A course of lessons in the French language

Front matter

.1168 1843 l T

Copy 2

FRENCH

Preface

The object of the present course of lessons is to give persons disposed to study the French language without the aid of a teacher, some directions "for their guidance, and to furnish them with a model whereon their studies may be advantageously prosecuted.

In order the more perfectly to supply the part of a teacher, a comprehensive, and at the same time practical view of pronunciation has been given, together with such elucidations of the sounds peculiarly French as will enable the learner to enunciate them with a sufficient degree of accuracy.

The prevalent notion that it is impossible to acquire French without a teacher, appears to have arisen from the lugubrious attempts of grammarians who have undertaken to explain the pronunciation of the language. No human intellect could possibly digest, and bring to bear on the words of the language, the pages of unintelligible rules and ill-organized observations they have amassed with this view. In the present course of lessons this prolixity has been carefully avoided ; and while no useless detail has been introduced, every essential point is fully explained, and brought prominently before the observation of the learner. French words being written in most cases exactly as they should be pronounced, there is nothing to prevent the acquisition of their pronunciation by theory ; and the generality of persons who study the language, by relying upon the ear, that deceives them at every step, and by losing sight of the iheory, neglect the only certain means whereby they can acquire a really good pronunciation.

A great many otherwise intelligent persons run away with the idea that French may be acquired by going to France ; this is an excessively vulgar notion, and means that the language may be acquired by intuition, or some other magical process. Whether in France or England, persons of mature years will not acquire the language thoroughly without a diligent and assiduous study of its principles ; hundreds of pounds have been expended by Englishmen, both in this country and in France, with a view to acquire French, without having attained the desired object: all the wealth of the Indies, and all the teachers in Christendom, will not suffice for the purpose, where diligence or intelligence is wanting on the part of the learner himself. On the other hand, any Englishman of ordinary capacity, whether in his own country or in France, whether with or without a teacher, if he set his mind earnestly to the subject, may, in the course of twelve or eighteen months, become perfectly conversant with the language.

The present short course of lessons, besides containing a full expose of the pronunciation, comprises an explanation of the chief difficulties the learner has to encounter, and will enable the diligent student, without the aid of any kind of oral instruction whatever, to see his way clearly into the materiel of the language.

& wu

THE FRENCH LANGUAGE.

LESSON FIRST.

Trois voyageurs trouverent un tresor dans leur chemin. et dirent, "Nous avons faim, qu'un de nous aille acheter de quoi manger," un d'eux se detacha et alia dans l'intention de leur apporter de quoi faire un rep as.

Before the learner can read the above, he must first be taught the pronunciation of the words and their meaning. We shall therefore first place under each word such a combination of letters as may convey a notion of its sound to the English student. Afterward we shall exhibit the meaning of each word in a literal translation of the entire passage. This done, the learner will be able to translate into English and to pronounce the text of the lesson, if not with absolute accuracy, at least with a sufficiently close approximation. It is not indeed to be expected that the learner should be altogether perfect the first step he makes in a language. A portion of each lesson will be reserved to point out the true pronunciation of such French sounds as can not be exactly exhibited by a combination of letters.

The following is a repetition of our text, with the pronunciation of the words, as also their euphonic connexion one with another, according as the language is read and spoken by a well-educated native of Parts.

Trois voyageurs trouverent un tresor dans leur chemin, Trwa wa-ee-a-shair troo-vair-t ^ un* trai-zor dan lair she-mzw,

* £or the pronunciation of the combinations an, en, in, on, and wn, marked in italics, -we refer the student to the article Pronunciation, page 12.

et dirent, " Nous avons faim, qu'un de nous aille acheter de ai deer, Noo-z,^ av-o» fin, kun ^ d noo-z^ah-ye ash-tai w d

quoi manger;" un d'eux se detacha et alia dans kwa maw-shay un d^ai w s day-tash-a ai al-la den

l'intention de leur apporter de quoi faire un repas. in-ten-see-on^ d lair ap-por-tai > __, d kwa fair un re-pa.

In order to read the above as it ought to be, the learner should deal with the verbal pronunciation we have given just as if the combinations of letters that represent the French sounds were so many English words. There are no unheard-of sounds in French that require the features to be distorted in enunciating them. The learner must avoid all straining, all effort, if he desires to speak French correctly.

Before leaving this part of the subject we may observe, that a little attention to the pronunciation now will be worth more than a hundred times the amount of labor afterward ; the same words will occur over and over again throughout this and the lessons that are to follow, so that a correct pronunciation at the outset will be of the greatest utility.

