PROFESSOR OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN BERLIN.

LONDON: DAVID NUTT.

BERLIN: W. ADOLF & CO. PARIS: A. FRANCK.

1857.

303. C. 129.

PREFACE.

The author ventures to hope that he offers in the following pages both to the English and American public an easy and practical method of acquiring the German Language. He deemed it advisable to mark the Pronunciation and Accentuation of all words, so that the student may be understood by a native German. This important consideration has hitherto been entirely disregarded by the authors of German Grammars; they contain generally a good many rules concerning German pronunciation, but if the pupil were to read a German author or to converse with a German according to the information he derived from them, he would certainly find that he had laboured a good deal in vain.

It is impossible to express all the niceties contained in the Pronunciation of a living language, merely by a few rules. Englishmen or Americans especially, accustomed as they are to leave a number of letters unpronounced, find such rules insufficient to

teach them a language in which it is important as in the Ger man language to pronounce every letter and plainly to enunciate every syllable.

Would not a pupil be embarrassed, were he to pronounce for instance words like the following:

Hochzeit, a wedding; vierzehn, fourteen; Bäckerei, a bakery; Hühnerei, a hen's egg; Runkelrübenzuckerfabrikation, beet-roots sugar manufacture. Masters and grammars generally teach the pronunciation of the letter o long in hoch, high, therefore every one would also sound it long in Hochzeit, though it should be short in this word.

Again le is pronounced long in vier, four, but short in vierzehn, fourteen; Bäckerei has the accent on the last syllable, but Hühnerei on the first. It is impossible that a foreigner should know at the first glance which rule he is to apply. Now the pronunciation of Runkelrübenzuckerfabrikation without a guide to accentuation would puzzle most students, one has to pause four times, while speaking it, viz: Run'kelrue'benzu'ckerfabrikation', or as the pronunciation-key of this method informs the reader, Rõõnk'kĕlrüē’běntsõõkkerfabreekǎts-yōn'. If thus pronounced the speaker may rely on being understood by a German, in any other way he might receive an ingredient for sweeting his tea, that may prove more surprising then agreeable.

In all other respects the author has strictly adhered to the prescribed rules for the study of a language.

The vocabulary and the dialogues contain words and