EXERCISES

ON THE

GERMAN GRAMMAR.

BY

FRANZ C. F. DEMMLER,

A MEMBER OF THE PROTESTANT CLERGY OF WÜRTEMBERG;
AND PROFESSOR AT THE STAFF COLLEGE, SANDHURST. ·

INTRODUCTION.

A WIDE distinction ought to be made between translating into a language, and speaking and writing it. Many a good scholar and able writer will find it by far more difficult to translate into his own language from a foreign tongue with which he may be thoroughly acquainted, than it would be for him to write an original composition. The difficulty of translating into a foreign language must, of course, even be greater. The fact is, that the faculty of translating rests on a talent of as special a character as the gift of mimicry or portraiture. Those who do not possess the special talent of imitating one language in the other will never be able to do more than string words and phrases together which may be grammatically correct but devoid, if not altogether of

sense, at all events of the spirit of the language in which they purport to be written.

Yet, how very few of the many English persons who now study German will be called upon by the business of practical life to translate English into German? Probably not one in a hundred. On the other hand, how very many find occasion to speak the foreign language, and to write in it such a thing as a simple letter on the ordinary concerns of life! This most useful acquirement of expressing his own thoughts and wants in a plain German style is within the reach of every student of average