Language Learning PDF EPUB

English as She Is Spoke

Downloads: 100+
First published: 1855
Pages: 58

Read online EPUB Download Save

About this book

Intended as a serious Portuguese to English phrase book, this little volume became famous instead as a masterpiece of unintentional comedy. Its authors apparently spoke no real English and worked by running a Portuguese to French guide through a French to English dictionary, producing phrases no living person ever uttered, from to craunch the marmoset to the walls have hearsay. Mark Twain wrote an admiring introduction to an American edition, judging the book perfect of its kind and certain to outlast its imitators. First published in 1855, it survives not as a language aid but as a beloved monument to translation gone gloriously wrong. Every page proves that good intentions and a bad dictionary can outlive their era.

About the author

Pedro Carolino, José da Fonseca

Jose da Fonseca was a Portuguese writer and lexicographer whose phrase book Pedro Carolino adapted into English, apparently without knowing the language. Little is recorded of Carolino, but the pair's names endure through the accidental comedy of their guide, first issued in the 1850s.

Open the author page