WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD 
 
 OF 
 
 ACQUIRING 
 
 JAPANESE LANGUAGE 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 THE 
 
 Tokio Mis3ionary Conference. 
 
 November, 1882. 
 
 
 Printed for private circulation and to be had on 
 application to the author. 
 
i 
 
 
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 A 
 
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WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD 
 
 OF 
 
 ACQUIRING 
 
 THK 
 
 JAPANESE LANGUAGE. 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 THK 
 
 Tokio M13310NARY Conference. 
 
 November, 1882 . 
 
 Printed for private circulation and to be had on 
 application to the author. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/whatisbestmethodOOverb 
 
The following paper is printed almost exactly as it was 
 read. It was written to be read to a small company of 
 missionary friends ; which may explain why the style very 
 often is more colloquial than otherwise would have been 
 the case. 
 
 G. F. VEEBECK. 
 

 I 
 
 
WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD OF ACQUIRING 
 THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE, 
 
 This is the topic which I have been requested to intro- 
 duce by a Paper to this Conference for its discussion. I 
 should prefer that it had been confined, from the outset, to 
 the spoken language only. But looking at the common de- 
 finition of “ l(i)tguage ” as “ human speech ” or “ the ex- 
 liression of ideas by the voice,” taking into account also 
 that the first wish as well as Avant of every one of us is to 
 lie able to speak to this peojile, and furthermore consider- 
 ing my OAvn modest qualification^, for the task in hand, I 
 shall use the liberty of taking the prescribed subject in the 
 more limited sense of ; idiat is ike best method of learning 
 to speak the Japanese Language. For, if any here should 
 Avish to enter on the much more comprehensive inquiry of 
 AAhat is the best method of acquiring the ability to speak 
 the Japanese Language, as Avell as to understand and re- 
 produce the various systems of its formal expression, that 
 is to say, to read and write all kinds of Japanese composi- 
 tions, including neAA’spapers, state papers, letters, etc., I 
 have no doubt that excellent advice can be obtained from 
 the leading linguists connected Avith the British Legation 
 in this city. If I mistake not, a regular course of Japan- 
 ese studies, the result of years of experience, has long since 
 been prepared there and made obligatory upon all Student 
 Interpreters. My task to-day, on the contrary, I consider 
 
•2 
 
 to be : to indicate by what means or methods a foreigner 
 may, with a minimum of reading and writing ability, learn 
 to converse, teach, preach, and lecture in Japanese, hav- 
 ing command of a large stock of words, and expressing 
 himself with about as much grammatical correctness as the 
 average Japanese preacher or lecturer himself. 
 
 At the outset I would remark that I am well aware that 
 there exist many widely different opinions on this sub- 
 ject. So it is everywhere with reference to the study of 
 foreign languages. Some admire the method of Prender- 
 gast’s Mastery System, according to which you are not al- 
 lowed to inquire into any of the reasons and principles 
 which underlie what you are learning, till long after you 
 have committed it to memory l)y mere force of memory ; 
 others can accom2)lish nothing, unless they begin with the 
 article (if there is one), having mastered which they pass 
 on to the noun, and so on through the parts of speech in 
 order, finishing off with the syntax ; while others again 
 think they can do best with the so-called Ollendorff system. 
 So I doubt not a moment but that in this audience, too, 
 views will be held widely differing from mine. In this 
 case, probably, “ Wake-nohoru fumuto no niichi ica okcredo, 
 oiiaji taka-ne no tsuki ico 7nini kuna I shall be as glad as 
 any one here to learn all the opinions that may be enter- 
 tained on this important topic. In fact, I am convinced 
 that its free discussion will bring out very useful hints to 
 the oldest as well as the youngest among us. 
 
