PART I.

CONTAINING A COMPLETE AND CONCISE COURSE OF "GRAMMAR," DIVIDED INTO "CHAPTERS," "RULES," AND "REMARKS,"

ARRANGED NUMERICALLY.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON PRONUNCIATION.

1. There are NO accents in German.*

2. EVERY letter is pronounced as distinctly in a word as it is pronounced by itself; as, habe, bin, du, ist, wir, Bruder, diese.

3. Every vowel followed by two consonants is SHORT; as, Mutter, besser, Wetter.

4. Every vowel followed by one consonant is LONG; as, Feder, Dame, sage, trage, klage, lese.

5. Pronounce :

(A) ei and ai like the English ; as, Kaiser, mein, dein, sein, kein, rein, nein.

(B) ie like the English e; as, die, Spiegel, Friede, wie, Sie, diese, gieb, Sieb.

*The apostrophy occurs sometimes in poetry or in familiar language, and then it shows the omission of the vowel e; as, hab' ich's, instead of habe ich es; sind's, instead of sind es; frag'ich, instead of frage ich.

(c) au like ow in vow; as, Haus, Glaube, Taube, laut, Kraut, taugen, saugen.

(D) a like a in hate; as, Väter, gäbe, älter, kälter. (E) 0 (no corresponding sound); as, böse, möge, Löwe, öde, hören, schön.

(F) u like 00 in fool; as, Bruder, Mutter, unser, gut, unter, munter.

(a) ü like u in French; as, müde, trübe, über, gütig, Münster, Glück, zurück.

(H) i, j, y like the English e; as, in, mit, ja, jeder, Cyprus, Asyl.

(1) C (before e and i) and z like tseh; as, Cedar, Citrone, zu, Zahn, zwei, ziehen, zur.

(K) fand v like the English f; as, Vater, Feder, für, vor, von, vier, voll, fünf.

(L) w like the English v; as, wir, werden, wo, was, wer, will, warum, wenn.

(M) S at the end of a syllable* and before a consonant like a soft s; as, Stein, Haus, Stock, Maus, hast, bist.

(N) 8 before a vowel like the English z; as, sagen, sein, sind, sie, sollen.

(0) ch like a strongly aspirated h in English; as, ich, mich, dich, sich, nicht.

* Observe that in German writing, and in books printed in German characters, the long is used at the beginning or in the middle of a word; as fei, unfer, Käse; but at the end of a syllable or a word the short s is written: Haus, Maus, Reis, los, das, aus.

(P) sch like the English sh in shaft; as, Fisch,
schreiben, Tisch, mischen, Schule.

(9) ck like two k's; as, Hacke, Rock, Stock, Bock.
(R) tz like two z's; as, Hitze, Mütze, nützen.
(s) sz like two s's; as, grüszen, Hasz, Grusz.
(T) h at the beginning of a syllable or a word
aspirated; as, Herr, hin, hier. In the middle
or at the end of a word silent; as, ihn, Sohn,
Thron, nah.

(U) A double vowel very long; as, Waare, Loos,
Moos, Seele, Armee.

6. German nouns* are always written with a capital letter; as, Vater, Mutter, Haus, Sohn, Buch, Kind.

7. Double consonants, such as bb, dd, ff, gg, ll, mm, nn, pp, rr, ss, tt, occurring in the middle of a word are divided, and pronounced one with each syllable; as, Ebbe, Affe, Halle, Hammer, immer, Sonne, Lippe, hassen, Mutter.

8. There are in a word as many syllables as there are vowels; as, ge-ge-ben, ge-se-hen, ab-ge-sagt, zu-sammen-ge-setzt.

9. In a word of several syllables the last one is generally pronounced very softly; as, Ge-sund-heit, ge-le-sen, an-ge-nom-men.

10. In compound words the first syllable has always the accent; as, Blu-men-gar-ten, Haus-frau, Ei-senbahn.

* Observe that the pronoun I (ch) is never written in German with a capital letter, unless it begins a sentence; as, sagte ich? fragte ich bin ich?

CHAPTER II.

INTRODUCTION TO GRAMMAR.

RULE 1.-The German language has twenty-nine

kah, ell, em,
v, w, XC, y, 2.
eff, veh, iks, ee, tsett.

d, e, f, g, h, i, j,

a, eff, gah, hah,

ee,

2, r, S, t,
u, ü,
koo, err, ess, teh, ooh, eue,

Of these letters nine are vowels: a, ä, e, i, o, ö, u, ü, y. The remaining twenty are consonants.

RULE 2.-There are ten parts of speech. Six are variable, viz.: 1, Article; 2, Noun; 3, Adjective; 4, Numeral Adjective; 5, Pronoun; 6, Verb. Four invariable, viz.: 1, Adverb; 2, Preposition; 3, Conjunction; 4, Interjection.

RULE 3.-The German language has :

(A) Two numbers; the singular and the plural. (B) Three persons; the first, the second, and the third.

(c) Three genders; the masculine, the feminine, and the neuter.

(D) Four cases; the nominative, the genitive, the dative, and the accusative; or commonly called in German schools, the first, the second, the third, and the fourth cases.

CHAPTER III.

OF ARTICLES AND DETERMINATIVE WORDS.

RULE 4.-There are in German two articles; the definite, der, die, das (the); and the indefinite, ein, eine, ein (a). They agree with the noun to which they belong, in number, gender, and case; and are generally repeated before each noun. 1

The definite article2 is declined as follows:

RULE 5. All demonstrative adjectives and pronouns, such as dieser, this; jener, that; jeder, each; solcher, such; mancher, many a one, and indefinite numeral adjectives, such as einer, the one; aller, all;

REMARK 1.-In German, as in English, no article is used with a partitive noun; as, Wein, wine; Obst, fruit; Geld, money; Bier, beer; Oel, oil; &c., &c.

REMARK 2-(a) When a noun of quantity, expressing measure, weight, number, &c., &c., is defined by another noun, the preposition of which unites the two nouns in English, is not expressed in German; as, ein Pfund Kirschen, a pound of cherries; eine Flasche Wein, a bottle of wine; fünf Ellen Tuch, five yards of cloth.

(b) The article is left out before proper names, titles, dignities, &c.; as-Doctor Luther; Jakob König von England; Herr Steinbach.