Page:An Anglo-Chinese vocabulary of the Ningpo dialect.djvu/22

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1. In many cases, an equivalent for the leading word is found immediately after it in Italics; this is not a definition of the English word, but the translation of the Chinese word or phrase following it.

2. The system for spelling the Ningpo sounds, is that used by common consent for printing all the books in the Ningpo dialect, by whatever mission published.

3. Any foreigner who learns the colloquial, should get the sounds from a native who is acquainted with the Romanized system, as quite new sounds are given to many letters, thus — cing is pronounced ching; i, has the sound of the English e, e of a, &c., &c.

4. The classifiers are placed in brackets after nouns.

5. The syllable veng, after a word, is a contraction veng-li [wen-li], showing, either that there was no colloquial equivalent, or that while such a sentence might be understood among literary men, it would not be understood by ordinary people.

6. The small circle after a character denotes that the sounds of the colloquial, and the character differ; it may be by corruption, or because there being no character for the spoken word, another supposed to have the same meaning Is substituted.

7. There are some sounds, in pronouncing which, teachers differ greatly as in saying sih or shih, soh or shoh, siang or hyiang, cong or tsong, djông or dzông, keh or kah, heh or hah, &c., &c. These differences are often marked in brackets.

8. As the distinction between the sounds oh and ôh Is thought by many to be unimportant, it has been omitted in this work.