Chapter V: Preface (5)

Of course the teacher must decide beforehand[29] what points of grammar a certain text is especially fitted to illustrate in this manner. Yet it is not necessary for all the forms which it is desired to group together to occur in the piece which is being examined; if there are any empty spaces in the paradigms, the pupils will of their own accord desire to get them filled out, and they will thus have an opportunity to learn something new. It will also frequently happen that the missing forms are already familiar to the pupils from previous reading; in that case, if the pupils themselves do not happen to think of them, the teacher can easily give them a clue by saying the beginning of the sentence in which they occur.[30]

It follows as a matter of course that only the most elementary things can be so examined in a text of one or two pages that grammatical rules or a tolerably adequate paradigm can be formulated. In dealing with beginners the teacher must not be too ambitious to get, for instance, all the forms of a verb collected in that manner, at all events not all at once; it is not necessary; one tense at a time is quite sufficient. And of course one must not be such a slave of traditional grammatical systems, that one necessarily must go all the way through one class of words before beginning another, etc. There is no reason why these bits of system should not be taken up quite unsystematically, one day a little about pronouns, another day the present tense of verbs, a third day the comparison of adjectives, etc., all according to what comes natural, or what the texts give occasion for.[31] And it will not matter if some time is allowed to pass between these exercises. One of the abominations of the old method of instruction was that the teacher, as a Swedish author has expressed it, considered it his duty on all occasions to feel the grammatical pulse of the pupils.

A teacher in English can, at a rather early stage, set to work in this way to examine and formulate the use of English _do_ as an auxiliary verb. A rather long piece which has been read is assigned to the pupils in parts, so that A and B get the first page, C and D the next, etc., and they are to find and note down all the cases which occur. Then the cases found are gone through in the class in such a way that the teacher first requires all those sentences to be read aloud where _do_ occurs and there is no negation. After some sentences have been read, he may ask what they have in common; if no one answers, more sentences may be taken until someone discovers that all the sentences are interrogative, and then this discovery may be tested in the following sentences. Thereupon the negative sentences which were before omitted are gone through. Is it then necessary to have _do_ in all questions, and in all negative sentences? Well, go through the same pages again for next time and note down all the cases of interrogative and negative sentences where _do_ does not occur. Then in the next lesson we shall finally be able to formulate the rules. This takes longer than to learn the rule in a grammar. Yes, but then we may also be certain that it will be far better understood and remembered, to say nothing of the pleasure it always gives to discover something oneself; it has all of it been a little preliminary practice in scientific methods of research and drawing of conclusions. And then--what I always return to--the whole exercise has also been a review of a number of sentences, and there is not much danger that the pupils will forget the words, turns of expression and grammatical relations which they have become intimate with in this manner.

Even if we do not attain to any results that can stand comparison with the rules in our text-books, yet such lessons in grammatical observation and systematization are none the less valuable. For instance, the last three or four days’ German lesson may be gone through with special attention given to the gender. One pupil reads aloud; every time he comes to a substantive, he mentions one of his class-mates (or the teacher motions to one of them), who is to give the gender,[32] as well as the reasons for his inference (the form of the article in _in der kirche_, the termination of the adjective in _ein schönes mädchen_, etc.); one of the boys stands at the blackboard, which is divided into three columns, and writes down each word in the right column, after its gender is determined. When the form or the context does not show the gender, the teacher asks if the word is familiar from previous passages, and if the gender could be seen there; otherwise the teacher will have to say what gender it is. At last (toward the end of the lesson, or when the blackboard is full), all the words are repeated together with the article; then, if it seems fit, the teacher may examine one or another pupil, letting him stand with his back to the blackboard. If there are, for instance, two or three words ending in _ung_ or _schaft_ or some other absolutely certain ending, the pupils may be asked to recall other words with the same ending, and then formulate the rule for themselves. A few hours employed in this manner will surely bear much more fruit than if all the long rules for gender with their exceptions and exceptions to exceptions were committed to memory; the attention is roused and the powers of observation are sharpened, so that the pupils will also in the future take note of the gender of new words, when there is anything to indicate it, especially since it is necessary for them to know the gender of the words which they need in the conversation and transposition exercises already described in this book.

Difficult, especially syntactical, phenomena which do not occur very frequently, cannot be treated exactly in this way, but some of them may be taken up in an analogical manner. During the going over of a large section of the French reader, the attention may, for instance, be directed to the subjunctive, so that each subjunctive form is either written down in a notebook or marked in the margin of the reader; after one or two weeks or so, all these sentences may be collected and arranged in large groups. During the next week, similar cases are frequently met with, and the pupil is given an opportunity to recall his recent observations, and perhaps supplement them by newly discovered varieties of subjunctive clauses, etc. But it must be continually borne in mind that much of what is found in grammars is really of no value except to the philological specialist, and should never be learned by schoolboys.

