^40 The Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, new series, 
If a man talks English grammatically, that is, correctly, he is 
never examined as to whether he knows any rules ; perhaps he 
never learnt a line of any English grammar, but it makes no dif- 
ference. But it is always expected that a man studying a foreign 
language should be able to stand an examination of a kind neither 
he nor his examiner could stand in his ipother tongue. The same 
man who meets a stranger in the street and knows well by the first 
sentence that he utters whether he is perfectly acquainted with En- 
glish or not, is perhaps on his waycto some place where he will 
pass hours in ascertaining whether a student has a good knowledge 
of a language foreign to him. 
These are therefore the materials which I would put into any 
man's hands, who wants to study a foreign language for colloquial 
purposes: viz., a vocabulary of perhaps 2,000 words, divided into 
sets of, from 100 to 250, with about ten thousand common forms 
of expression, composed only of each set of words and those words 
previously learnt. These printed both in the Native and English 
character, v/ith a verbal and a free translation, the sentences to be 
aided if possible by copious notes giving all the collateral in- 
formation possible; and to these to be added a very short rudi- 
mental grammar. 
It will not perhaps be necessary to give the verbal translations 
of any but the first 2 or 3000 sentences. 
As to the student's further study, he may of course now with 
perfect ease follow the ordinary plan ; that is, take up any book 
that contains the sort of words and matter most suited to his line 
of life, with an ordinary dictionary and grammar to which however 
he will have very seldom to refer. He will know so large a pro- 
portion of the words that the context will generally show the mean- 
ing of any new word he meets with, and he will lose very little of 
his time ii^ that which usually occupies about three-fourths of all 
the time expended in such studies, viz., in turning over the leaves 
of a large dictionary and guessing which of the several meanings 
there found for a word is compatible with those of the other words 
of the sentence before him, many of which he has also yet to ascer- 
