Ollendorff's new method of learning to read, write, and speak the French language : with an appendix, containing the cardinal and ordinal numbers and full paradigms of the regular and irregular, auxilliary reflective, and impersonal verbs / by J.L. Jewett

Front matter

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Preface To The American Edition

The superiority of Ollendorff's Method of teaching languages is now so readily acknowledged, and the appreciation of the merits of his German Grammar has been so rapid and general, in the United States as well as in Europe, that little apology is needed for an American edition of the present work. The plan pursued in the following Lessons is substantially the same as that developed in the German Method. The learner commences with the simplest elements of the language. Every step is intelligible. All that is learned is retained ; and all that is retained is of positive value. The difficulties are met singly, thoroughly analyzed, and mastered by repetition. It is hardly possible to go through the book with any degree of faithfulness, without having the mind saturated, so to speak, with the French idioms and constructions.

The text of Ollendorff is given in the present edition without abridgment.. In preparing it for the press it has undergone a careful revision, and in some instances an attempt has been made to give greater perspicuity and conciseness to the English rules. It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to remark, that the English phrases in the Exercises are not always models worthy of imitation. They are selected for their adaptation to a particular purpose — namely, that of developing the peculiarities of the French language.

To obviate the necessity of consulting other treatises, and to bring within the compass of the work every thing for which a French Grammar is commonly consulted, an Appendix has

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been added, containing the Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers, full conjugations of the Auxiliary, Regular, Reflective, and Impersonal Verbs, and Paradigms of the Irregular Verbs. This general recapitulation of what the student has already learned in detached portions, will also be found of great utility in making him familiar with the most difficult points of French grammar.

In the London edition, from which this is reprinted, no effort has been made, either by rules or arbitrary signs, to teach the pronunciation of the French language ; and in the present edition it has not been thought advisable to attempt to supply the deficiency. The inadequacy of all means but that of the human voice to convey even a tolerable idea of French sounds to a wholly uninitiated ear has long been acknowledged. After the learner has gained some degree of familiarity with these sounds, however, a Dictionary may be consulted with advantage, either for learning the true enunciation of new words, or for recalling sounds partially forgotten. For this purpose a decided preference is justly due to Surenne's Pronouncing Dictionary, which, in addition to the charac* teristic idea conveyed by its title, contains a fuller vocabulary and more that is really useful to the French student, than is often found in the most voluminous and expensive works of a similar kind.

Although Ollendorff's Method is intended for Teachers, and is probably better adapted to their purposes than any other that has been devised, it may, nevertheless, be used to great advantage for self-instruction. Those who have gained some knowledge of French sounds from a teacher, may, with the aid of the Key, perfect themselves not only in reading and writing, but also in speaking the French language with ease and propriety. J. L. J.

New York, June, 1846.

Preface

TO THE

FIRST EDITION OF OLLENDORFF'S "NOUVELLE METHODE," APPLIED TO THE GERMAN.*

[TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.]

Every one who learns German naturally desires to be able to speak and write it : and as the Grammars that have heretofore appeared are not adapted to this purpose, I have thought it might be useful to make public the method which I have made use of in teaching for seventeen years/ and which has enabled my scholars not only to read this language, but also to speak and write it like native Germans. I might here expatiate with great fluency on the greater or lesser advantages which the different grammars of the present day offer ; this, however, would lead me too far. I shall confine myself to the remark, that none of those in common use corresponds to my idea of a good German Grammar : they all appear to me wanting in clearness, order, and precision. As to those which have lately appeared, the authors of which commence by giving examples from the best poets, they resemble the canvass on which a painter has begun at the feet to paint his picture ; or rather they resemble one who appropriates to himself some characteristic features which he has borrowed from the great masters, and which he merely disfigures, while he arranges and exhibits them without a plan or a leading object. But how

* First published in 1835.

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have we solved the problem proposed to us ? Teachers and scholars shall very soon judge for themselves.

I must here be permitted to give a few explanations of my method ; it is intended not only to teach the reading of a language, but also to enable one to express himself in it with ease, and to write a letter correctly.