A systematical grammar is not superfluous except in the first stage. Later on its examples may be used to supplement those collected in the course of the reading; the teacher can, for instance, read them aloud, make sure that they are understood, and use them to help the pupils to find out the rule. Then, when the pupils have formulated the rule as well as they can, it may be read as rendered in the grammar. To go through the grammar from one end to the other, a section at a time, ought not to be undertaken until most of the phenomena have been treated in connexion with the reading; it will then be both easier and more interesting than if taken up earlier; its chief use will then be to fill out and confirm what has already been learned.[33]

If grammar is taught in this way, the pupils will not get that feeling which they now so frequently have, that they are just learning a series of arbitrarily prescribed instructions as to how they are to avoid making mistakes and getting “poor marks” in their written exercises; they are more apt to conceive of it as something to be compared to the laws of nature, those general comprehensive observations of what takes place under certain conditions; for grammar is made up of observations of the manner in which the natives express themselves. The pupils no longer say to themselves: “We _must_ have the subjunctive in purpose clauses for it stands in § 235,” but “we find the subjunctive in all purpose clauses.” The teacher’s chief task is to give the pupils insight into the construction of the foreign language, into its peculiarities and the chief points in which it deviates from other languages. As a rule, text-books dwell too much on details, and often neglect very important features, such as for instance the great freedom allowed in English in the use of substantives as verbs and vice-versâ, the different part played by order of words in the different languages, the cause and effect relationship between a fixed order of words and paucity of case-endings, etc.

The usual arrangement of grammatical material is not as shrewd as it might be. The sharp division between accidence and syntax as we find it in most of our text-books is, from a scientific point of view, untenable and impracticable[34]; from a pedagogical point of view it is unfortunate, because it separates form and function, which ought to be learned together, just as well as a word’s exterior (its sounds and spelling), and its meaning are learned together.[35] And within each of these two parts of the grammar, the usual order of procedure depends upon a meaningless order of precedence between the classes of words, whereby the adverbs are placed about as far as possible from the adjectives, though if there are any two classes of words which ought to belong together, they are these two, which have comparison in common. In the case of the verbs, those things are often grouped together which belong together lexically but not grammatically.[36]

The translation-method is injurious here too, because it veils contours which ought to be sharp. For instance, the pupils will not get the proper conception of gender and its relation to expressions for sex, if _er_ referring to _der hut_ and _sie_ referring to _die bank_, and likewise _il_ referring to _le chapeau_, and _elle_ referring to _la chaise_, are all translated by the English _it_, while the same pronouns, when used about persons, are translated by _he_ and _she_.

Comparisons between the languages which the pupils know, for the purpose of showing their differences of economy in the use of linguistic means of expression, will only be a natural outcome of this systematized occupation with the theory of the language, and may often become very interesting, especially for advanced students. (Comparisons between the reflexive pronouns in the different languages; du ihr Sie sie--toi vous vous ils elles eux--you you you they--il y a, es giebt, there is, etc.). The teacher may call attention to the inconsistency of the languages; what is distinctly expressed in one case is in another case not designated by any outward sign (haus häuser; häuschen häuschen--house houses; sheep sheep--cheval chevaux; vers vers--yes in reality also maison, maisons, etc.; mich mir, dich dir, sich sich; der mann, die frau, das weib; ein guter mann, eine gute frau, ein gutes weib; der gute mann, die gute frau, das gute weib; die männer, die frauen, die weiber; die guten m., f., w., etc.). In French and English, there is ample occasion to point out how differently the grammatical relations present themselves in sound and on paper (singular and plural alike in bon bons, beau beaux, hideux hideux, further amer amère, clair claire, révolutionnaire révolutionnaire | church churches, judge judges | sin sinned, fine fined | say said, lay laid, etc.). That this may be a good way to make a beginning in comparative philology scarcely needs further proof; many things belonging to this field of study can be understood by our advanced pupils, and ought to belong to a good general education. Everyone who has received a little more than the most ordinary school education ought to understand what is meant by the relationship and development of languages; he ought to be acquainted with such linguistic phenomena as the loss of sounds, assimilation, analogical formations, differentiations, etc.; he ought to have noticed examples of these phenomena, both in his mother tongue and in the foreign languages which he has learned, just as he ought to realize how these processes continually influence the whole construction of the languages, and, in the course of time, have produced such great differences as those he sees between German and English, or between Latin and French; a valuable point of departure would be to take up the fate of French loan-words in English with the frequent retention of the old French sounds (_ch_ in _chase_, _j_ in _journal_, _n_ in _cousin_ _cousine_, _s_ in _beast_, _feast_, etc.). But however interesting and valuable these things are, it is scarcely advisable to devote too much time to them as long as the living languages have so few hours at their disposal. How much or how little of this sort of thing the teacher takes up will also, to a great extent, depend upon whether the class on the whole is ripe for it, and if the pupils show sufficient interest and desire to ask questions; very much philology ought not to be _forced_ upon them.

Exercises in systematization need not be limited to the field of grammar; the lexical side of the language may also be taken up in a similar manner, even if to a less extent. Several methods of reviewing vocabulary have been mentioned above, but there are still more ways; for instance the teacher may give the pupil a certain subject (the human body, war, a railway journey) about which he is to collect all the words and expressions which he can remember--or which occurred in the last narrative read--and he may also arrange them in various subdivisions. This can best be done in the form of a written exercise.

