French Grammar [antikvár]

PREFACE This Grammar is not intended for absolute beginners who are learning a language for the first time. The reader should have worked conscientiously through a course such as Teach Yourself French or already made some progress in the language. It has been written with certain purposes in mind. It is fairly exhaustive, but the author hopes that one will not find it exhausting. Much has been included that could have been left out: it is possible to make oneself understood with a bare minimum of grammatical knowledge. However, this is an inquiring age, and a student may well wish to find out the reason for certain turns of phrase in the works of some of the great authors. It therefore follows that the learner must not be disheartened if he cannot at once remember all the points in a book like this. If he did, he would know more about French grammar than the average Frenchman. In practice, he vsdll discover that the grammatical puzzles which give him difficulty are the very ones that also trouble the native speaker. It is hoped that the book will be used in two ways. First, that it wiU be read as a book from cover to cover or at least from beginning to end of a chapter: secondly, that it will serve as a reference. It will then explain a baffling sentence and help the student to speak and write French correctly. With these aims in view, we have set out at the beginning of the book a comprehensive list of contents. However, we must warn you that a grammar cannot include everything, and a good dictionary should never be far away. French is a difficult language to write elegantly and correctly, and any attempt to gloss over this fact would be unfair to the student. However, even French people have sometimes to content themselves with something short of