Book Description

Excerpt from A First French Book This First French Book is not intended to fill the place of a reference grammar of the French language. The aim in its preparation has been to offer a work so thorough, however, as to lay an adequate foundation for further study. The chief idea of the author has been to lead the learner to conscious knowledge, to develop his faculty of deriving principles for himself. The habit of seeking out and ex plaining differences, and noting resemblances, between the foreign and the native idiom is of the utmost value, not only in training the judgment, but also in practically ao quiring the language. Throughout this book these differ ences, in particular, are constantly dwelt upon, and va rions devices are employed to call attention to them in a striking manner. For this reason examples precede in every case the formulation of a rule. The learner, moreover, is constantly put on his guard against the stereotyped errors to which speakers of English are prone when attempting to express themselves in French. This comparative method is applied in all parts of'the book, as well in the treatment of pronunciation as in inflection and syntax. The French exercises consist usually of groups of sen'= tenoes offering connected sense. The pupil is encouraged from the outset to learn to infer the meanings of words from the context, and to look them up rather as a confirmation or correction of, than as a substitution for, his own ingenu ity. Hence the special vocabularies follow the exercises, as do also the notes that explain minor points. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.