French (again)

Back-cover copy for Teach Yourself French, N Scarlyn Wilson, 1938 (1969 printing): "Anyone who studies this book conscientiously should be able at the end to read any novel or newspaper, to write understandable French, though it won't be faultless, and to find his way about France without choosing toothpicks on the menu instead of soup, or telling an astonished waiter that he has an enormous wife, when he really means that he is very hungry.  In other words, he will know quite a lot of French and something about France and be in a position to get to know a great deal more about both."

The book-reading claim is quite a specific claim; how believable is it?  To claim a text will give you conversational ability is one thing: conversations are full of give and take, and even a poor linguist can get the message across if the other person is helpful; books are different.  Are you allowed to use a dictionary on this test?  If I manage to work my way through this textbook, I'll have a go at reading a novel.  I picked up Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier in the charity shop today; the one thing I know about it is that it's about pissoirs; let's see what I get out of it.

N Scarlyn Wilson also wrote Teach Yourself Spanish, 1939 (I have the 1970 reprint).  Inside front cover flap: "By the time you have mastered its contents you will have acquired a really sound groundwork and will be able to tackle a book or a newspaper in Spanish."  Again, quite a specific claim.  Teach Yourself Books were still making the claim in 1960, with John T Bowen and TJ Rhys Jones's Teach Yourself Welsh, whose preface (in my 1967 edition) says: "When you have worked conscientiously through this book, you should be able to speak Welsh, understand Welsh conversation and read an ordinary Welsh book.  Is that a sufficient reward?  Surely yes, but more will be added.  If you are a Welshman, then you will be a proper Welshman, standing on his own feet, with his own language, his own heritage and not just a strange sort of Englishman.  Remember 'Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon' (a Nation without language, a nation without heart)."  Well, I'm not a Welshman, so I'll have to remain a strange sort of Englishman.  If I fail to get out of a textbook what the textbook claims I should, am I a bad workman blaming my tools, or should I just put it down to Wrong Learning Styles or a clash of personality with the author?  Michel Thomas used to say that there was no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher, but I've had enough education-related disasters to know that some of them were undeniably my fault alone.