The sign w we have used, indicates that the words or letters it joins are to be pronounced as one word, and the sign - over the ai signifies that these letters should be pronounced with a more open sound than usual.

TRANSLATION.

Trois voyageurs trouverent un tresor dans leur chemin, et Three travellers found a treasure in their road, and

dirent, " Nous avons faim, qu'un de nous aille said, " We have hunger, that one of us may go (let one of us go)

acheter de quoi manger ;" un d'eux se detacha

.to buy of what (whereof) to eat;" one of them himself detached

et alia dans l'intention de leur apporter de quoi and went in the intention of to them to bring of what (whereof)

faire un repas. to make a repast.

Aided by the above translation the student may read into good English the text itself. And now that the meaning of the words, as well as their pronunciation are understood, the learner should accustom himself to reading the French aloud ; this exercise will familiarize the ear with a correct enunciation of the words, and serve to impress them more firmly on the memory.

PHRASES.

VOCABULARY.

As it is essential to the march of our method that the learner should be perfectly familiar with every French word introduced into a lesson, both as regards its general meaning and precise logical value, we shall range all the words with their various translations in separate columns, so that he may be enabled to test his proficiency in this particular. This may be done advantageously in the following manner : cover over with a card the English column, and translate each French word aloud; verifying this translation by removing the card from the translation given of it. After all the French words have been turned into English in this way, cover over the French column of words, and translate in the same manner the English words into French. This exercise should be repeated until all the English words can be rendered into French, and the French words into English with perfect facility.

Trois .

three de of voyageurs travellers aille may go trouverent found acheter to buy un . .

( one quoi what manger to eat tresor .

treasure eux them dans in

( himself I themselves

( their ( to them se . .

ieur detacha detached chemin .

road alia .

went et and la the dirent .

said intention intention nous avons .

C we I us have apporter faire . • to bring ( to make ( to do faim hunger i that repas .

repast que

I what

It will be observed that some of the French words have two significations, as in the case of the word leur, meaning in one case their, and in another, to them ; the reason of this will be explained under the head Construction.

PHRASES.

Not only must the learner, who desires to profit by our lessons, make himself familiar with each word in a sentence, but he must also observe carefully how words are made up into sentences, and the difference be-

De quoi tween the French and English manner of constructing phrases. All the points in which the French construction differs from the English must be sedulously noted and stored up in the memory. To assist the learner in doing this, we shall now arrange the sentences of the lesson, with their English equivalents, in opposite columns, so that the student may subject himself to a self-examination in the same manner as in the case of the previous exercise.

Trois voyageurs trouverent un tre- Three travellers found a treasure

sor

Et dirent .... And said

Nous avons faim . . . We are hungry

^ , j •„ { Let one of us go

Quun de nous aille . . < ^ e °

^ \ One of us must go

Acheter And buy

Whereof

Wherewithal

The wherewith _ Something

Manger To eat

Un d'eux . . . One of them

Se detacha .... Departed

Et alia And went

Dans l'intention ... In the intention De leur apporter ... Of bringing to them De quoi faire .... Wherewith to make Un repas .... A meal

It will be observed, that the phrases as well as the words have occasionally two translations in English ; qrfun de nous aille, for instance, is Tendered in English by one of us must go, as well as let one of us go. It -vill be observed, at the same time, that these English expressions are as marly as possible equivalent in meaning.

CONVERSATION.

One of the original features in the present course of lessons, and certainly not one of the least utility, is that of introducing in the first lesson an exercise in conversation, on the subject-matter of the lesson, and in the words of which it consists. Facility in conversation is the object sought by every student of French ; but it is not to be attained by the usual mode of instruction. In this particular our first lesson will place the learner on a par with the student who has obtained his degrees at the University of Oxford or Cambridge, where the most able masters may be supposed to preside.

In order to converse in French it will be necessary to become familiar with the following words used in asking questions : —

Ou

Quand

Qui where when who pronounced (i like oo in good.

kang.

kee.

C giving the letters the sound

Que what ki.

< they have in the English ( word kill.

lis 11 they he u « eel. eel.

Pour for

It poor.

( giving the o's the sound they I have in the word good.

Le the before words in the singular pronounced like the letter I.

Les the before words in the plural pronounced like le in the word let.

Oui Non yes no pronounced we. nong.