 As far as I am now concerned, I have no advice to give 
 to those who have or think they have found the method 
 which suits them best and is sure to lead them to success. 
 To those, also, who have already attained to proficiency in 
 speaking, reading, and perhaps writing Japanese, I have 
 
nothing to say. Those who come here at a comparatively 
 youthful age, have a good formal memory and years of 
 comparative leisure at their command, had better, I think, 
 follow a thorough course, similar to that laid down 
 for English Student Interpreters. Nor does my advice 
 find applicatioii to native students, their circumstances 
 being totally different from ours. What I have now to 
 say is intended only for those, who arrive here at a com- 
 paratively advanced age, having no time and perhaps no 
 talent to enter into all the intricacies and difficulties of the 
 written language. But even to these I do by no means 
 speak so as to exhaust the subject, nor would I wish to 
 state anything dogmatically. I only desire to say : in 
 my opinion, if you go about the thing so and so, you may, 
 with moderate ability, count on such and such results. 
 And moreover, if my advice seems to an}' one to be faulty or 
 impracticable, by all means let him disregard it and follow 
 the bent of his own mind. I hold that every student’s 
 opinion on this subject is entitled to respect. 
 
 One more caution : though I treat of “ learning to speak 
 Japanese,” I have not in view what by some is called “ the 
 colloquial.” If I mistake not, many understand by “ collo- 
 quial ” a very inferior style of conversational language, 
 such as is common among the lower, if not the lowest, 
 class of the people, a kind of Tokaidu tea-house and cooly 
 lingo. This I wish to have nothing to do with, in fact, know 
 little about. But I am in danger of trenching on a topic 
 which, I believe, is to be separately discussed at a future 
 meeting, viz. the style to be studied and used by missionaries. 
 I shall, therefore, say no more about this now, than that 
 in the present remarks I aim at something beyond and 
 above such “ colloqial.” 
 
4 
 
 As regards the order of my remarks, I shall first state 
 briefly what I have to recommend, and then add a few 
 observations on some of the points stated. 
 
 1. The teacher. — 1. Employ a teacher who knows no 
 language but his own ; unless it he during two or at most 
 three months at the very beginning. 
 
 2. Employ a rjool teacher from the beginning. By a 
 good teacher I mean one who knows something of the 
 grammar of his language, and pronounces clearly and cor- 
 rectly. 
 
 3. Employ a Wagahusha in preference to a Kangahto- 
 sha ; for the simple reason that the latter is likely to know 
 little, sometimes next to nothing, of .Japanese Grammar. 
 
 4. Change your teacher from time to time, unless yoir 
 are so fortunate as to have secured the services of an ex- 
 ceptionally good one. 
 
 5. Depend on your teacher as little, and on your unaided 
 pains as much as possible. Look up a word or gram- 
 matical iDoint rather than ask the teacher ; try to prepare 
 discourses by yourself ; etc. An assistant you will want 
 all along, but : 
 
 6. Dispense with the teacher's help as soon as may be. 
 
 The following matter I have arranged under these four 
 heads : 
 
 I. What to learn, 
 
 II. Iloie to learn. 
 
 III. What to read mid studg. 
 
 IV. Miscellaneous. 
 
 Some of the points mentioned are well understood by 
 us all, since they are common to all linguistic studies. 
 
These are inserted here simply for the sake of complete- 
 ness. Not having had time to rearrange the whole, some 
 of the remarks will be found to occur perhaps twice under 
 different heads. For the same reason much redundancy 
 of matter remains standing, especially in the latter part 
 of this paper. 
 
 I. What to learn. 
 
 1. Learn, first of all, to read and write the two forms 
 of lc(xna. This will bring within, your reach a larger 
 amount of native literature of the very kind you most 
 need, than you can carefully work through during all the 
 time you are in Japan. 
 
 N.B. (1.) In first learning the Icana, and for a long 
 time afterwards, avoid type-printed Icana, use rather the 
 graceful growth native to the soil. 
 
 N.B. (2.) If you meet with a work j^ou particularly wish 
 to read, in which you find some Chinese Characters with- 
 out kana, let your teacher insert them. 
 
 2. Commit to memory daily as maii}^ Japanese n-ords 
 as you can master. You will have no difficulty in selecting 
 those that are most useful. 
 
 3. Commit to memory daily as many Chinese words as 
 you may find useful. A good stock of these is required 
 in speaking. I commenced putting down a number of such 
 of them as I had found most useful, btit they came so 
 crowding upon me that I was forced to desist. You cannot 
 know too many of them, especially in order to understand 
 others’ talk. 
 
