Material For Practical German Conversation

Author : Hermann Lange
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781332343737
Total Pages : 142 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (437 download)

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Download or read book The Germans at Home written by Hermann Lange and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-06 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Germans at Home: A Practical Introduction to German Conversation, With an Appendix Containing, the Essentials of German Grammar In the preparation of the series of books for the study of the German language, of which this little work forms the first volume, I have been guided by the Principles of Imitation and Variation; for I hold that these are the only principles by which a modem language can be learnt rationally. Just as a child begins to speak its native tongue without knowing anything about the mechanism of the grammar of the language, simply by Imitation, so also a beginner should begin a modem language, simply by listening to the foreign sounds and then imitating them, after a due explanation of the sentence heard. The second process should be Variation of the material thus gathered by listening and imitating. After having acquired a certain familiarity with the language, its pronunciation and construction, the laws of the language may be gradually developed. Composition, however, should not begin till the student has made himself sufficiently acquainted with the genius and the idiomatic peculiarities of the language to apply them freely and fluently in his composition. How often do we not hear that pupils, after studying German for a period of about three or four years, have acquired not very much more than a knowledge of a few grammatical rules and inflections, together with a limited power of understanding a German book or a passage taken from a German newspaper. If called upon to translate a passage from an English writer (or merely a short colloquial phrase of everyday occurrence) idiomatically and correctly, they are, for the most part, entirely at a loss to solve the problem; and if required to enter upon a conversation in German, they will almost invariably be found unable to do so. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.