Page:Craven-Grey - Hindustani manual.djvu/17

 by the machine three or four times, the ear will have learnt the accent and the intonation of most of the words, while the eye will have mastered the meaning. The lesson must then be repeated aloud with the machine, and in a short time the tongue and ear will work together. The beginner has drunk in knowledge by several channels at the same time ear, eye, tongue, and memory. Necessary grammatical information is imparted with each sentence. After the main sentence with its correct pronunciation has been mastered with the machine, the student should take up, by means of a little book, the study of variations on the main sentence, no word or phrase that the student has not already acquired being used in the variations. He first reads the foreign exercise aloud, and then, looking only at the English side, tries to translate. No effort of memory is to be made. If a word escapes him, he must at once refresh his memory from the page. These short exercises should be repeated at least three or four times a day. "In a few days the phrases will become second nature to the learner. He will no longer think about them but in them." Study, which should not exceed 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch, must always be carried out aloud. Mere repetition imprints the sentences on the ear and memory, in much the same manner as the Morse alphabet is learnt for signalling. Olendorf well knew the value of repetition, and if his ridiculous and inconsequent sentences had not been so repugnant to the youthful mind, his popularity might never have waned.

A systematic study of the grammar, and exercises in reading and writing, can be taken up after the sentences have been mastered.

Now as regards the vocabulary and the number of lessons on the phonograph. For Italian, there are only 24 lessons on the phonograph, i. e., there are 24 "records"; and the vocabulary