 N.B. (1). As an aid in speaking, a knowledge of the 
 2>articular forms by Avhich Chinese Avords are usually repre- 
 sented to the eye, i.e., the ability to read and Avrite the 
 
Chinese Characters, however useful and im2)ortant, na}' 
 essential, in other respects, is of no value. Of a num- 
 ber of the several hundred Chinese words I continually 
 use in speaking, I now know and remember the characters 
 well ; of a num))er of others which I possess and use just 
 as frequently as the above, I do not now know and re- 
 member the Chinese Characters ; yet, provided that I know 
 the words well, I have never yet found that the knowing 
 or not knowing of their written characters is either a 
 help or a hindrance to my using them aptly and freelj" in 
 discourse. But this leads to another remark ; 
 
 N.B. (2.) In order to know a Ch'nesc icon! well, so as to 
 use it intelligently and appropriate!}', you have to learn 
 three things about it. On this condition only can you 
 with safety dispense with a knowledge of the characters. 
 You must learn, first, the Chinese sound of the word in 
 question, as modified by the Japanese (the on), e.g., ten-hoku, 
 sni-f yokic, yen-kin ; secondly, you have to learn the Japanese 
 equivalents of these Chinese sounds (the kun or yonii), e.g,, 
 ((me {no) knni, nvkhu (no) cliikara. thki-chiknki. When you 
 have made some progress, these t^o ma}' suffice to make 
 yourself master of such Chinese words : but at first and 
 for some time afterwards, it will be necessary, thirdly, to 
 learn also the equivalents of these Chinese and Japanese 
 sounds in your own tongue (the translation); e.g., he ven- 
 conntry ; icnter-potrer ; fnr-nectr. In the case of Chinese 
 words which do not so fully show their accepted meaning 
 by the simple application of this threefold process as 
 does e.g., sni-r'yokn, niidzn {no) chikara, icater-power, a 
 fourth operation is sometimes necessary to show, for in- 
 stance, that heaven.-con.ntry stands for our Kingdom of 
 Heaven, and that far-near may mean far and near, or 
 
ill such phrases as: aoiiu f/eii-kin id kahawanizu, or 
 SOHO yen-kin wo ron-jesn, stands simply for our distance. 
 Ill this last operation, the dictionaries, the teacher’s ex- 
 planation, and the use of any particular word in a few sen- 
 tences inspected Ai'ill be your helps. 
 
 Passing each Chinese word as you learn it through this 
 three or fourfold process, — and it is done, after a little 
 practice, in less time than it has taken me now to explain 
 it — ^it is yours completely for all colloquial purposes. And 
 as regards the recording of Chinese words for your own or 
 others’ use, you can avail yourself of the Japanese way of 
 Avriting them in kana,‘AS in all Japanese dictionaries, or you 
 may find it more convenient to ivrite them with our own 
 letters, as Mr. Aston has done in all the specimen sentences 
 of his excellent Grammar. 
 
 4. From dictionaries, phrase-books, your regular read- 
 ing, conversation with your teacher and others, sermons 
 and discourses listened to, and from any other practicable 
 source, collect useful phrases and sentences and make 
 them your oAvn. 
 
 5. The mere gathering of linguistic material is an easy 
 task compared Avith the obtaining of a command of the 
 inflectional and constructural elements of a language. 
 The difficulties of the Japanese language, too, are gram- 
 matical rather than lexical. 'Without a‘ good knoAv- 
 ledge and ready command of the “ bolts, I'ins, and hinges,’’ 
 of the “ Avheel-Avork of the syntactical movement” of 
 the language, it is impossible to speak even a few Avords 
 connectedly. Nearly all our verbal store is useless, if 
 we not also haA^e “ the mortar and the bond,” by Avhich 
 our periods are to be “compacted and held together.” 
 And this essential part of the Japanese language, still more 
 
8 
 
 / so than of the English, is home-bom; not a single Chinese 
 element enters into it. We may put a good deal of alien 
 material into our periods ; but t heir life and nerve, and 
 actio n and sense, nay their very exis tence and cohesion, 
 are all and altogether due to native stuff. On this ground, 
 Kan-gakii finds neither a place nor application ; Wa-rjaku, 
 pure Yamatology only rules here. Not a single Chinese 
 word can have either existence or action in a Japanese 
 period without being first touched l)y this vital and vivify- 
 ing part of the language. More than 90 per cent of both of 
 Aston’s grammars or of any other foreign-made Japanese 
 grammar, and the whole of native grammars, deal with 
 \ this living native matter only. 
 
