Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from French Grammar Made Clear: For Use in American Schools
Nobody knows, really knows, a language, without knowing the grammar of that language.
But what is a grammar? Is it the work of a legislator we have to obey implicitly? Is it a collection of formulas so final that they cannot be altered in one syllable and must be remembered as they are or not at all?
Some people imagine this, and it goes a long way towards explaining their antagonism to grammars.
But grammars are neither codes nor formulas: they are merely the explanation of certain ways Of speaking. When a person asks another: what is five hundred in French?
Cinq cents And what is five hundred and ten? Cinq cent dix if the person who knows French better points out to the other that cent takes an s in the plural when there is no other figure after it, but does not take the s if it is followed by another figure, a grammatical rule is given in simple but excellent language. A grammar is mere ly a collection of such explanations: it is the description of a language from well-chosen examples.
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