Monsieur sir u mos-y

>ai*

The pronunciation and meaning of all the other words introduced into the conversation have been already given. If then the previous exercises have been carefully gone over, there can be no difficulty with this. The learner should pronounce each question aloud, and proceed with the answers in the same manner as with the translation of the words and sentences.

Que trouverent les trois voyageurs ? Un tresor.

Les trois voyageurs trouverent-ils Oui, Monsieur.

un tresor ?

Ou ? Dans leur chemin.

Trouverent-ils de quoi manger ? Non, Monsieur.

Que dirent-ils 1 ... lis dirent " nous avons faim.*

Quand ? . . . . Quand ils trouverent un tresor.

Dirent-ils " nous avons de quoi Non, Monsieur.

manger ?"

Dirent-ils " nous avons de quoi Non, Monsieur.

faire un repas V

* We are always disposed to laugh when we hear an Englishman pronounce the word " Monsieur," he generally makes such a mess of it. It seems impossible to teach this sound by the ear: not two, in twenty Englishmen, who have been taught the language by a master, pronounce it correctly, and yet there is no French sound more easily depicted to the eye. "We have heard persons who had been one, two, nay three years under tutelage, pronounce the word as if written moo-soo ; now nothing could be more grating to the ear of a well-educated Frenchman than to hear himself addressed by such a barbarism as moo-soo. The word monsieur is pronounced as if written mos-yai, and the plural messieurs as if written mes-yai; could anything be plainer than this ?

CONSTRUCTION.

Dirent-ils "qu'un de nous aille acheter de quoi manger ?"

Quand dirent-ils "nous avons faim ?"

Ou dirent-ils " qu'un de nous aille acheter de quoi manger ?"

Qui se detacha ?

Se detaeha-t-il ?

Pourquoi se detacha-t-il ? .

Ou alla-t-il ? .

Alla-t-il dans l'intention d'apporter

de quoi faire un repas ?

Quand? .

Que dirent les trois voyageurs quand

ils trouverent un tresor ?

Quand les trois voyageurs dirent

" nous avons faim," que trou-

verent-ils ?

Quand les trois voyageurs trouver-

ent-ils un tresor 1

Oui, Monsieur.

Quand ils trouverent le tresor.

Dans leur ehemin.

Un d'eux.

Oui, Monsieur.

Quand les voyageurs dirent " nous

avons faim."

Pour acheter de quoi manger.

II alia leur acheter de quoi fair Un

repas.

Oui, Monsieur.

Quand il se detacha.

Qu'un de nous aille acheter de quoi

faire un repas.

Un tresor.

Quand ils dirent "nous avons faim."

CONSTRUCTION.

We shall now point out such peculiarities in the structure of the passage we have given as may serve to illustrate generally the construction of the language.

I. Que trouverent les trois voyageurs ?

Quand trouverent-ils le tresor ?

Dans ^'intention, for dans la intention

What found the three traveller ?

When found they the treasure ?

In the intention.

[t will be observed by these phrases, that the French word equivalent to the English article the has three forms, viz. — le, la, and les. The French article is disposed in the following manner : — le is used before a noun in the masculine gender.

la " " feminine gender.

les " " plural number of both genders.

In English the word the is invariable ; whether it comes before a masculine, a feminine, or a plural noun, it is always the same. The English say, for instance, the man, the woman, and the women ; but a different form of the article would be employed in French under these three circumstances.

We may observe here, that nouns in English are said to be of three genders : the word man is said to be of the masculine gender ; the word woman is said to be of the feminine gender ; and the word treasure is is said to be in the neuter, or no gender : this is a natural division, but somehow or other it does not happen to be a grammatical one. In French there is no such thing as a neuter gender ; all the nouns of the language must either be masculine or feminine ; the word tresor, for instance, is said to be masculine, and the word intention is said to be feminine. As a different form of the article must be used in each of these cases, it becomes a matter of some moment to know to which of the two genders any particular word may belong, we shall therefore give rules that will enable the learner to distinguish the gender of nouns when they become necessary. In the meantime the gender of the words in the lesson must be judged by the form of the article that exists before them ; thus tresor will be recognised as masculine, since le stands before it. The learner, then, must take care always to render " the treasure" into French, by le tresor : it would be a blunder to write or pronounce la tresor. There is no difficulty about words in the plural, the same form of the article is always before them ; thus we say les intentions and les voyageurs, although, as we have seen, the former of these words is feminine, and the latter masculine.

II

Un d'eux ..... One of them.

Dans Tintention .... In the intention.

Qw'un de nous aille . . . Let one of us go.