 \ What has been well said of the Anglo-Saxon and alien 
 elements of the English, holds still more true of the native 
 and Chinese elements of the Japanese language. You may 
 eliminate all the Chinese ingredients, and there still sub- 
 sists a speech, of itself sufticient for most of the purposes 
 for which speech is intended. If, on the other hand, you 
 strike out the Japanese elements, there remains but a 
 jumble of articulate sounds without coherence, syntactical 
 relation, or intelligible significance. Still further to show 
 the importance of this point : — do Ave analyse a sentence, 
 nine-tenths of our pains are bestowed on the strictly gram- 
 matical part do we Avrite or criticise a composition, our 
 chief attention Avill be directed to this same purely native 
 portion ; — do AA'e, for philological purposes, compare 
 the Japanese with other languages, experts tell us that 
 a comparison of their formath'e principles and struc- 
 tural apparatus aauII lead to far weightier results than a 
 comparison of mere A'ocabularies ; — do we aausIi to secure the 
 essential qualities of a good style, such as simplicity. 
 
9 
 
 clearness, strength, pathos, melody, elegance, etc., we 
 shall find them to depend chiefiy on the proper handling of 
 of purely Japanese elements. 
 
 And what is the conclusion of all this “? It is this that, 
 fifthly, in order to learn to speak Japanese, we must 
 above all study Japanese grammar. To be thoroughly 
 conversant with Japanese inflections, connectives, re- 
 lational words, and the peculiar collocation of words, is of 
 paramount importance to the speaker. Without this, a 
 student may find himself in possession of many loose 
 threads without the ability to unite them into a useful 
 web and woof ; he will have a plenty of bricks, but no means 
 to build them up into an architectural structure. 
 
 II. Hoic to learn. — 1. As in the study of all modern 
 languages, (compare writing, music, fencing, etc.,) first 
 study the regular and couiplete forms of words, phrases, and 
 sentences, and from these pass over to the forms of the 
 colloquial ; but in all cases avoid extreme colloquialisms, 
 if you use t' em at all, until you have made considerable 
 progress. 
 
 2. Eead all you can, although rather iutensively than 
 extensively . 
 
 3. In reading, analyse all that passes under your eye. 
 
 4. Trace every colloquialism to its source. 
 
 5. Commit to memory all you can carry, especially 
 convenient phrases, sentences, proverbs, and sometimes 
 short poems. 
 
 6. Write much, according to the stage of your pro- 
 gress : — copying ; dictation ; translation into Japanese 
 (somewhat after Ollendorff’s method) ; turning easy book- 
 style into colloquial and colloquial into easy hook-style, the 
 
lu 
 
 teacher afterwards correcting. I am convinced that such 
 excercises will prove exceedingly useful to the attainment 
 of an ability to speak with correctness and facility. A book 
 of graduated excercises is a great desideratum. 
 
 7. Speak much; he not afraid of making mistakes, 
 such mistakes as you may make being very efficient 
 teachers. On as early a day as may be, begin to teach a 
 Bible or Sunday School class. 
 
 8. Hear others speak as often as you can. Most of us 
 can say more than we can understand. The ear too re- 
 quires training. I have found this excercise to be very 
 useful and wish I could avail myself of it more frequently. 
 Why do so few of the younger missionaries attend native 
 preaching and lecturing ? 
 
 III. 11 liai to read and stadij. — 1. Of books prepared by 
 foreigners, always have beside you Dr. Hepburn's excel- 
 lent Dictionary and Mr. Satow's Dictionar}' of the Spoken 
 Language. Study Mr. Aston's Grammar of the Written, 
 and later also that of the Spoken Language, or both side 
 by side; Mr. O'Neil's First Japanese Book: perhaps 
 Mr. Evrard’s similar book, etc. 
 