The pupils may also be set to separate a complex event or series of actions, etc., into its single component parts. For instance, they may describe the process of getting dressed in all its details, or the way to school in the morning. The more detailed the pupils can make their descriptions, the better; they thus get use for a number not only of substantives but especially of verbs in their natural connection, which they see before them in their “mind’s eye”--but I scarcely think that Gouin’s ideas[37] ought to be used for more than such occasional series.

Advanced students may also be instructed in a systematic collecting of the most important synonyms. Each one should have a special note-book for the purpose, where a whole page is given to each group of synonyms which the teacher wants them to treat; on this page they write down all those sentences where they come across the word in question. Now and then the teacher and the class together may examine all the sentences which have been collected and try to establish the difference between the synonyms on the basis of the examples found. Of especial value are of course those sentences where several synonyms occur directly after each other (How much of _history_ we have in the _story_ of Arthur is doubtful. What is not very thrilling as _story_ may be of profound interest as _history_. Half a _loaf_ is better than no _bread_. A nice little _loaf_ of brown _bread_). It will also be of interest occasionally to draw up comparative tabular lists from different languages as for instance--

mensch man homme
mann man homme
mann husband mari

to which remarks may be added about the use of _human being_ and _individu_ when indication of sex is to be avoided. Furthermore--

weib woman femme
weib, frau wife femme
frau lady dame
frau Mrs. madame
dame lady dame

baum tree arbre
holz wood bois
wald wood, forest bois, forêt

Such tables will do more than long explanations to illustrate the differences between the languages, and to show how often words are ambiguous and vague in meaning. It is evident, however, that many of the subtle and fanciful indications of shades of meaning found in the dictionaries of synonyms are entirely beyond the grasp of ordinary pupils.

Dr. Walter, in Frankfurt, has still another way of furthering his pupils’ familiarity with the resources of the foreign language; he dictates some of the sentences from what has been read, and lets the pupils themselves find as many different ways as possible of expressing the same thought. I shall reprint one of the sentences from his book, together with the pupils’ variants (marked with letters); they were written down in the course of 25 minutes: “ohne vorausgegangene besprechung” (in the second year of instruction, with, so far as I know, six hours a week); as will be seen, the variations are rather considerable.

_The advantage of the English ships lay not in bulk, but in construction._

a. The English were overwhelming, not by the size of the ships, but
their power lay in the construction of the ships.

b. In construction, not in bulk, lay the advantage of the English
ships.

c. The English ships were superior to the Spanish not in bulk, but in
construction.

d. The advantage of the English fleet (squadron) consisted not in
bulk, but in construction.

e. The advantage of the English was the light construction of their
ships.

f. The English had not large ships, but they were better constructed.

g. The power of the vessels of the English was not caused by the
extent, but by the construction of the ships.

h. The English men-of-war could do very much against the enemy,
because they were well constructed, and not too large.

i. The English vessels were not large, but well constructed.

k. The advantage of the English men-of-war did not consist in size,
but in construction.

l. The advantage of the English men-of-war was to be found in their
construction.

I have myself, in teaching advanced pupils, in a similar way, let them re-write a half a page or so of a historical work. It has always interested them, and the comparison of the results, which often presented the most varied expressions for the same thought, was always very instructive.

Parallel with the reading of a grammar as a supplement to, and a summary of all the grammatical knowledge which has been gained in the ways suggested, it might seem to be a good plan to go through a systematical collection of the lexical material--of course not an ordinary dictionary, since the alphabetical arrangement is about as unsystematical as possible, but a sensibly arranged vocabulary, something in the line of Roget’s _Thesaurus_. But it ought, at any rate, to be much smaller, and only include words and expressions which are actually necessary; even then, however, the unavoidable dryness of such a book, and the absence of connection between the single words, would make it unfit for use in teaching, even if it were not to be employed in imparting new material, but only to recall words which have already been learned. It would be better worth while for pupils, who have reached a somewhat advanced stage, to go through a little systematic collection of phrases, especially of such turns of expression as play a great part in ordinary daily intercourse, but which are seldom met with in literature. Franke’s _Phrases de tous les jours_ is the best specimen I know of--but I have it from the very best source that this little book was never intended as a text-book for beginners.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Obwohl ich mich seit geraumer zeit mit der theorie der sprachen beschäftige, hege ich noch heutzutage eine abneigung gegen die systematischen sprachlehren.--_Auf anlass des volapüks._ Berlin, 1888, p. 38.

[29] If the text-book itself does not recommend certain exercises for each piece.

[30] On the whole teachers who read connected pieces with their pupils in the thorough manner which I have suggested, will be surprised at the strong powers of association produced by successiveness; one word always recalls the whole context in which it has been learned. In one of the exercises given by Walter, pupil A mentions one of the words which the class has had and then the name of pupil B, who is thereupon expected to give the whole sentence in which the word occurs. Of course this can be done now and then by way of recreation; as a rule it is not necessary. This new method of always learning and remembering the words in their natural context may be compared to the newest methods in natural history teaching, according to which the pupils must see the animals and plants as they are at home in their natural surroundings, acted upon by them and in turn acting upon them.

