French Stumbling Blocks and English Stepping-Stones; To Which Is Added a List of Nearly 3,000 Colloquialisms Which Cannot Be Rendered Literally from English into French

French stumbling blocks and English stepping-stones – is a work which was published in 1897 and written by Francis Tarver, formerly Senior French Master at Eton College. This book was dedicated to the author's former colleagues at Eton College and their successors, in the hope that this little book will help them overcome the difficulties that the author took fifty years of studying and teaching French to overcome. The author's goal in putting together this short book is to draw attention to what his long teaching experience has shown him to be a major stumbling block for a young Englishman learning French, and of course to show at the same time, how they can be overcome. French composition cannot be taught by translating a French book into English, but if, during such a translation, the teacher notes and draws attention to the main differences in construction between French and English as they emerge, the French specialist will be greatly assisted in teaching him how to translate English into French. And this consideration makes me hope that even French teachers will not find the author arrogant if he dares to suggest that they too can benefit from my book. Without having to learn their own language, as the English do, from the point of view of the English language, the French cannot, like the English, realize the difficulties that arise in the mind of an English boy in learning French. The author's forty years of experience teaching French in England should justify such arrogance.