Page:Excellent ancient adages, together with notes on the writings of Chinese romanized in the Hokkien dialect.djvu/10

 COMMIT TO MEMORY

the system of pronunciation and remarks on seven tones.

A as in far or tar.

E as in prey or grey.

I as in tin or pin.

O as in no or go.

U as in put or rude.

Ey is the sound of the French “è,” or of the English “e” in there.

All words beginning with hn, jn, kn, m, n, ng, pn, and sn are to be pronounced nasally.

G is always hard as in go or give.

Ch is always soft as in church or child.

Or has its ordinary sound as in lord or dormouse.

Chh, kh, ph and th are in like manner pronounced clearly aspirate, they are kept in the alphabetical arrangement like single consonant at the end.

The accent marks merely indicate the modulations of tones.

In the way of learning Chinese, first to catch their natural tones, which is by no means difficult, if the student carefully studied directly from the lips of a native. They are divided into four great classes, and each of these four classes is divided into two subdivisions called the Upper and Lower, and their actual nature is briefly given as follows:—

* These two are actually similar in tones.