Chapter 1 of Friend Mac Donald is here in full — 27 sentences across 6 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
A keeper or guardian of historical records and memories.
Chapter I
Chapter 1 of Friend Mac Donald is here in full — 27 sentences across 6 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
A Word to Donald. -- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character. -- The Scotch painted by Themselves. Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you! How you stuffed and saturated me with them!
Chapter 1 of Friend Mac Donald is here in full — 27 sentences across 6 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
Reading 1/5 · 5 reading units · Lines 1–5
These definitions explain words found in the current reading and keep every example grounded in its original sentence.
Oxford-style entry order: headword, part of speech, US IPA, concise definition, contextual example, and audio.
short account of an incident (especially a biographical one)
From this reading “-- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.”
plural of “month” — one of the twelve divisions of the calendar year
From this reading “Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!”
coated with paint
From this reading “-- The Scotch painted by Themselves.”
(American football) a play that involves one player throwing the ball to a teammate
From this reading “Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!”
being the most concentrated solution possible at a given temperature; unable to dissolve still more of a substance
From this reading “How you stuffed and saturated me with them!”
a slight surface cut (especially a notch that is made to keep a tally)
From this reading “-- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.”
plural of “story” — a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program
From this reading “Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!”
filled with something
From this reading “How you stuffed and saturated me with them!”
English keeps certain words together, and knowing the pair is worth more than knowing each word alone. Every partnership below was counted across our whole published library, and earns its place by appearing far more often than two unrelated words of the same frequency would.
Shown as this reading writes them, with the form the library counts, what kind of pairing it is, and how often it occurs.
In this reading “Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!”
Every word in these five lines is listed here, and every one of them can be played on its own.
Dictionary details are shown only when verified; these are not licensed Oxford entries.
used before a singular noun to mean one of a group, when it is not a particular one
From this reading A Word to Donald.
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
used to join words or parts of a sentence that go together
From this reading -- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.
short account of an incident (especially a biographical one)
From this reading -- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.
showing who or what does the action
From this reading -- The Scotch painted by Themselves.
an imaginary person represented in a work of fiction (play or film or story)
From this reading -- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.
dearly loved
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading A Word to Donald.
a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by “a”; a small but indefinite number
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
having desirable or positive qualities especially those suitable for a thing specified
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
the past form of “have”, used to form the past perfect
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
Dictionary entry pending editorial verification. Tap Listen to hear the word.
From this reading How you stuffed and saturated me with them!
the person speaking or writing, as the subject of the verb
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
inside something, or within a place, period, or state
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
belonging to the thing or animal already mentioned
From this reading -- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.
the person speaking, as the object of a verb or preposition
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
plural of “month” — one of the twelve divisions of the calendar year
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
belonging to the person speaking
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
belonging to, or connected with, somebody or something
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
coated with paint
From this reading -- The Scotch painted by Themselves.
(American football) a play that involves one player throwing the ball to a teammate
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
a fundamental feeling that is hard to define but that people desire to experience
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
being the most concentrated solution possible at a given temperature; unable to dissolve still more of a substance
From this reading How you stuffed and saturated me with them!
a slight surface cut (especially a notch that is made to keep a tally)
From this reading -- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.
plural of “story” — a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
filled with something
From this reading How you stuffed and saturated me with them!
used to introduce what somebody said, thought, or felt
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
used before a noun that is already known, already mentioned, or the only one of its kind
From this reading -- The Scotch Anecdote and its Character.
the people or things already mentioned, as the object
From this reading How you stuffed and saturated me with them!
used when the people doing the action are also its object
From this reading -- The Scotch painted by Themselves.
used before the base form of a verb to make the infinitive
From this reading A Word to Donald.
inflected form of “tell” — express in words
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
used to ask for information about something
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
in the company of; together with
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
a unit of language that native speakers can identify
From this reading A Word to Donald.
the person or people being spoken to
From this reading Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you!
Chapter 1 of Friend Mac Donald by Max O'Rell holds 27 sentences, grouped into 6 reading sections of at most 5 sentences. The text is the source edition, unabridged, and the chapter records which sentences cover which part of the work so that nothing is dropped. Every word can be tapped for its pronunciation and dictionary entry.
Chapter 1 holds 27 sentences of Friend Mac Donald, unabridged, divided into 6 reading sections.
This page carries chapter 1 of Friend Mac Donald by Max O'Rell exactly as it stands in the source edition, without abridgement. It runs to 27 sentences, grouped into 6 sections of at most 5 sentences so that a reader can take the chapter in steady, finishable pieces. The chapter also stores a coverage record mapping every one of its sentences to a part of the work, which is how the edition demonstrates that no line was dropped.
Work through the 6 sections in order, replaying any sentence and tapping unfamiliar words for their entries.
Each of the 6 sections in this chapter is short enough to read once, hear once, and then re-read with the vocabulary in view. Tapping a word plays it alone and opens its dictionary entry with IPA, part of speech and meaning, so the reader is never forced to guess a pronunciation from spelling. Working section by section keeps a long chapter from becoming an undifferentiated wall of text, which is the usual reason a reader abandons a work of this period.
Yes — every sentence and every individual word in chapter 1 can be played aloud in United States English.
Audio covers the whole chapter: any sentence can be played, and any single word within it can be played on its own. The voice uses United States English. For a work of this period that matters, because spelling is an unreliable guide to pronunciation for vocabulary that has fallen out of daily use, and a learner who guesses wrong tends to keep the error. Hearing the word in its own sentence, and then alone, settles it.
Common questions about reading Friend Mac Donald by Max O'Rell on this page, its source edition and its audio.
Yes. All 2488 sentences of Project Gutenberg eBook #33883 are kept, with a record of which sentences cover which part.
Project Gutenberg eBook #33883, unabridged. The Project Gutenberg header, footer and licence are removed.
About 207 minutes of reading across 498 sections of 5 sentences each, at an unhurried pace.
How to work through Friend Mac Donald section by section, using the audio and the tap-to-define vocabulary.
Choose one of the 30 chapters of Friend Mac Donald to begin.
Each section holds 5 sentences; read it once through.
Play the section aloud, then tap any unfamiliar word for its entry.
Words and structures a reader meets early in Friend Mac Donald, each tappable for pronunciation and meaning.
