Page:The Chinese language and how to learn it.djvu/15



present work is intended to meet the wants of those who think they would like to learn Chinese but are discouraged by the sight of the formidable text-books with which the aspiring student is confronted. It is especially intended for the use of Army Officers, of Missionaries, and of young business men connected with trade interests in China who wish to commence the study of the language in England with a view to continuing it in the country itself.

The exercises contained in this volume, with a total capital of one thousand words, should be mastered in six months by any one who will devote an hour or so a day to the task, and the student who has mastered a thousand words, with some of the many combinations they can be made to form, will have a sufficient stock at his command to make his ordinary wants known. If he wishes to do more than this he must turn to the larger text-books which he will then find to be much less formidable than they appear to be at first sight.

With a stock of from fifteen hundred to two thousand of the right words, if he knows how to use them, any one can speak Chinese intelligibly, and a good knowledge of the thousand words which this book contains will take the student, theoretically at any rate, at least a third of the distance. He will find the remaining two-thirds somewhat stiff climbing, but with the start that this volume will give