I have often been led to reflect upon the maimer in which a language can be taught in the shortest time ; and I have found it everywhere surrounded with difficulties. Meidinger, who holds the first rank among those who have essentially contributed to improve the methods of teaching languages, is yet very far from leading the scholar to the object, he wishes to attain ; and although his Grammar has had an extraordinary sale, and imitators without number, it by no means contains the requisites of a good method. I have myself used it for a long time in teaching ; later, however, I found that this grammar, besides its deficiency in grammatical accuracy, and precise and definite rules, accustome the learner to recite lessons too rapidly, without affording him a previous opportunity of practically applying them. It has also the disadvantage of containing ready-made, and therefore comparatively useless, sentences ; the authoi mixes too much those rules of which the scholar is quite ignorant, with those which he already knows ; and not till the 143d lesson, after he has explained the compound tenses of the verbs, can the teacher form questions and answers of the sentences ; and even then he is still obliged to adapt all such sentences to the very limited knowledge of his scholars.

After Meidinger, Seidensticker has also done something to improve the method of teaching languages, especially in placing the dissected or analyzed [ze?~gliederte] sentences before the Lessons, and introducing the verb in his first exercise. But besides not attempting any grammatical explanations, he also fails, equally with Meidinger, in putting

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questions which the scholars may readily answei in tha language they are learning.

Nothing, therefore, availed, but to unite the excellences which these two grammars afforded ■ the sentences must be so dissected that the teacher may propose questions, and the scholar be able to answer them, in the language taught.

This twofold need I in some measure supplied by causing my scholars to transpose the constructions of all the lessons they had learned ; and in order to combine and unite the first and last lessons learned, the earlier lessons were continually repeated. In this way I attained my object. I was, however, still anxious to improve upon my efforts. " If," said I often to myself, " all the ordinary forms of conversational discourse were united in a series, and all the rules of grammar could be applied to them, this would be the method of acquiring a perfect knowledge of a language in the shortest time possible."

While I continued to exercise my scholars in combining their lessons in various forms, I was naturally brought nearer. to this simple, easy, less monotonous, and often amusing system, by means of which beginners, from the first hour of instruction, are not only able to speak, but are not obliged to restrain their reasoning faculties, and confine themselves to tedious forms.

I therefore prefixed to all my sentences a clear and intelligible grammatical statement ; I then arranged them in questions and answers, at the same time embracing all the parts of speech, the general as well as the particular rules of grammar, the idiomatic phrases, and the greater part of the familiar forms of conversation. I was not guided by arbitrary laws, but by the manner in which a child begins to learn his mother tongue. I left the scholar in freedom to meditate upon what he had learned, and to give an account of every thing before he applied it. I thus succeeded

PREFACE.

in teaching my scholars at the same time to read, write, and amuse themselves. Experience has taught me that in less than one hundred and twenty lessons I can attain my object.

Arranged in this manner, my method very nearly answered my intentions ; it had, however, the defect, of being adapted only to private instruction, besides leaving too much to scholars the choice of sentences in their compositions. This I remedied by adding exercises to the lessons, in which I endeavored to give every sentence and every rule, with all the turns and transpositions capable of making sense. By this means my Method may be used with a great number of scholars, and it is by no means difficult for them to answer the questions with which they have become familiar in the Lessons.

I do not flatter myself that my work, as I here present it, is susceptible of no improvement ; but all who have been occupied in the study of languages, or have had opportunity of watching the progress of scholars in different schools, will agree with me, that this Method affords the only means of obtaining an exact knowledge of a language by the shortest way, and without disgust or fatigue.

I have felt it necessary thus to explain how I have succeeded, step by step, in forming my Method, that I might anticipate those who should feel disposed to criticise my work without waiting till at a future time it shall appear complete. I beg to remind them that this Method is not, like many others, the work of a day, or the product of a fiery imagination, but the fruit of seventeen years' labor and ex perience.

H. G. Ollendorff