A course of lessons in the French language, on the Robertsonian method; intended for the use of persons studying the language without a teacher

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-organised observations they have amassed with this view. In the present course of lessons this prolixity has been carefully avoided; and whilst 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 loosing sight of the theory, neglect the only certain means whereby they can acquire a really good pronunciation.

PREFACE.

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 apO$6 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.

NOTICE TO FIFTH EDITION.

The author, in revising the preceding editions of these lessons, has been much assisted by the observations of his correspondents. He takes this opportunity of thanking them for their valuable assistance, and will be happy to receive any further suggestions relative to the emendation or improvement of his works they may be pleasea to favour him with.

13, London Wall, August, 184a

THE FRENCH LANGUAGE.

LESSON FIRST.

READING.

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 repas.

Before the learner can read the above, he must first be taught the pronunciation of the words and their meaning. We shall therefore place under each word such a combination of letters as may convey a notion of its sound to the English student. Afterwards 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 cannot be exactly exhibited by a combination of letters.

The following is a repetition of the 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 Paris.

Trois voyageurs trouverent un tresor dans leur Trwa wa-ee-a-shair troo-vair-t w un* traizor dan lair

chemin, et dirent, "nous avons faim, qu'un de nous aille she-min ai deer, noo-z w av-on fin, kun w d noo-z w ah-\e

acheter de quoi manger," un d'eux se detacha et

ash-tai w d kwa ma/i-shay, un d w al w s day-tash-a ai

alia dans l'intention de leur apporter de quoi faire

al-la dan \in-ten-see-on w d tall ap-por-tai w d kwa fair

un repas. un er-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 l>e 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 Bubject we may observe, that a little attention to the pronunciation now will be worth more thati a hundred times the amount of labour afterwards; the same words will occur over and over again throughout this lesson and those 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.

• For the pronunciation of the comhinations an, en, in, on, and un, marked in italics, we refer the student to the article Pronunciation, page 13.

VOCABULARY.

TRANSLATION.

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

et dirent, " nous avons faim, qu'un de nous

and said, we have hunger, that one of us

aille acheter de quoi manger," un

may go (let one of us go) to buy of what (whereof) to eat, one

d'eux se detacha et alia dans ^intention de leur

of them himself detached and went in the intention of to them

apporter de quoi faire un repas.

to bring of what (whereof) 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 familiarise the ear with a correct enunciation of the words, and serve to impress them more firmly on the memorv.

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

b2

VOCABULARY.

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 voyageurs travellers trouverent found un

(one trcsor .

treasure dans .

in

/ their {to them leur die min road et . .

and dirent .

said , we nous .

(US avons .

have faim bung

i tli.it (what que de . .

of aille .

may g< acheter to buy qaoi what manger to eat eux them

(himself (themselves

Be .

uetaeha detached alia .

went la . .

the intention intention apporter to bring faire .

J to make I to do repaa ,

U«(>rvi>«l fli it 1

DTI p ( repast. f the French \ significations, as in the case of the word lour, meaning in one case their, and in another, to them; the reason of this will be explained under the head Constri < HON.

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 between 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 self-examination in the same manner as in the case of the previous exercise.

Trois voyageurs trouverent Three travellers found un tresor a treasure

Et dirent And said

Nous avons faim .... We are hungry

Q, i .,, (Let one of us go

u un de nous aille . > \r\ c *

(One or us must go

Acheter And buy

rWhereof

De quoi J Where withal

4 ] The wherewith

l 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 : quun de nous aille, for instance, is rendered in English by one of us must go, as well as let one of us go. It will be observed, at the same time, that these English expressions are as nearly 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 subjectmatter of the lesson, and in the words of which it consists. Facility in conversation is the object sought by every student of French ; but 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 Degree 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 where, pronounced like oo in a

Qoand when „ kang.

Qui who ,, ket • • t i i 14 .1

-giving the letters the

Qae what ,, ki ' sound tiny have in

lis they „ eel

II hi> ,, tei

L the English word kill.

.oiving tlio n\ the sound

Tour fir „ poor f they have in the word

| good.

Le the before words in the singular, pronounced like the

letter /.

Les ///<■ before words in the plural, pronounced like /<■ in

the word /■ /.

Oni pronounced we

Non no „ nong

Monsieur, sir „ >/kis-i/,i/.'

* VVr arc always disposed t>> laugh when we hear nn Englishman pronounce tin- word " Monsieur," lie gnu-rally makes such n mess of it. It seems impossible to teach this sound by the car: not two in twenty Englishmen, who have been taught the language by B master, pronounce it correctly, and yet there is no French sound more easily depicted to the eye. We have heard persons who have been one, two, nay three years under tBtelage, pron— Pea the word as if written moo-too; now nothing could he more prating to the ear of a well-educated Frenchman than to hear hiins.lt iddresM d l>y roch a barbarism as moo-too. The word monsieur is pronounced as if written mot-yai, and tin- plural metiieurt as if written mes-yai ; could anything he plainer than thi^.'

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 voya- Un tresor

geurs ?

Les trois voyageurs trouve- Oui, Monsieur.

rent-ils un tresor?

