Chapter XVII
第十七章
In the summer of 1894, I attended the meeting at Chautauqua of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. There it was arranged that I should go to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City. I went there in October, 1894, accompanied by Miss Sullivan. This school was chosen especially for the purpose of obtaining the highest advantages in vocal culture and training in lip-reading. In addition to my work in these subjects, I studied, during the two years I was in the school, arithmetic, physical geography, French and German.
1894年夏天,我参加了美国聋哑人语言教育促进协会在肖陶扩湖举办的文化讲习班。根据安排,我应该前往纽约市的赖特休梅森聋哑人学校。在苏立文小姐的陪伴下,我于1894年10月到了那里。这是一所专门为发展高级有声文化和唇读训练而兴建的学校。除去必修的科目,在这所学校学习的两年之中,我还要学习算术、自然地理学、法语和德语课程。
Miss Reamy, my German teacher, could use the manual alphabet, and after I had acquired a small vocabulary, we talked together in German whenever we had a chance, and in a few months I could understand almost everything she said. Before the end of the first year I read "Wilhelm Tell" with the greatest delight. Indeed, I think I made more progress in German than in any of my other studies. I found French much more difficult. I studied it with Madame Olivier, a French lady who did not know the manual alphabet, and who was obliged to give her instruction orally. I could not read her lips easily; so my progress was much slower than in German. I managed, however, to read "Le Medecin Malgre Lui" again. It was very amusing but I did not like it nearly so well as "Wilhelm Tell."
瑞米小姐是我的德语老师,她能用手语字母同我交流,在我掌握了少量词汇后,我们就利用每一次机会用德语谈话。几个月之后,我几乎能听懂她所说的任何事。在第一年快结束的时候,我怀着极大的兴致阅读了《威廉·退尔》。事实上,我认为我在德文学习上取得的进步要远远胜过其他学科。我发现法语相当难学。我跟随奥里维埃夫人学习法语,这位法国女士不懂手语字母,因此她只能口述授课,而读懂她的唇语实属不易,所以同德语相比,我学习法语的速度要慢得多。尽管如此,我仍设法重读了《屈打成医》,这本书确实非常有趣,但是两相比较,我更喜欢《威廉·退尔》。