240 The Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, new SERIES, 



If a man talks English grammatically, that is, correctly, ho is 

 ftever examined as to whether he knows any rules ; perhaps he 

 never learnt a line of any English grammar, hut 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 mother 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 way to 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, with 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 in 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- 