Ou ? Dans leur chemin.

Trouverent-ils de quoi man- Non, Monsieur.

Que dirent-ils? lis dirent "nous avons faim."

Quand ? Quand ils trouverent le tresor.

Dirent-ils "nous avons de Non, Monsieur.

quoi manger

Dirent-ils " nous avons de Non, Monsieur.

quoi faire un repas ?"

Dirent-ils " qu'un de nous Oui, Monsieur.

aille acheter de quoi manger ?"

Quand dirent-ils " nous avons Quand ils trouverent le tresor.

faim?

Ou dirent-ils " qu'un de nous Dans leur chemin.

aille acheter de quoi

manger ?"

Qui se detacha? Un d'eux.

Se detacha-t-il ? Oui, Monsieur.

Quand ? Quand les voyageurs dirent

"nous avons faim."

Pourquoi se detacha-t-il ? . . Pour acheter de quoi manger.

Ou alla-t-il ? II alia leur acheter de quoi

faire un repas.

Alla-t-il dans Pintention d'ap- Oui, Monsieur.

porter de quoi faire un

repas ?

Quand ?....... Quand il se detacha.

Que dirent les trois voyageurs Qu'un de nous aille acheter de

quand ils trouverent un quoi faire un repas.

tresor ?

CONSTRUCTION.

Quand, les trois voyageurs Un tresor.

dirent "nous avons faim,"

que trouverent-ils ?

Quand, les trois voyageurs Quand ils dirent "nous avons

trouverent-ils un tresor? 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 voya- What found the three tra

geuis ? veiled.

Quand trouverent-ils le tresor? When found they the treasure? Dans /'intention, for dans hi In the intention.

intention.

It will be observed h\ these phrases, that the French word

equivalent to the English article the has three forms, viz. — h, In, and let. The French article is disposed in the following manner :

/. U used before a noun in the masculine gender.

/,/ „ ,, feminine gender.

leg ,. ,, 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, tor instance, ///<■ man, //"■ ira/mui,

and the women ; but a different form of the article would he

employed in French under these circumstances,

We ma) observe here, that nouns iu English are said to he Qf three genders: the word ///<.// is said to he of the masculine gend< r, the word woman is said to he of the feminine gender, and the word treasure is said to he in the neuter or no gender: this is a natural division, hut somehow or other it does not happen to he a grammatical one. In French there is no such thing as a neuter gender; all the nouns of the language must either he masculine or feminine : the word fn'sor, for instance, U said to he masculine, and th ! word intention is said to be feminine. \s g 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 mean time 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 used 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 /'intention .... In the intention.

Qu'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, 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 ) T . rr? > * ( Let one o- us ^o.

that one ot us may go J b

The above phrase occurring in our text, exhibits a very common mode of expression. The sentence " qu'un de nous aille" is incomplete; the words " il faut," it is necessary, beingunderstood. 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 cannot 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, whilst 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 JBcihu 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 aillo" 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 ■

future lesson. In the mean time it will be Sufficient lor 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 Ihe French Lan juage, bj J. C. Ddflla.

IV. Que trouverent les trois "j

What found the three What did the three travellers

voyage urs ? f find ?

travellers ? J

Que dirent-ils? ) ^r, . ,.,,, .

What said they? } What Ad they say ?

£™/ } Did they say?

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 cannot 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 cannot 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 phrase, " 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.

Les voyageurs trouverent-ils ^

The travellers found they Found the travellers a treaa treasure ?

Les voyageurs dirent-ils, "\

The travellers said tfiey Said the travellers we have nous avons un tresor ?" ( a treasure ?

we have a treasure'

I

Quand les voyageurs "|

When tbe travellers When found the travellers trouverent-ils un tresor ? \ a treasure?

found they a treasure

J

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 cannot be rendered into French, there bring no such auxiliary as did in the language, and consequently that the second of the two must always be translated.

It is the pian ice also in French interrogations, to say

" three travellers found they BO and so," " three travellers said they so and so:" instead of the English form " found three travellers BO 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 ipi stions, the pronoun and the verb must be connected with a liii" drawn betwixt them.

VI

On alla-t-il ? Where did he go . J

When in a question the verb en. Is in ;, vowel followed

by the pronoun ;7. be, the letter / is inserted between. This is done in order to prevent the hiatus in pronunciation caused by two vowels coming together. It may be asked whyis b / use. I for this purpose, iu pr any other eoiisonant, 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 Ceesar is still the language of Gaul.

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 amongst 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, sioang, 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 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 slung, and the ang of the word swung, 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, whilst 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 en J the Bound of that letter in the

English word father.

like eng or ang in the word anger, as that word is usually pronounced, that is, as if it were written eng-ger.

tike ang in song.

like ung in the word snug.

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

These same remarks apply also to the letter ///; the pronunciation of this letter resembles in every particular that of //.

Ill is |>r onoi on un

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.

They said, " we have a treasure."

They said, " we are hungry."

They said, " we have wherewithal to make a repast."

They found something to eat.

They found the road.

We have the treasure.

We have ajneal.

We are hungry.

One of us.