Page:Lange-Noss - A text-book of colloquial Japanese.djvu/7

 PREFACE

The basis of this book is the first volume of the series of Lehrbücher des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen, published at Berlin in 1890. Its author, Dr. Lange, before his appointment at Berlin, had been for a number of years instructor in the German language at the Daigaku Yobimon (Preparatory School to the University) in Tökyö. Since that time all his energies have been devoted to the task of making his countrymen acquainted with the Japanese language and literature.

My own experience as a missionary student of the language having proved the value of this work I prepared an English edition which was printed at Sendai, 1901-1903. After I undertook the task Dr. Lange sent me copious notes of corrections and additions gathered during his ten years' experience as a teacher. Justice to him requires me to state that I used the material thus graciously placed at my disposal with a very free hand, for several reasons. In the first place Dr. Lange had prepared this book with the needs of a German student in view, and while the needs of an English-speaking student are in the main the same, there are many cases in which an explanation intended for the one will not help the other. Secondly, Dr. Lange's notes were in many instances mere suggestions, very fruitful indeed, but not fully developed. And, finally, I felt that I had one advantage over the original author in that I had used his text-book when I first learned my Japanese, and was thus in a position to test it as he could not. My subsequent experience in the use of the language had revealed omissions not so apparent to the author himself. Accordingly it was my aim to recast all the material in such a way as to make it most helpful to the English-speaking student. This book is not a translation and Dr. Lange is not responsible for any errors that it may contain.