[31] Each phenomenon which is taken up should, however, be treated to the end with as much thoroughness as is possible at _that_ standpoint. Grammar ought not to be taken up during the lesson merely as a matter of secondary importance, subordinated to other exercises, whose object is to help the pupils to understand the text, or to develop their practical skill in the language. If the teacher does not want to devote a whole hour to the grammar, he can at least draw a sharp line between these exercises in theory and the other exercises. One thing at a time, and that done well!

[32] Or when a period is reached, he may give all the substantives which he has found one at a time--the rest as above. The advantage of this is that the connexion is kept intact.

[33] Dr. Sweet tries to throw ridicule on my suggestion as to inventional grammar (_The Practical Study of Languages_, 1899, p. 115-116); he seems to forget the distinction between independent grammatical research and teaching in schools; and when he speaks about the boys having to sort “a hundredweight or so of slips,” I think his exaggeration needs no further refutation than the above statements, which are nothing but an amplification of what I wrote in 1886. Fortunately, on p. 117, Dr. Sweet recommends practically the same course as is outlined here, only carried out to a less extent.

[34] The French superlative is a purely syntactical, the comparative, a mixed phenomenon.

[35] I have treated accidence and syntax together in my own little English grammar (_Kortfattet engelsk grammatik for tale- og skriftsproget_, Copenhagen, 1st edition 1885, 4th ed. 1903).

[36] With reference to grammatical systematization, I may refer to my preliminary remarks in _Progress in Language_ (London, Sonnenschein 894), p. 138 ff.

[37] I am tempted here to enlarge upon Gouin’s method of teaching languages, but I have neither the space, nor exactly the desire, to do so since I have never seen it carried out in practice. I can refer to R. Kron’s (certainly too enthusiastic) description (_Die neueren sprachen_, III, also published separately), and to Brekke’s (for me absolutely convincing) criticism: “Indberetning om en stipendierejse til England for at studere Gouins metode for undervisning i sprog” (Quousque Tandem No. = Norske univ. og skoleannaler, 1894).

X

Here, last but not least, comes the treatment of the _pronunciation_, which for several reasons I have not taken up first, although the questions which are here to be discussed necessarily play a part already from the very first lesson in a foreign language. I have now for many years advocated the use of phonetics--yes, even of phonetical transcription, in the teaching of foreign languages, and have to a large extent put my theories into practice both in dealing with children of all ages and with grown persons. New things always frighten people; they think with terror that here the pupils are to be burdened with an entirely new and difficult science and with a new kind of writing; we had trouble enough with the old kind, they say, and now we are to be bothered with this new alphabet with its barbarous letters! Every educator must see how objectionable it is; now we have learned languages for so many years without such modern inventions, and the old way ought to be good enough for us still.

That is about the run of the objections raised. This the answer: Phonetics is a science, to be sure, and, like all other sciences, it is not without its difficult and mooted points. Yet the fact that large volumes can be written about botany does not frighten us from teaching our children _some_ botany. In mathematics there are many things which are beyond the comprehension of ordinary school-children, but yet they have to learn _some_ mathematics. Phonetics is not a new study that we want to add to the school curriculum; we only want to take as much of the science as will really be a positive help in learning something which has to be learned _anyway_. We must remember what science is, and what part it plays. Of course in our days every science collects more and more material and requires more and more specialization, so that parts of it become quite inaccessible for all persons except the specialists themselves; but the whole idea of science is that it shall be _unified knowledge_ (Spencer), a summing up of all the numerous details of reality under large, comprehensive points of view, the establishing of great, general laws, which apply to all single cases. That is also why science can be termed “ökonomie des denkens,” and that is why science can suggest means of facilitating thought and the acquirement of knowledge. We want to have some phonetics introduced into our schools, because theory has convinced us, and experiment has proved to us, that by means of this science we can, with decidedly greater certainty, and in an essentially easier way, give an absolutely better pronunciation in a much shorter space of time than would be possible without phonetics.

And as for that hobgoblin called phonetical transcription--well, it is no “new alphabet,” not even as new as the Gothic (German) letters are, and much less so than the Greek alphabet, with which the pupils are burdened (without their being of the slightest use[38]), to say nothing of the new names for the letters. In learning Greek the pupils have to operate with thirty odd new symbols; in our phonetical transcription for school use, we do not need more than from five to eight new symbols for each language; otherwise it consists of the ordinary letters, and every letter in it retains one of its familiar values, which is used consistently everywhere, the new symbols being mostly modifications of the known letters; ʃ reminds us of s, ʒ of z, ɛ and ə of e, ŋ of n. The whole thing is no worse than that.

If you refer to your experience in opposition to these new ways of teaching, you only invite the answer: Yes, your experience shows how a _poor_ pronunciation may be learned!

