Lu Xun’s Japanese proficiency is very high. Lu Xun has studied in Japan for many years, and his Japanese proficiency is very high. He is very proficient in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Lu Xun wrote articles in Japanese, translated his own works into Japanese, and served as an interpreter many times. What is particularly worth mentioning is that he personally taught corporate video director Xu Guangping to learn Japanese in December 1927. The teaching effect was very good, and as a result, the students were able to translate literary works from Japanese very quickly - this was the basis of the "Xiao Guangping" published later. Peter" (November 1929 edition by Shanghai Chunchao Book Company, signed "Xu Xia", Lianhua Book Company's reprinted version in 1939 signed "Xu Guangping", but the title page is still titled "Xu Xia Translation"). Xu Guangping recalled: "First I taught single characters, but I didn't teach them according to the letters arranged in Japanese teaching. Instead, I taught them from Lu Xun's own handouts. I gradually deepened my teaching and flexibly learned on time every day. ** *Written and taught twenty-seven lessons. "The teaching method is unique and the effect is fast and good, which all shows that Lu Xun's mastery of Japanese has reached an advanced level.

Lu Xun’s German level is a few notches lower. Mao Dun once said in his memoirs, “Lu Xun’s German level can only be read, not spoken.” In another place, it was mentioned that Lu Xun Although I can't speak German, I can understand it. According to Lu Xun's student Jing Youlin, Lu Xun also had certain problems with his German listening. Jing Youlin told an interesting story in "Fragments of Memories of Lu Xun": In 1924, Beijing Esperanto School invited a Belarusian professor Selishev from Harbin who was very proficient in Esperanto. This person asked to meet Lu Xun, and the two met in Dong'an. We met at a restaurant in the market, and our guests were Jing Youlin, Sun Fuyuan, and Zhang Yiping. Xie spoke German to Lu Xun on the plane ticket, and Lu Xun spoke Japanese to him. "Both of them chose the language they were familiar with and used it without taking into account the other's ability to hear another language. The meeting simply failed." ". Lu Xun studied German at Mining Road School in Nanjing and Sendai Medical College in Japan. Later, he entered a German school in Tokyo. Although he did not necessarily go to class every day very formally, he always studied German formally. Shortly after the Revolution of 1911, Lu Xun planned to leave Shaoxing and work as a translator in a large publishing house. He once took the exam in German. It is not difficult to infer that his German level was good, and there was no problem in using it for reading and translating.

After Lu Xun settled in Shanghai, he once planned to go to Germany. In order to strengthen his German, he made a lot of efforts. Xu Guangping mentioned this in his memoirs: "At one time, he really wanted to go to Germany. He was preparing by himself, studying by himself every day, reading grammar and reading. He was already fifty years old at that time, and he was still as diligent as a primary school student." She later added: "When he lived near Hongkou Park in Shanghai, Lu Xun studied German by himself every night for at least a year. He bought a large number of dictionaries, thesauruses and German books related to the study of German. He often ordered them every night. He spent a certain amount of time studying. When he met Ms. Smedley, he could sometimes talk in German, and Mr. Shi praised his pronunciation. "But because he was busy with various things and his son was born, he couldn't continue. Lu Xun always attached great importance to learning foreign languages. In his opinion, it was a pity not to know one or two foreign languages.

For English, Lu Xun repeatedly stated that he was "indifferent", but the actual situation was not like this. Shortly before Lu Xun's death, his friend Smedley invited the German-American doctor Thomas Dunn to diagnose and treat him. In order to keep the patient's secret, the doctor asked Smedley beforehand which foreign languages ??the patient knew. This meant that he did not want Lu Xun to understand their conversation, so as not to let him know the true condition of the disease. Smedley replied: "Japanese is very good. I can't speak German, but I can understand it." The doctor asked again: "What about English?" Smedley said simply: "I don't understand." So the doctor decided to use English. During the conversation, Mao Dun served as the translator, translating the medical history and treatment experience introduced by Xu Guangping from Japanese into English, and also translated some of the doctor's words into Chinese. They did not want Lu Xun to know the whole truth, but this plan failed. Later Lu Xun mentioned in the article that this doctor "is the only European lung disease expert in Shanghai. After consultation and auscultation, although he praised me as The typical Chinese who are most resistant to disease, however, also announced that I was about to perish; and that if I were a European, I would have died five years ago. This sentence made my sensitive friends cry. Ask him to prescribe, because I think that since he learned medicine from Europe, he must have never learned how to prescribe for a patient who has been dead for five years." It can be seen that although Lu Xun's English listening cannot be said to be very good, he still has it. I understood the conversations my friends thought they could keep private.

Lu Xun studied English for a few days at the Jiangnan Naval Academy when he was a student. Later, he continued to learn English, but it was far inferior to his Japanese and German levels. If it is a relatively short English material, Lu Xun can handle it. For example, when Liang Sheqian sent his English translation of "The True Story of Ah Q" to Lu Xun for review, Lu Xun pointed out several minor errors. When Lu Xun translated "Destruction", he mainly relied on the Japanese translation, and also referred to the German and English translations of the book. When introducing his approach in the "Postscript", he said: "Kanghara Weijin translated it into Japanese, and the title It is "Destruction"... The latter two (according to the English translation and the German translation) have been renamed "Nineteen People", but its content is almost the same in the German and Japanese translations, but the English translation is mostly different. "Three accounts follow two, so it is rarely used." Although it is rarely used, it still shows that he can read in English. Lu Xun occasionally included some English words in his articles, which were generally accurate. There are various signs that he is not "indifferent" to English. According to Xu Guangping, Lu Xun had several English-Japanese dictionaries, Japanese-English dictionaries and English-Chinese dictionaries at hand, which he frequently looked up. If he doesn't understand English at all, why should he buy and use these reference books? Zhou Zuoren once said that Lu Xun "had no good impression of English", which seems to be untrue, at least not in Lu Xun's later period. But it is undeniable that Lu Xun never put much effort into learning English, and his level was far inferior to Japanese and German. This can mainly be explained by his learning experience in his youth. It is entirely conceivable that if Lu Xun was proficient in some European language, such as English, the situation in his life might be very different.