OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE, PARTICULARLY CALCULATED TO RENDER THE SPEAKING OF FRENCH EASY TO THE AMERICAN STUDENT, AND GROUNDED ON A NEW SYSTEM OF COMPARATIVE FRENCH AND ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION: WITH SYNOPTICAL TABLES, ILLUSTRATING THE WHOLE KINGDOM OF FRENCH SOUNDS, COMPARED WITH ENGLISH SOUNDS, INCLUDING CONSONANTS; IN WHICH VOWELS AND DIPHTHONGS ARE DIVIDED INTO NATURAL FAMILIES, EACH UNDER ITS RESPECTIVE HICKLING, SWAN, AND Ᏼ Ꭱ Ꭼ Ꮃ Ꭼ Ꭱ . 1857. Only THENEWYORK 169607 ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS. 1900. SPECIAL SUBJECTS OF THIS WORK. THE FIRST PART (or PRACTICAL SECTION) CONTAINS 1. A rapid but full account and explanation of the PLAN adopted by the author. 2. PRONUNCIATION. Ways and means: Imitation - SYNOPSES of French sounds, and KEY to French sounds, compared with English sounds. 3. Practical APPLICATION at once. Ways and means: New exercises introduced under this title "PARSING OF FRENCH SOUNDS." Important rules on French Reading. 4. SPEAKING. Ways and means: Imitation A select collection of over ONE THOUSAND SPECIMENS AND SUBJECTS OF FAMILIAR CONVERSATION AND COMPOSITION historical facts, witty sayings, anecdotes, etc. all related in the easy, natural way, but correct idiomatic language of the wellbred Frenchman. THE SECOND PART (or THEORETICAL SECTION) CONTAINS 1. A detailed STUDY OF SYNOPSES- Natural families of sounds, varieties, exceptions, etc. investigated. 2. Comments on Comparative Pronunciation STATISTICS of French Sounds, and RULES on French Pronunciation. 3. Additional Rules and research on FRENCH READING-with Key, and parsing of sounds, as in Part First, continued to the last page of the volume. 4. LITERATURE. A select collection of literary, moral, and religious pieces from ONE HUNDRED OF THE MOST CELEBRATED FRENCH AUTHORS amongst the modern and contemporary writers, such as Buffon, Montesquieu, Volney, Lacépède, Frayssinous, Chateaubriant, Lamenais, Lamartine, V. Hugo, Ségur, Aimé-Martin, Mérimée, Ch. Nodier, Mignet, Cormenin, Chasles, Cuvier, etc., etc. OFFERING, in itself, alone, to all American Students, A COMPLETE AND THOROUGH PRACTICAL INSTRUMENT for teaching or learning NATIVE FRENCH PRONUNCIATION AND NATIVE FRENCH CONVERSATIONAL STYLE. OFFERING to the highest classes of American Students THE ONLY BOOK OF RESEARCH ON FRENCH PRONUNCIATION, and, for their literary READINGS AND COMPOSITIONS IN FRENCH, THE HIGHEST FRENCH STANDARD OF LITERARY STYLE. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by EMILE ARNOULT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. INTRODUCTION TO PART I., ON FRENCH PRONUNCIATION AND CONVERSATIONAL STYLE. THE most important point to secure in a modern language is, first, its pronunciation; of this great desideratum, in French, we shall treat presently. Pronunciation being once acquired, the only effective ways and means we know for learning French as a living language, are various practical exercises, which should be performed, if possible, with both the aid of French and English text books. Hence, for teachers and learners, two very different stand-points, the first one of which THE FRENCH PART is now our groundwork. The second part seems also to demand some exclusive, special studies and instruments, a weighty subject, with which we, here, can have nothing to do but to state a fact that must be told. The use of English text books, for translation into French, and for extemporaneous speaking exercises, is not an easy one; and so long as there are no proper books purposely prepared for it, — with notes, various readings, grammatical explanations, and key, this kind of teaching will remain an impossibility for American teachers, and a real difficulty for all native French instructors. Therefore the best means of studying and practising the making of sentences, in one word, the SPEAKING of French, cannot be admitted in schools for want of a school book! - But all French and American teachers can use a French text for the same purpose, and, indeed, with great success, if it be the right reading, which, alone, will prove to work easy throughout the indispensable exercises described in a further page. A Frenchman does not speak like a book; and it is his conversational style that should, first, be the model; this is at least by the light of logic and experience the straight road to success. All American students, |