Why must we learn how to pronounce the foreign languages at all? Well, in the first place, it must be because there is the possibility that we may meet natives some time later. Otherwise we might, perhaps, be satisfied with _reading_ the foreign words according to English principles of pronunciation, French _pain_ like English “pain,” Werther as “worth her,” etc. I have known old parsons who have taught themselves English so as to be able to read novels, and who read English with Danish vowels, pronounced the _k_ in _knight_, etc. For a superficial “getting the gist” of shilling shockers and penny dreadfuls, this is sufficient perhaps, but I maintain that for a penetrating, delicate comprehension of real works of literature this manner of reading is not enough. Language cannot be separated from sound, and that is the sum of the matter; only he who hears the foreign language within himself in exactly or approximately the same way as a native hears it can really appreciate and enjoy not only poetry, where phonetic effects must needs always play an important part, but also all the higher forms of prose. Then there is the mnemonic benefit of a correct pronunciation. It helps the pupil to keep foreign languages distinct from each other; for instance, he will never be misled to think that _jeune_ means “pretty” on account of its resemblance to _schön_, and he will not be apt to confuse French _joli_, _journée_, _nouvelle_ with English _jolly_, _journey_, _novel_. In the second place, Madvig is right--and this applies to the living languages too--when he writes: “Finally there is scarcely any doubt that progress in the dead languages would become more rapid if, so far as possible, for instance, through reading and pronouncing distinctly and through memorizing new expressions, the language came not only through the eye, but more through the ear than it does in most places now.”

Our pronunciation according to the old school is extremely poor, indeed, much more frightful than most people imagine. It has among others these two disadvantages, that we do not understand the natives, and that we are not understood by them.

The very first lesson in a foreign language ought to be devoted to initiating the pupils into the world of sounds; if the class has already had such an elementary course in sounds, either in connection with the study of their mother tongue (something we ought to come to in the course of time at any rate), or in connection with another foreign language, it can of course be made briefer; it is scarcely safe to omit it entirely. The conversation may be formed as simply as the following one, where all scientific terms are avoided; not even the word “organ” is necessary. (Of course the answers will not always be as prompt and decided as here, and much will need to be repeated several times with different pupils.)

Teacher: John, can you say _papa_? Papa.--How do you go about it? Say it once more.--_Papa._ First, I open my mouth, and then I open it once again.--Yes, and in the meantime you must, of course, have closed it. Look at me, all of you, and see if I too go about it in that way--_Papa_. What did I do, William?--First you opened your mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.--What did I close it with?--With the lips.--Now, when I say _op_, _ap_, _ep_, what do I do?--Close the lips every time, and then open them again.--Then I do that every time I say _p_. Robert, can you find any other sounds where I also close my lips? No.--Try the word _mama_.--Yes, in _m_.--Now, say _baby_ and _bib_.--Also in _b_.--Good; then we have three sounds now where the lips are closed, _p_, _b_, _m_. Let us write them in a row on the blackboard. Is it necessary to close the lips in all sounds?--No.--What is your name?--John Gordon Hunter.--All of you look at him while he says it. John Gordon Hunter.--Did he close his lips at all? No.--Then all the sounds which are in the whole of his name must be said with other parts of the mouth than the lips. What else have we that we use to speak with?--The tongue.--Now, when we say _n_, for instance, _John_, _Anna_, what do we do?--Close with the tongue behind the teeth.--What part of the tongue?--The point.--Now try _t_ in _atta_.--There we also close with the point of the tongue behind the teeth. And _d_ in _adda_.--Likewise.--Then we use the point of the tongue for _t_, _d_, _n_. Let us write them down under _p_, _b_, _m_. Now _k_ in _akka_?--Look into my mouth. What do I do?--You close with the tongue farther back in the mouth.--Yes, we call that the back of the tongue. Howard, look into Edward’s mouth while he says _akka_. Now _g_ in _agga_ (the sound _g_, of course, not the name dʒi· of the letter). Then we can write them down in a third row. _p_, _b_, _m_ were what kind of sounds?--Lip-sounds.--And _t_, _d_, _n_, were what kind? Point-of-the-tongue sounds.--And the third row?--Back-of-the-tongue sounds.--Yes, we might also say simply point-sounds and back-sounds. [Here some one will ask]: Why are there not three there?--Yes, there are three sounds there too, but we have no letter for the third. Say _tinker_, and then _tin-kettle_. Is there no difference? Yes, in _tin-kettle_ we have a pure _n_, but not in _tinker_; here we have another sound before _k_.--Now try _finger_.--There we have the same before _g_.--And in _singer_?--The same without a real _g_.--Look into my mouth when I say (s)_inger_ [without s]. We can make a letter for this new sound by writing an _n_, with the last stroke lengthened below the line and slightly curled, as in _g_: ŋ.--James, come up here and write down the four words as they sound, making use of the new letter.--(He writes first _tin-kettle_).--No, do you hear more than one _t_? and can you hear any _e_ after _l_?--No.--What then? _tinketl_. (It is not worth while at this stage to require greater phonetical exactness than _tinketl_, _tiŋker_, _fiŋger_, _siŋer_, passing over the fact that the final _er_ in the words does not really sound like e + r). You see, if you were a Frenchman trying to learn English, you would not know that _n_ in _tin-kettle_ and in the other words were different sounds, and that the _e_ was silent, and you would pronounce the words incorrectly; but if the one were written _tinketl_ and the other _tiŋker_, it would be much easier for you to learn how to pronounce them. And then take _fringe_; it looks as if it were simply _finger_ with the _r_ in another place, and yet it is quite a different sound, so we see that the two letters _ng_ may stand for three entirely different sounds. We also write _knight_, and say “nait”; we write _busy_ and say “bizi.” Can you find any other words which we spell differently from the way in which we pronounce them? [Various examples are found and analyzed.] When we write the words exactly as they sound, we call it _phonetical transcription_. Now, in the beginning, we shall write all French words phonetically, so that you can more easily learn how to pronounce them. But you saw in the case of _tinker_ that we occasionally need a new symbol in this transcription, which we do not use otherwise. You will learn a few more of them in the course of time.... Then we have seen that in order to say different sounds, we can use the lips and the point of the tongue and the back of the tongue. Is there nothing else that we need to speak with?--The nose? Yes, that is all right in a way, but--can you move your nose? Look at my nose; do I move it when I speak?--No.--But is it not possible to use it without moving it? Now, see if I use my nose when I say a···· [very long drawn out].[39] Now, I suddenly hold my nose with two fingers, and press the nostrils together. Does that make the sound different?--No.--But now I say m in the same way m···· and pinch the nostrils together in the same way. Did anything happen?--Yes, there was no sound.--Now you can try it yourselves. First you, George; say a···, and then the boy next to you can suddenly pinch your nose together with two fingers. And then say m···, and let Fred pinch your nose again. Can you say m while your nostrils are closed?--No, at any rate the sound soon disappears. All of you try it; say a· just as long as I do, and pinch the nose together several times with your fingers whenever you see me do it; and now likewise with m. That is because the air has to escape through the nose in order that the sound m may be made. It is the soft palate that you use in order to open the inner entrance to the nose, so that the air can escape through the nostrils. You can feel the palate behind the teeth, there it is hard; but if you pass your fingers farther back, you will soon feel that it becomes soft and flexible. See how it can go up and down in my mouth. Look in the mirror[40], and see how your own palate is. First try breathing in and out silently, and then say _a_; then you will see how your soft palate suddenly jumps up; that is because it has to close the entrance to the nose, so that no air can get out that way. But when you say m it remains hanging down, so that the air can come out through the nose, the passage through the mouth being closed by the lips. [At this point, you might make a rough sketch on the blackboard, showing a cross-section through the mouth, with the soft palate in the two positions.] In producing n and ŋ, you have the same position of the soft palate as in the case of m. [Try to pinch the nose together.]

