[14] But which, of course, ought not to be asked in the form “Do you understand?” with the obligatory answer “Yes,” which too often means nothing.
[15] As an introduction to these exercises, the teacher might compare several different translations of a part of Goethe, for instance, with each other, and with the original.
[16] Somewhat similar to “The House that Jack Built.” Biquette veut pas sortir des choux.
[17] The text-books may sometimes contain a whole piece in two versions; perhaps the teacher himself may occasionally undertake to re-write (on the blackboard) or re-tell a selection.
[18] And even for them only in small measure, since it must be remembered that nothing is learned thereby, but it is merely a test in what has been learned, and that the mistakes made by the pupils, as we know from experience, easily take root in their memory because they have written them, and are not effaced by the teacher’s corrections.
[19] The only thing in the grammar which it might be reasonable to learn by rote is the numerals.
[20] The story goes that a Swedish dialectologist who was on a tour to investigate how extensively the strong form dog (died) was in use, asked a peasant: do you people here say “jag dog” or “jag döde”? The peasant was not a grammarian; he answered sensibly: well, when we are dead we generally do not say anything.
[21] Kr. Nyrop informs me that he has found “Mais je mourus hier” in Mairet, La Silvanire, v. 2, 175, and I myself have come across it in a short story by Zola about the sensations felt by a person who has been buried alive after his apparent death—but that does not make the form more “living.”
[22] The dots which are given in the printed book between the two words disappear in oral recitation; so they play no part in the minds of the pupils.
[23] The former “redundant” words are now the most important ones, indeed in reality the only important ones, since Pas du tout etc., where there is no verb, is fully recognized, and sentences like Je veux pas are becoming more and more common in colloquial language.