 2. Of so-called phrase and conversation books there is 
 a great dearth. There is a number of such books gotten 
 up by the Japanese in imitation of foreign ones; but 
 among them I have not met with a single one, which I 
 could recommend. Mr. Satow's Knaiwa Hen, Mr. Brink- 
 ley’s Gofiaku Hitori Annai, and Mr. Imbrie's English Jujmn- 
 esc Etymology are to be highly recommended. i^Ir. Satow's 
 extremely colloquial conversations ought always to be 
 studied with the explanatory second volume of the series. 
 Mr, Imbrie's book will be found extremely useful in ac- 
 
11 
 
 qiiiriug native idioms equivalent to English idioms, or 
 those jjeculiai-ities of the language which in French Gram- 
 mars and Phrase Books are generally classed under the 
 head of locutions (facons de parler). Mr. Imbrie's book 
 offers a great advantage over French and German hooks of 
 the kind, in that his locations are well classified and ac- 
 companied by lucid explanations. A hard student rightly 
 calls it “ an indispensable book to all students of the 
 colloquial.” 
 
 N.B. In all romanized colloquial Japanese, whenever 
 the student is in doubt whether shi stands for ski or hi ; ka 
 and (/a for ka and r/u or k'wa. and [I'wa ; kai and gai for kai 
 and gai or k'lcai and g'wai, etc., apply to your teacher or 
 dictionary for an explanation. I hold it to be of the ut- 
 most importance that the student should know the cor- 
 rect form and sound. 
 
 3. Use at the beginning block-printed books in j)i'e- 
 ference to type-printed ones. 
 
 4. What Jiipanese books are we to read and study ? 
 
 I think among the readers and charts prepared for the 
 primary and higher schools under the Mombusho, a num- 
 ber of books suitable for beginners may be found. To those 
 who have made some progress, or even from the beginning, 
 I should recommend books like Satomi’s First Grammar ; 
 the Dowa Sermons, and books of that style. As a general 
 rule, I sh )uld say a missionary who desires soon to learn 
 to speak need not look at books written in Chinese Charac- 
 ters without not because they are too hard to read, 
 
 but because they use words and are written in a style of 
 very little service in learning to speak well. Books on 
 moral and doctrinal subjects for the people, I find largelj^ 
 written in kana, and full of useful words, expressions, and 
 
12 
 
 illustrations. Some of the Monogatari and Novelettes are 
 good. 
 
 5. How about reading the Japanese New Testament and 
 Christian tracts ? As regards the New Testament, I should 
 say, commence at once with Matt. V., and go on to the 
 end of the book ; select every passage 3'ou can anal^’se and 
 commit it to memory ; so also some or all of the parables. 
 The tracts I should not recommend to beginners, unless it 
 be Mr. Ibuka’s tract. 
 
 6. F amiliarize yourself thoroughly with Williams’s Chin- 
 ese Dictionary and especially with the native Chinese 
 Japanese Dictionaries, so that you can readily look up 
 Chinese Characters j^ourself. This wall be of great advan- 
 tage in achieving, quite independent of your teacher, the 
 three things necessary to be knowm of every Chinese word 
 which you intend to make 3"our own for actual use in speak- 
 ing. After some practice in this exercise, you will for 
 common purposes prefer the Japanese Dictionaries to Dr. 
 Williams’s. 
 
 7. This stands last under this head, though I consider 
 it of the greatest importance : Make yourself thoroughly 
 familiar wath the Japanese w'ay of dealing Avith the con- 
 jugations of the verb; hence study the Kotoha no Yadiimata, 
 Kotoha no Chikamichi, Kotoha no Kagoi, Satomi’s Gram- 
 mars, the introductoiy volumes of the Go-i, and other works 
 of this kind. 
 
 For practical purposes it will be sufficient to confine 
 yourself at first to the paradigms and lists of verbs ; if 3mu 
 can go be3'ond these later, it Avill be no loss. Here we are 
 on purely Yamatological ground without even a shadow^ of 
 Chinese. I studied the verb from these books before there 
 Avere any good foreign grammars extant, and hence may 
 
18 
 
 some^Yllat over-estimate the value of the works enumerated. 
 I know that to me they have been and still are of very great 
 use. Nor do 1 think that they have been superceded by 
 even Mr. Aston’s admirable Grammar, in which the treat- 
 ment of the verb is in reality founded on them. To men- 
 tion some of the advantages accruing from this e^ercise : — 
 
 1. Working with a good Japanese scholar becomes a 
 pleasure instead of being a vexation ; for now you staird on 
 common ground and use common terms, and can under- 
 stand each other ; whereas while you talk in Aston’s terms 
 and your teacher tallis in Yadiimata terms, though the 
 substance be exactly the same, it is very much like two 
 men wmrking together at accounts, the one using Arabic, 
 and the other Chinese signs and numerals ; — result ; con- 
 fusion and misunderstanding. If you use Yaclumata terms 
 yourself, your teacher, if he is a flood teacher, will not only 
 understand you, and you him, but he will respect you as a 
 ]]dtfiahuslia. 
 