Now we have seen how we use the nose and the mouth when we speak, but are they the only things that are necessary in speaking? [If the pupils cannot think of “voice” of their own accord, the teacher may put them on the track by saying: when someone speaks (or sings) very well, we say that he has a good...]--Voice.--Where is the voice?--In the vocal chords.--And where are they?--In Adam’s apple.--[Here it might be a good thing not to despise the anecdote about the apple which stuck in Adam’s throat.] Now we also call that the larynx. In there, there are two vocal chords stretched parallel to each other, and when they vibrate a tone is produced, and that is what we call voice. It is just as when a string of a violin is brought into vibration and gives forth a tone; or a bell or a wine-glass, which is made to quiver violently. Now do we always use the voice when we speak? You do not know; well, then we can experiment. [Whisper a sentence.] Did I use my voice then?--No.--Now try first to say an a··· quite loudly and forcibly (or sing it), and take firm hold of Adam’s apple with your thumb and forefinger; then you will feel it quiver. Have you never tried to touch a piano with your finger tips while someone was playing on it? Then you will have felt the same kind of delicate, rapid, quivering movements as you feel on touching the larynx while the voice is in activity. In both cases you can _feel_ those movements with your fingers which you _hear_ with your ear as a tone. But now whisper an a··· and feel your larynx; do you feel anything?--No, there are no vibrations.--And try to say s··· [by no means the name of the letter, _es_, but the hissing sound itself.] Is there voice in that? Do you feel any vibration?--No.--Then s is a _voiceless_ sound, but a is a _voiced_ sound. Now, try m··· [not _em_!] Is it voiced? and n···? Notice that you can sing the voiced sounds [test several of them], but not the voiceless sounds.[41] That f··· is voiceless, and that v··· (with strong buzzing!) is voiced, is easily discovered. In the same way, we have for every voiceless sound a corresponding voiced sound. Say s···, and now produce the corresponding voiced sound with the buzzing element. They are the sounds we have in _so_ and _zoo_, _seal_ and _zebra_. We have also a third corresponding pair ʃ and ʒ; ʃ is the sound in _shilling_, _shall_, etc.; ʒ is the sound in _measure_, _pleasure_, etc. Then we may write down:

f s ʃ voiceless
v z ʒ voiced.

Now pronounce each sound in chorus as I point to the letter, and continue drawing it out until I take the chalk away from the letter.[42] Thereupon the pupils may be tested singly, the teacher skipping from one sound to the other. Exercises may also be given with the consonants between two vowels: afffa, avvva, asssa, azzza; afa, ava, asa, aza.

