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ELEMENTARY

FRENCH COURSE

FOR BEGINNERS.

WITH EASY IDIOMATIC AND COLLOQUIAL SENTENCES DAILY USED
IN CONVERSATION, AND ALSO

READING EXERCISES,

FOR THE PRONUNCIATION.

BY

PAUL EUG. ED. BARBIER,

One of the French Masters at the Manchester Grammar School,
formerly of Felstead Grammar School, Essex.

MANCHESTER:

JOHN HEYWOOD, 141 AND 143, DEANSGATE
EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT, 141, DEANSGATE.

LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & Co.; J. C. TACEY.

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MANCHESTER :

JOHN HEYWOOD, EXCELSIOR PRINTING WORKS,

HULME HALL ROAD.

PREFACE.

In publishing this Elementary French Course, I do not intend setting up a new method of imparting the knowledge of French. Far from it. We have already too many systems which have not answered the expectations of their authors. "French Made Easy," "French in Six Months," or "French Without a Master," are seen on the title-pages of books pretending to guide the young student in the acquisition of that language. The only method to pursue is that of work. That is the method I have followed with my junior forms. This Elementary Course is the result of my lessons with them. I had to teach with books which failed to give a sufficient number of words. I found it was through that cause my boys could not construct sentences. How to speak a language without words I know not. It is attempting to build without bricks. And, yet, we see used in our public schools books whose chief merit is to omit words, to try to make French easy in limiting an exercise to the use of one or two words(in Ahn's Course, the words "bon" and "good" are repeated at least thirty times in a single leaf); thereby appealing to that most excusable tendency of boys-idleness.

I have endeavoured to make of this book a work eminently suitable for the young. Should they be tired of doing exercises, colloquial sentences may be set them as lessons. I have not given rules which youthful minds cannot grasp. Experience has taught me that memory is to be worked rather than the intellect. Therefore, if the truth of this remark be warranted by experience, why not work memory by storing it with words and short sentences, oft repeated in classes?

I have to thank very gratefully an intimate friend of mine for revising the whole book, and for compiling the vocabulary.

My best thanks are due to the Rev. G. Perkins, for suggesting to me improvements in the translation of the colloquial sentences, and for looking over the exercises whilst in manuscript.

April, 1873.

PAUL EUG. ED. BARBIER.

Ebor Terrace, Great Cheetham-street,

Manchester.

P.S.-A Key to this book will soon be published. A Second Course is being prepared.

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with a consonant.

before feminine words singular beginning with a consonant.

before plural-both genders.

before words beginning with a vowel or h mute.

READING LESSON.

La lave, la table, la cravate, le sable, le rat, le tabac, l'ami, l'amie, les tableaux, les chevaux.

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