When the words le or la, the, que, that, or de, of, come before another word beginning with a vowel, the a of the one and the e's of the others are invariably cut off. This is done in order to avoid the too frequent recurrence of two vowels, these little words being very much used in French. The student, therefore, in writing, must take care when he has the two words de and eux for example coming together, to cut off the e of the de, and be careful at the same time to supply its place with an apostrophe, as in the sentences given above.

III. Qu'un de nous aille That one of us may go

The above phrase occurring in our text, exhibits a very common mode

> Let one of us go.

of expression. The sentence " qu'im de nous aille" is incomplete ; the words " il faut," it is necessary, being understood. The phrase entire would be " il faut qu'un de nous aille," it is necessary that one of us go, or one of us must go. It is however the defective form of the phrase, the form which appears in our text, that is generally employed, and consequently that is the form the student ought to imitate when he has a similar expression to turn into French. Being imperfect, the phrase when translated literally into English does not exhibit the sense it is meant to convey. The best way to deal with such a phrase, is to consider it entire, without regarding individually the words of which it is composed, and look upon it as equivalent to a certain other phrase in English ; deal with it, in short, in the same manner as if it were a single word. We can not approve of the manner adopted in a grammar of some note,* of explaining this difficulty by saying, that " que" supplies an ellipsis, and ergo, that que is equal to let; such a solution of the difficulty is likely to beget a notion in the mind of the learner that que, in French, has the signification of the English word let, while these two words have not, nor can they logically have, any meaning in common.

A similar kind of construction to that under consideration occurs in the Latin language ; we find frequently the Roman writers employing the subjunctive as an imperative, for instance in the well-known verse of Virgil —

" Let JEolus vaunt himself 'in his own hall, and let him reign in the closed prison of the winds."

Here we have a similar construction in Latin to that of " qu'un de nous aille" in French ; but think of a " tyro" translating the Latin relative qui by let ! We shall have occasion to revert to the logic of the construction of " qu'un de nous aille" in a future lesson. In the meantime it will be sufficient for the guidance of the student to say, that when he has an English phrase to translate, beginning with let, implying a command, he must set out in French with the word que. Two or three phrases of this kind will be introduced into the exercise on composition, in order to habituate the learner to this mode of expression.

* Grammar of the French Language, by J. C. Delille.

CONSTRUCTION.

IV. What did the three travellers find?

What did they say ?

Did they say ?

Que trouverent les trois voyageurs ? ) What found the three travellers ? y

Que dirent-ils ?

What said they?

Dirent-ils 1 Said they ?

In English there are two ways of asking a question ; with the auxiliary word did, or without it: a question can either be put in the form, " Did they say so and so," or, " Said they so and so." In French there is no such word as did, that can be made use of in this way, the French therefore can not put a question in the first of these forms, and consequently are obliged to employ the second. In framing a question, the student must always bear in mind, that the word did has no equivalent in French — he must bear in mind that there are two manners of asking a question in English, one of which accords with the French idiom, and may be translated literally : but that the other can not be rendered word for word into French. It will be observed that in English the word did is merely a sign of the past time, and may be dispensed with by using a past tense of the verb itself. In the phrases, " Did the travellers find a treasure ;" and, " Found the travellers a treasure ;" the words " did find" in the one, and the word " found" in the other, are precisely equivalent.

Some English interrogative phrases containing the word did will be introduced into the exercises under the head of Composition. To translate these correctly into French, the learner must, as we have said, bear in mind that the question did he go ? can be put in a shape without the did, as, went he ? and that this last form of a question alone can be rendered literally into French.

V. Les voyageurs trouverent-ils un

The travellers found they a

tresor ?

treasure ?

Les voyageurs dirent-ils, " Nous ~] The travellers said they, " We

avons un tresor ?"

have a treasure?"

Quand les voyageurs trouverent-ils When the travellers found they

un tresor ? a treasure ?

Found the travellers a treasure ?

Said the travellers, treasure ?"

We have a

When found the travellers a treasure?

We have said last section, that the English have two ways of asking a question ; one with the word did, as " Did three travellers find a treasure," and another without this auxiliary, as " Found three travellers a treasure." We also said that the first of these forms can not be rendered into French, there being no such auxiliary as did in the language, and consequently that the second of the two must always be translated.

It is the practice also in French interrogations, to say " Three travellers found they so and so," " Three travellers said they so and so ;" instead of the English form, " Found three travellers so and so," " Said three travellers so and so." These last phrases, indeed, were they translated literally, would not be French.

