. A new word is your introduction to a new phenomenon i.e most people observed "that" in the world , maybe even u know of the word's meaning and identify it with ur life
experience, but you didnt bother to label it.
Vivekananda did extensive work reading books, collecting ideas, reading sanskrit books - he knows the power of words and the ideas they represent in sanskrit. Maybe he tried to find words in english with which he could describe the powerful words of sanskrit.
Vedas are condensed form of wisdom. Containeing wise ideas , contains information about how not to delude oneself, how to be beware of wrong things, etc..
It teaches discrimination, fine and finer discrimination which needs subtle words to describe it. Thus vivekanandas vocab is full of powerful words for good things and equally powerful words for the bad
things and can convey complicated meanings.
Coming to spoken English. It needs practice. I'm sure he was a confident english speaker in school and had his grammar in place. His basics were strong.
My basics are good too, but my confidence is lower. I cant seem to frame proper sentences while speaking, they are either incomplete or do not exactly convey what I want to say to my satisfaction.
I need practice of my own written work. I need to build more concentration and confidence and mostly work relentlessly to achieve the level of excellence Vivekananda achieved in English in those days, even without Internet.
Every interviewer of his time said his command over English can only be described as Perfect!
His writings are rich in vocabulary. He uses apt words. Words describe ideas. Few ex in an article i read today: Sophistry, vindication, dogs in the manger, weal, coterie, etc..
How did he learn all this ? Writing is one thing. How did he master spoken english ?
I can Imagine this:
Vivekananda has read many books. He must have had a dictionary. With his great concentration power and memory, these beautiful words, which describe certain ideas perfectly , stuck in his mind or memory.
He must've practiced speaking what he had written ?
When I write I think freely, But when I speak, there are many distractions, but still he mananges to get hold of tough words.
I just went through an Old blog post that I had written when I was preparing for my GRE. I saw usage of new words in my post. They were well used and conveyed exact meaning.
I remember how I read during the GRE days - I liked reading words because they conveyed ideas, wisdom, thoughts.. People have coined terms to represent an Idea, a characterisitc, etc.. so these tell us about the
existence of various things in the world. A new word is your introduction to a new phenomenon i.e most people observed "that" in the world , maybe even u know of the word's meaning and identify it with ur life
experience, but you didnt bother to label it.
Vivekananda did extensive work reading books, collecting ideas, reading sanskrit books - he knows the power of words and the ideas they represent in sanskrit. Maybe he tried to find words in english with which he could describe the powerful words of sanskrit.
Vedas are condensed form of wisdom. Containeing wise ideas , contains information about how not to delude oneself, how to be beware of wrong things, etc..
It teaches discrimination, fine and finer discrimination which needs subtle words to describe it. Thus vivekanandas vocab is full of powerful words for good things and equally powerful words for the bad
things and can convey complicated meanings.
Coming to spoken English. It needs practice. I'm sure he was a confident english speaker in school and had his grammar in place. His basics were strong.
My basics are good too, but my confidence is lower. I cant seem to frame proper sentences while speaking, they are either incomplete or do not exactly convey what I want to say to my satisfaction.
I need practice of my own written work. I need to build more concentration and confidence and mostly work relentlessly to achieve the level of excellence Vivekananda achieved in English in those days, even without Internet.
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