Which language to use as base, when learning a new language

[Serpent]

According to Prof Argüelles any aspiring polyglot should start with English, French and German to get access to the best resources. Specifically not all Assimil courses are available with an English base.

[Cainntear]

In any case, I tend to view textbooks as a (sometimes) necessary evil and a temporary one, and I'm usually anxious to spend as little time with them as possible and move on to actually using the language as soon as I can. At that point I'd probably want to start looking for a good monolingual reference grammar anyway.

Would you be looking for a reference grammar for learners, or one for natives?

[mcthulhu]

I'm not sure if there are monolingual grammars for learners. I assume monolingual books would be intended for natives.

[DaveBee]

I'm not sure if there are monolingual grammars for learners. I assume monolingual books would be intended for natives.

There are certainly french grammars aimed at non-natives, e.g. La Nouvelle Grammaire du Francais from Hachette.

La Nouvelle Grammaire du Français, riche et complète, propose aux apprenants de français langue étrangère

EDIT
You might find The teaching and cultivation of the French language in England during Tudor and Stuart times interesting. The earliest french grammars seem to have been produced to teach french as a foreign language in England.

[mcthulhu]

Thanks, DaveBee, I'll have to look at that one.

[Cainntear]

I'm not sure if there are monolingual grammars for learners. I assume monolingual books would be intended for natives.

A good grammar intended for natives would be useless for a learner.

How so?

Well in simple terms, a native uses the example sentences to help understand the explanation, whereas the non-native uses the explanations to understand the example sentences; these things are almost complete opposites.

[aaleks]

I'm not sure if there are monolingual grammars for learners. I assume monolingual books would be intended for natives.

A good grammar intended for natives would be useless for a learner.

How so?

Well in simple terms, a native uses the example sentences to help understand the explanation, whereas the non-native uses the explanations to understand the example sentences; these things are almost complete opposites.

From my expirience a non-native needs both. Right now I don't need an explanation to understand any sentence, but I need to understand those grammar explanations to express myself in a non-Tarzan way.

Speaking of monolingual grammars for learners, there are Murphy's grammar books which are written in English even though they are aimed to non-natives.

[mcthulhu]

Cainntear, that's a rather sweeping generalization, and contrary to my experience; the ones I have consulted were not useless to me. Your either-or might be a false dichotomy. I think we're off a tangent from the main topic of this thread, anyway.

[Cainntear]

Cainntear, that's a rather sweeping generalization, and contrary to my experience; the ones I have consulted were not useless to me. Your either-or might be a false dichotomy.

Note that I said a "good" grammar. There are very few grammar books that genuinely fall into that category.

[reineke]

For major western european languages: the target language.

50 years ago and today monolingual "native" grammars were in the required literature at my university along with bilingual and monolingual grammars aimed at foreign students. Even in high school the teacher recommended a monolingual grammar. At university for each language there was a "bible" - a monolingual or bilingual (mother tongue) grammar that the students and professors preferred. Language students would study separately about comparative romance linguistics etc but this was never a major focus for regular students. I got a kick recently reading about Spanish in Italian (for about 30 mins) but I wouldn't have enjoyed it if didn't already have a living, wiggly "base" in romance languages.

Bilingual vs monolingual dictionaries require separate considerations. Both were readily available to students.

All these tools can be equally useful or useless.