It will be also observed by the sentences given above, that in questions, the pronoun and the verb must be connected with a line drawn betwixt them.

VI. .

Ou alla-t-il ? Where did he go ?

When in a question the verb ends in a vowel followed by the pronoun il, he, the letter t is inserted between. This is done in order to prevent the hiatus in pronunciation caused by two vowels coming together. It may be asked why is a ^ used for this purpose, in preference to any other consonant, when an n, an m, or a b, would answer the purpose, so far as euphony is concerned, quite as well. In order to answer this question, we must trace the language back to its source. We find in Latin, the parent language, that all the third persons of verbs end in a t, and we know that in French the t is only wanted when a question is asked in the third person. The phrase alla-t-il, did he go, is in Latin, word for word, ibat Me; in the Latin word we have a t. And although the t has been dropped in the affirmative form of the phrase in French, it makes its appearance again when wanted. The t moreover is still retained in the third person singular of some verbs, as il dit, he said, il avait, he had, and in cases where it has been lost, it appears again when a question is asked, as if to remind us that the language of Gaul is still the language of Caesar.

PRONUNCIATION.

NASAL N.

When the letter n, preceded by any of the vowels, occurs before another consonant, it has what is termed a nasal sound, being partially enunciated through the nose. The existence of this sound in the pronunciation of French, has given rise to a notion among the English, that the French are very much addicted to speaking through their noses, but nothing could be more erroneous ; the truth of the matter is that, if this peculiarity abounds in any language more than another, it is in English that it predominates. In the English words, clung, flung, swung, rang, fang, swang, there is a nasal sound, and a very decided one too ; it only differs from the French in being more nasal ! A Frenchman has the greatest possible difficulty in acquiring a correct pronunciation of the words we have named, for the unique reason that they are a great deal more nasal than his own. The French nasal sound is exceedingly nice, and must be enunciated with the utmost softness ; it possesses more the characteristics of a simple aspiration, than of the unequivocal nasal of the English ng. The prevailing vice of beginners in French lies in the pronunciation of the nasal n ; they either for the most part sound it too harshly, or do not enunciate it at all — faults that it is the special object of these remarks to guard them against.

It may also be observed that in English the nasal sound is variously modified, according to the vowel that precedes the ng ; thus the ung of the word stung, and the ang of the word swang, are totally different in their inflection. We are led to mention this because beginners very generally make no distinction between the French sound of in and en, while in reality the difference between these two combinations is as. marked as between their equivalents, ang and ing, in English.

Keeping in view, that the difference between the English and French nasal sounds, is that the former partake more abundantly of the nasal character, and that the latter must be formed by a slight aspiration, the nasal sound being almost imperceptible, the following table will enable the learner to pronounce the nasal n in all cases correctly :

an ) are pronounced like ang in the word clang, giving the a the sound en j of that letter in the English word

father.

in is pronounced like eng or ang in the word anger, as

that word is usually pronounced, that is, as if it were written engger.

on " like ong in song.

un " like ung in the word sung.

When n is followed by another n, the nasal sound is lost ; double n has the same sound as in English, but when it comes before any of the

COMPOSITION.

other consonants, it is always nasal. It will therefore be seen from the table we have given, that the word " intention," in the lesson, should be pronounced as if written eng-tang-see-ong, the English nasal sounds of these letters being of course considerably modified.

The student must bear in mind that n is only nasal when followed by a consonant ; when followed by a vowel, n has the same sound as in English.

The same remarks apply also to the letter m ; the pronunciation of this letter resembles in every particular that of n.

COMPOSITION.

The text of our present lesson, though it be short, illustrates a great many points in the structure of the French language. We have noticed a few of these under the head Construction, and have exhibited the others by a comparison of the English and the French sentences that occur in the passage under the head Phrases. The student may now put the knowledge the text has opened to him into practice, by a little exercise in composition. We give a few phrases and sentences in English to be rendered into French. In order to translate these, the French words that have already appeared in the lesson, alone are necessary ; all that the student has to do, in order to go through this exercise correctly, is to bear in mind the structure of the sentences contained in the text. We shall give a translation of these phrases in the next lesson, so that the learner may verify the accuracy of his version.

We have.

We have a treasure.

We have the wherewith.

We have the wherewithal to make a repast.

We have the wherewith to buy some meat.

Have we ?

Have we anything to eat ?

Have we wherewithal to buy a repast?

Have we anything to do (to make) ?

Are we hungry ?

What have we 1

Have we a meal ?

Let one of us go.

Let one of them go.