Now the pupils have already had a little course in elementary phonetics; it interests them and contains nothing that they cannot understand, and nothing that is not useful for them. Nor does it ever really frighten the children; but the very thought of it has actually frightened a number of older teachers, who apparently live in holy terror of trespassing beyond the lines laid out for them in their childhood, and who unfailingly think that everything new must be just as useless, dry and pedantical as most of what they learned in their own schooldays, so they are not inclined to have the bother of making themselves familiar with anything new.[43] In the Danish original of this book, I reprinted as a curiosity a description of the activity of the organs of speech in the production of speech-sounds, which a boy 14 years old, who had never been told anything about the formation of sounds, had written all by himself, without the least instruction or help of any kind (which can easily be seen, among other things, from the fact that he sticks to and analyzes the names of the letters); it shows that this dreaded phonetical science is not so terribly far beyond the horizon of ordinary children after all.

The children always “follow” the teacher so well in these phonetical exercises that it is rather necessary to put a damper on their eagerness to try to produce the sounds than to spur them on. Or, in other words, the teacher has but to organize their natural impulse to imitate the sounds by saying to them, when they begin to whistle and hum: “You may say the sounds yourselves directly, just wait a moment,” and thereupon, after the explanation has been given, by allowing them ample opportunity to pronounce the sounds, both in chorus and singly. Then, both during recess and at home, they will revel to their hearts’ content in the new sounds, and the whole new and amusing world that has been opened to them.

After the introductory course which I have just sketched,[44] I immediately begin with texts in the foreign language. If the teacher will at this point read one or two pages aloud rapidly (or give a little talk) in as characteristically a French or German manner as possible, this is a very good way to give the pupils a preliminary notion of the foreignness of the new language. This impression may be further emphasized by means of a little trick which I may recommend. The teacher practises an English sentence pronounced as a Frenchman (or German respectively) would pronounce it, with French vowels, French accent, etc. He may refer to this sentence now and then in speaking of the single sounds, and it will serve to warn the students against the kind of mistakes that they themselves are to avoid. Then I take up the new sounds in the more accidental order in which they occur in the selection for reading; I repeat every word, together with its meaning, write it down on the blackboard in phonetical transcription, and explain every symbol as it occurs, at the same time articulating the corresponding sound _isolated_ (this is of great importance! also the consonants alone without any vowel, either before or after), and drawing it out very long.[45]

In not a few cases, the pupils will be able to imitate the sound with sufficient exactness, when it has been produced isolated; at all events, they do it far better than when they only hear it among other sounds. But in many other cases their imitation is not successful, or, at least, it is not sure enough to be quite satisfactory; then it is necessary to resort to phonetics for help, on the basis of the introductory course.

Of course, it is not easy for a Dane to give detailed directions for phonetical instruction, as it is to be conducted when an English teacher is teaching English children French or German. Therefore, the following section is necessarily shorter than the corresponding section in the Danish original, where I could treat the subject exhaustively on the basis of my personal experience, as to how good results are to be obtained. But some few remarks may perhaps serve to point out the right way, and any teacher who has thoroughly mastered the first principles of phonetics theoretically, and especially practically, will himself be able to supplement my suggestions.

In the very first French or German sentence in the reader will probably be found one of the sounds [y] (Fr. _sur_, Ger. _über_), or [ø] (Fr. _veut_, Ger. _höhe_). It is best for these two sounds to be practised together, and, in the beginning, in their long form. As experience shows, it is not sufficient for the teacher merely to say these sounds; they generally cause English people much trouble, and all imitations based on the diphthong in Eng. _few_, etc., ought to be strictly discountenanced from the very first lesson. That it is not impossible to learn the correct sounds was brought home to me in a striking manner a few years ago. These sounds are also found in Danish; an English lady who had been in Denmark for some years had not been able, in spite of unceasing efforts, to learn them by imitation. Then I made a bet that I could teach her them in less than ten minutes, and I won the bet through five minutes’ theoretical explanation of rounded and unrounded vowels, and two minutes’ practical exercises. The directions were about as follows: say [u·] (or [uw]) in _too_ very loudly, and hold it as long as you can without taking breath. Once more: observe in the hand-mirror the position of the lips. Then say _tea_ [ti·, tij] in the same way; draw the vowel out until you can hold it no longer; continue all the time to observe the position of the lips in the mirror. Now [u···] again; then [i···]. The lips are rounded for some vowels, slit-shaped for others. Try to pout them rather more than you do usually. Pronounce [u···] a couple of times with the lips as rounded and close to each other as possible, and concentrate your attention on the lips. Then say [i···] a couple of times, paying attention to the position of the tongue; you will feel that the sides of the tongue touch the roof of the mouth or the teeth. Now look in the mirror; say [i···] again, and now suddenly, taking care to keep the tongue in the same position, let your lips take the rounded, pouted position they had before. It may be that the pupil is still unable to produce any [y], because, despite the teacher’s warning, he involuntarily shifts his tongue-position back again to the familiar [u] position. In that case, however, the teacher must not be discouraged, but pass on to the second part of the experiment, which is surer, and which might therefore have been taken first: place your lips in this pouted [u] position, without producing any sound, look in the mirror, and be very careful that the position of the lips remains unchanged, and then try to say [i···]. If the tongue is placed in the correct [i···]-position, the result cannot be anything but an [y]. This sound is retained and repeated until the pupil is perfectly sure of both the articulation and acoustic effect. Then the sound [ø] may be taken up. It may be produced with [y] as a starting-point, the lower jaw being lowered so that both the underlip and the tongue follow it, while the teacher takes care to stop the downward movement in the right place. The result may be controlled by starting with [e] and rounding the lips, that is, by going through a process corresponding to the transition from [i···] to [y···].