 •2. If your teacher is not very good and hence apt to 
 make mistakes, you can control and correct him. To 
 illustrate by what may be seen in a late publication ; jmu 
 ask your teacher to write kann to three Chinese Characters, 
 one meaning fo pertovm. duti/, another to forf/et, and a third 
 to amend ; nowg if you reason with him that these three 
 verbs belong to the weak conjugation in c and never, either 
 as actives, neuters, or otherwuse, occur in the strong con- 
 jugation, and hence should be written tsutomnrn or tsuto- 
 mern, rcasnrnrn or wasurern, and aratamurn or arataineru, 
 and by no means tsuiomu, icasnrn, and aratamu, he will not 
 know what you are speaking of, and perhaps may insist 
 that he is right and you are wu-ong. But tell him that in 
 the Yachiniata these three verbs are put down as belonging 
 
14 
 
 to the iiui. and ra columns of the shimo iii-doi iin liatarnki 
 and nevev occur in the yo-dan no hataraki and hence should 
 he written as already stated, and he will understand you at 
 once and ]) 0 \v to the authority cited. 
 
 y. In difficidt or douhtful cases, lelerence to the sure 
 authority of the Yachim ifit is very easy. 
 
 4. The difficuUy of the cons inant il clianges in the con- 
 jugations, which is apt to trouble a heginner good a deal, is 
 removed hy a glance at the Japanese tabula, ted method. 
 
 5. I like and admire Hoffmann and Aston's treatment 
 of the conjugations as strong and weak, and especially 
 tlieir taking the Yochini. itYs shinio ui-dan and ni(h:a ni-dan 
 cmjugations as one conjugation, only differing in the final 
 c and ( ; but for practical purposes, especially to one who 
 has a good local memory, the Yarlnninta h tabulating 
 method, which shows a-t a, glance nearly all the forms all 
 the verbs in the language are capable of assuming, it seems 
 to me, must always be of great value. After having used 
 the method for some time, yon carry this useful table, 
 as it were, in your mind and are never at a loss, while 
 speaking, to have the correct forms at your tongue's end. 
 
 IV. Miscdhincons, — 1. As a general rule those who do 
 not speak fluentl}" in their own language, will not be likely 
 to do so in Japanese or in any foreign language ; though, 
 strange though it may seem, the reverse is far from hold- 
 ing good. 
 
 2. As the difficulties of the Japanese do not lie in the 
 vocabulary, so neither do they lie in the pronunciation. I 
 think a foreigner can reproduce Japanese sounds far more 
 easily like a native, than he can those of the English, or 
 German, or French. A’et there are some points here. 
 
u 
 
 which the l)oginiier shouhl get hold of at the outset. To 
 mention a few of such of them as are apt to be disregarded 
 by those whose ear is not well practiced 1. The peculiar 
 staccato way of pronouncing the "t owels, when they stand 
 alone or at the end of a syllable, aiid especially of a mono- 
 syllable. The nature of the sound is that of the Continental 
 long vowels, hut the duration is exceedingly short ; 2. The 
 distinction between single and reduplicated vowels, e.g., 
 slio and slid ; tnlci and tdki ; shite and shiite ; rhia and chiu ; 
 ha and ku ; etc. ; B. The distinction between the single and 
 double consonants, e.g., shite and shitte ; kite and kitte ; 
 ki-koku, tn-kokii and kak'kukii, Z(k'k< kii, shiippan, kicappnn, 
 etc. ; 4. The distinction between ktcn and La ; kwai and 
 kai, hi and shi, and others of the hind which are so com- 
 monly confounded in some local dialects. 
 
 3. Avoid extreme colloquialisms. It may he well to 
 understand them ; hut with teachers and preachers they 
 are rather in the way than otherwise, and hard to unlearn 
 if once acquired. 
 
 4. ?dnke much of words and expressio is prariicaUji 
 learned, ^[y experience has been that they adhere very 
 much better to the memory than book-learned ones, and 
 are more useful. 
 
