july sept. 1857.] The Study of Living Languages. 241 



tain. Bat his great business should of course be to converse as con- 

 stantly as possible in order further to exercise his tongue and his 

 ear, and to add to his stock of forms of expression. It is to be re- 

 membered that, in using books, a principal exercise should be, 

 reading aloud and having them read aloud to him by a Native. 



If his occupation will require formal writing or translating, of 

 course he must exercise himself a good deal with books. It is 

 well known that the most easy and certain way of acquiring a cor- 

 rect and easy style in writing in any foreign language is to make 

 or procure accurate translations of Native books, and then re-trans- 

 late them, comparing such re-translation with the original and 

 thoroughly considering the difference between them. This can be 

 clone with the greatest ease and economy of time when such a 

 good fundamental knowledge has been acquired as 13 supposed to 

 be obtained through the system now proposed. 



The next point to be considered is the mode of using these 

 materials. 



The student begins with the English letters representing the 

 sounds. The teacher sounds each letter and the student repeats 

 it immediately after. This is done many times with those letters 

 which represent sounds entirely strange to the learner. The most 

 essential thing is to learn where to place the tongue in these last 

 sounds, without doing which it is impossible he should utter them 

 correctly ; and this must be most patiently and diligently practis- 

 ed, because this new motion of the tongue must be acquired to 

 the same degree of facility as he has in pronouncing the sounds 

 of his own language. This cannot possibly be effected except by 

 long continued use of the organs of speech. At first, each of 

 these letters should be pronounced perhaps ten times over by the 

 teacher, and repeated by the student instantly, the latter always 

 observing carefully the difference between his own pronunciation 

 and that of the teacher's, which immediately follows. 



The grand means to attain to a correct pronunciation must 

 always be thus for the learner to attempt it both immediately after, 

 and immediately before, hearing it correctly pronounced by a Na- 

 tive. Just as in learning to write it is not sufficient first to look 