One of the most unbecoming mistakes which Englishmen make in their pronunciation of foreign languages is their diphthongizing of long vowels, since long vowels,[46] in ordinary English, are pronounced with an upward glide, so that the jaw and the tongue are raised higher in the last part of the vowels in _see_, _two_, _hay_, _know_, for instance, than in the first part. In vulgar London pronunciation, this English peculiarity is carried further, the beginning of the sound being lowered, at all events in the last two sounds mentioned, so that _lace_ sounds like _lice_, and _pay_ like _pie_. But even if the best pronunciation does not go to this extreme, yet the glide is there, and this glide is for the native Frenchman or German one of the most striking faults in the Englishman’s pronunciation of the respective languages, so the Englishman had best be on his guard in this particular. If the teacher, after a little theoretical explanation, says the English [ei] and the German [e] alternately a number of times, even the dullest pupils cannot help but get their ears trained to detect this difference, but long and patient training is certainly necessary, both with the class in chorus and with the pupils singly, before this deeply rooted tendency to diphthongize can be checked.

Another difficulty is met with in the short (narrow) vowels. French _été_ must be pronounced with two short closed e’s; Englishmen have a tendency to pronounce two long or half-long glide-sounds, which begin with a greater distance between the jaws than they ought to, and close with a smaller distance between the jaws than the genuine French sounds have. Anyone who has become accustomed to the undiphthongized long [e], however, can use this as a starting-point for learning the correct short sound, the best way being the frequent repetition of _tétété···_ Likewise the short sounds in _fini_, _dodo_, _froufrou_, etc.

Nor do the French nasal vowels occur in English; in phonetical transcription, they are indicated by means of ~ over the vowel-symbol, for instance [ɔ̃] in _son_, etc. Here the teacher must immediately make every effort to check the tendency to say [ɔŋ] as in Eng. _long_, and my experience with Danish pupils has been that it is not sufficient for this purpose merely to let the pupils repeat the sound after me. It is necessary to make it perfectly clear to them wherein the difference consists. First the teacher draws out his [ɔ̃] and establishes (by means of questions) that it is only one sound, the same from first to last. Then one of the pupils is to try to draw out the sound [ɔŋ], and it thus becomes clear that it is only the last of the two sounds that is prolonged. On the basis of what has been previously learned (p. 149), the teacher shows the difference of effect caused in closing the nostrils with the fingers, and explains that it is due to the fact that in [ɔŋ] we have first a sound where the air escapes only through the mouth, then another sound where the air only passes out through the nose; but in [ɔ̃], both passages are open at the same time. If a pencil is laid in the mouth so that it rests on the tongue (tolerably far back), it will remain lying quietly when [ɔ̃] is pronounced, but not in the case of [ɔŋ]. In connection with [ɔ̃], the pupils may practise the [ɑ̃] sound in _tant_, [ɛ̃] or, more correctly, [æ̃], the sound in _teint_ and the rounded sound in [œ̃], _un_. The sound [ɥ] in _tuer_ [tɥe], _lui_ [lɥi] is easily learned with sufficient exactness as a [y] which is quickly passed over so that the main stress is allowed to fall on the following sound, the relation between [w] and [u] being brought in by way of comparison.

With respect to the consonants, care must be taken to pronounce [t, d, n] in such a way that the point of the tongue touches the upper teeth; it must, at all events, not be held as far back as in English; the same applies to [l], where this difference is still more important; the hollow sound of the English _l_ is also to be avoided by keeping the whole tongue more flat and not hollowing it out like a spoon. The voiceless sounds [r̥] and [l̥] in [fənɛ·tr̥] _fenêtre_ and [tabl̥] _table_ can easily be deduced from what has been learned about the voice (p. 150-151); it is necessary to guard against making [r̥] into the vowel found at the end of English words like _mister_, etc. The pupils will easily understand that with the correct unvoiced pronunciation, these sounds are apt to disappear in rapid speech. Finally we take up the sound ɲ in [kãpaɲ] _campagne_; it is explained as lying between [nj] and [ŋ]; it is best pronounced with the point of the tongue resting in the lower part of the mouth behind the lower teeth, but in using the word “best” I intend to hint that it is not strictly necessary to require this method of formation; there are also Frenchmen who (at all events before a vowel) pronounce it like English [nj] in _onion_.