From this diction it appears that Elizabeth is included among the "we" of this circle
who are instructed in both a useful and a learned language. Most women of her time
were denied such access to Latin. We recall that French is the operating language
of the Frankenstein household (as it is of Geneva). Obviously, English is here singled
out in order to justify Victor's narration as being conducted wholly in English. At
what point the German in which he is taught at Ingolstadt enters his educational program
is left unmentioned, but by the age of seventeen he will be fluent in it (I:1:26).
No note is made of whether Elizabeth retained a residual Italian from having spent
her early years in that environment.