A language learners’ forum

You're welcome, David1917, I'm glad you find the book interesting!

I printed off a copy of the book today (**See note below**) and cut the gaps out of the audio and did Lesson 1. It took about 45 minutes to listen to each page twice with reviewing of the grammar notes and copying some of the examples down, and then completing the 30+ exercises (I wrote them all out instead of just writing in the blank). This is by far my favorite OE course that I've tried, and look forward to keeping up the momentum and completing it.

**Note** If you decide to print this off, I always print 2 pages per sheet to save paper, and this course especially is designed with a two-page layout where the right page reflects material on the left page. HOWEVER the pdf is formatted in such a way that the first lesson begins on an even-numbered page in the pdf which would print as a RIGHT page, meaning you would have to flip the sheet over back and forth rather than have everything side by side. To fix this, you would choose a custom page range of 2-end. I also think there's a way to make the first page print as a cover page and then the rest print as doubles. Either way, VERIFY the layout in your Print Preview before printing!

This book does look great. I've got quite a lot of Old English materials but this one had escaped my attention thus far. Can't wait to give it a better look over. OE is certainly high up on my list but I think I'll have to wait until next year (or later?) to get started.

The last post in this thread came just a few months before the release of Jonathan Evans' Introduction to Old English. An Amazon reviewer notes

What I deeply appreciate the most is that this is truly a textbook for Old English. So many books are more properly grammars and linguistic surveys of the language. This book actually walks you through Old English at a reasonable pace. The amount of linguistic detail given will be helpful for those more grounded in formal linguistics but could just as easily be set aside by those who want to master simply the basics. Of course, as with the study of any language, especially an ancient one, the more linguistic knowledge you have, the easier the process becomes. A knowledge of Latin or some German will come in handy but is not necessary to use the book effectively.

That sounds quite promising. Has anyone seen a copy? The publisher's site has a table of contents but no sample pages.

I have a copy, and would highly recommend both it and Jambeck & Hasenfratz's text Reading Old English. The biggest detraction from Evans at the moment is the typos and errors, which the author is acknowledging and working on. I'm hoping a second edition comes about soonish.

Here is a site where Evans has been posting various things related to his book: https://oldenglishintro.hcommons.org/

księżycowy wrote:I have a copy, and would highly recommend both it and Jambeck & Hasenfratz's text Reading Old English. The biggest detraction from Evans at the moment is the typos and errors, which the author is acknowledging and working on. I'm hoping a second edition comes about soonish.

Here is a site where Evans has been posting various things related to his book: https://oldenglishintro.hcommons.org/

Many thanks! Mistakes are unfortunate, but I appreciate authors who make such lists available without making us wait (and hope) for another printing. If the book is good enough, I'd tolerate having to read it together with the errata and corrigenda list. Do you think Evans and J&H are comparable? Does one seem better than the other?

They are both focused on reading, but they both strike me a bit different. I'm about to go to bed, so I'll dig them both out and type up a few thoughts tomorrow.

Day late and a dollar short, but here are my thoughts on Evans and J & F:

Evans
I feel like the really strong point of this text is the readings in every chapter. Interestingly, the readings are sequenced through centuries. This makes it a progression through time, and the grammar, vocabulary and etymological notes often take up with progression as well. At the same time, this is not to say that the text does not take these points progressively from easier to harder topics, its just that the differences in how OE is written through the centuries in which it was written is a common point in the text.

I feel like the exercises are a bit lacking in my opinion. Comparing Evans to J & F in this department, I prefer J & F better. Evans usually has about 10 exercises of the order "conjugate X in the singular", or "what functions does X serve in sentence Y", and later on there are translations both to and from OE, sometimes with manipulation of such sentences (changing a verb form, or using a different case/word, etc.). I'll go over J&F's exercises below.

The various notes (grammar, vocabulary, etymological, historical, etc.) are very well done, and compliment the reading in any given chapter. The grammar and vocabulary notes assume some linguistic knowledge.

J&F
I like the way that this text deals with the grammar. It is written with the assumption that the student has little to no prior linguistic knowledge, but they are equally not afraid to get in deep. For example, Chapter Two, which focuses on nouns, gives information on the genitive, and other various uses of the genitive ("of replacement", partitive genitive, object of preposition, genitive objects, time). It lays out the grammar in a very lay friendly, and yet comprehensive manner. All with a few examples, at least. In addition, syntax is dealt with quite well. I've only skimmed Evans, but I get the impression Evans does not go into as much syntax as J&F. (I could be very wrong about this!) The excerpts from Ælfric regarding grammar are fun to read as well (these are mostly in ME, being written originally in Latin, but the OE examples and concepts remain).

Readings are not present in each and every lesson, but there is on in each chapter. Chapters are broken down into 2-3 lessons usually. Even though there are not as many readings in J&F compared to Evans, I feel that there are plenty of readings. And both texts give additional readings after the lessons.

I feel like J&F also shines in the exercises. There are copious parsing and OE to ME translation exercises. There are also some ME to OE exercises scattered throughout.

Both texts are chart heavy.

I'm sure there's some things I'm forgetting to say, but I have had J&F longer, and that might create a bit of a bias.
I'd be happy to try to share some samples, if anyone would like to see them.

księżycowy wrote:Day late and a dollar short, but here are my thoughts on Evans and J & F:

Very many thanks indeed! This is quite helpful.

Thanks to the OP for the deep cut! I've been studying Old English on and off for years. Good audio material for Old English is in short supply and these recordings are very clear despite their age. With a little editing, this will make great shadowing and passive listening material.

d.