Hwider … ðū? Gap-Filling Exercises for the Old English Class

Hwider … ðū? is an exercise book working exclusively with gap-fills. This type of exercise is a well established tool also in the field of teaching Old English. All sentences are taken from Old English texts and illustrated with a photograph. The majority of photos show present-day people and present-day surroundings. By combining these photos with sentences that are a thousand years old, I do not only want to make the exercices more entertaining, but I also want to create the illusion of Old English being a present-day language. Moreover, by choosing pictures showing funny, surprising and moving situations, I want to create a warm atmosphere of familiarity and intimacy between the language and its learners. The selected sentences do not cover all aspects of Old English grammar. The focus lies on elementary Old English morphology, that is on the inflectional endings of Old English words. As there is a great richness of inflectional endings and grammatical forms in Old English, I had to make a selection of them. The chapters of this book correspond to learning contents taught in grammars and textbooks. First come exercises on nouns and articles, then follow exercices on pronouns, adjectives and verbs. The gap-fills want to help you to practice things that you have learned in an Old English class or on your own. The solutions are given in the key section. Characteristic features and peculiarities of the OE example sentences in this book are explained in the commentary. All OE words that appear in our text are listed in the glossary at the end of the book.