 ;■). Make much of your mistakes in speaking and 
 writing. 
 
 (). As in other departments, in .Tapanese many of us 
 have to and do pass through the four rvell known stages 
 of: — 1. Oh ! it is very easy ; 2. I can never learn it ; 3. I 
 
 do get on a little ; 4. 1 can get aliout enougli for my pur- 
 pose. 'The last stage is jicrhaps not an easy one to 
 
 reach, but ]>a.ss over the first two as quickly as 
 
 sihle. I say this with a purpose. it seems to me 
 
IG 
 
 sometimes that some ■\vho made remarkably fine progress 
 tor a time, all at once come to a stop, as if they had gone 
 the whole length of their line. It also seems to me that 
 this need not he and ought not to be. I should sa}’ : try to 
 improve and expand and advance as long as you are on 
 Ja23anese soil and among Japanese people and Imoks, ■ 
 
 7. I said above : learn as many Chinese words as you 
 can. I would now add : hut he as sparing in the use of 
 them as you may. This agrees with similar advice with 
 reference to the use of alien words in English and other 
 languages, and I hold that in .Ja2:)anese the position of 
 Chinese as opposed to purely Japanese words is very much 
 like that of alien as opposed to Anglo-Saxon words in 
 English. At present the Johnsonese party in Japan is 
 pretty strong yet ; but the TI afinkn. is finding more and 
 more favor and receiving attention, (prohai)ly on account 
 of its essential value in writing and speaking! , As has been 
 the case in all European countries, a strong spirit of purism 
 is sure to sju ing up liere also : and although the Japanese 
 will never be able (like the Germans and the Dutch) entire- 
 ly to throw off the foreign linguistic yoke, I doubt not but 
 the Wafialnmhft will eventually carry the day. and the lan- 
 guage will become much purer and prettier than it is 
 to-day : there will be less dry bones and more living flesh 
 and blood. Besides eu^'hony and melody, the Wagahushn 
 will have the inmost hearts and feelings of the bulk of the 
 peoide on his side. 
 
 N.B. To the caution of being sparing in the use of Chin- 
 ese words, I would make one occasional exception. 'When 
 you perceive among your audience a few regular Kanrialii- 
 slui, put in, at or near the l)eg‘.nning of your discourse, or 
 in fact, in an unimportant portion of it. a dozen or so of 
 
17 
 
 hard Cliinesp compounds, such as the greatest pedant 
 among them all can impossibly make out wWhout seeing the 
 characters, —it is the easiest thing to be done — and you will 
 jji'obably find these very men jmur most attentive listeners 
 to the end, although in the rest of your discourse there 
 ma_y lie a minimum of Chinese. 8im])ly showing such 
 men at the start that you are not unac(|uainted with the 
 trick they themselves continually use to mistily and as- 
 tonish their hearers, will usually make them docile to the 
 end of your chapter. 
 
 8. Chinese words which may be used advantageousl_y 
 and sometimes cannot be avoided in speaking, are : 1. Those 
 which have been so naturalized in Japan that they are as 
 generally understood as for instance the alien words jms- 
 sible nm\ prohalile a,ve. in - English ; e.g., jdhi-sha ; yuhin ; 
 ri-JcT) ; cld-ge ; ken-hira ; and 2. Those Cliinese words for 
 which no Japanese equivalents exist. So nearly all 
 scientific and many technical terms, e.g., shin-gakn, dh- 
 tnkn, shin-kt), ju-rgoku, sIiim-j)o, kni-sci-td, &c. 
 
 Chinese words which ought to be avoided: - — 1. Those 
 whicli are not generally understood without the aid of the 
 e3’e. 2. B}' all means those for which good Japanese 
 
 equivalents exist and are now in pretty general use. 
 
 X.B. The greater or less amount of Chinese in conversa- 
 tion or discourse will also varv with the greater of less 
 scholarshij) of the hearers. 
 
 9. Conveniences and advantages in the use of Chinese 
 Avords. 1. In the pure Japanese there is a paucitv of 
 AA'ords denoting variety and slight differences of meaning ; 
 in Chinese compound AAords, thev are almost without limit. 
 Japan impov'erished itself l)_v borrowing from abroad : for 
 this easv process put a stop to the develojnnent and 
 
18 
 
 exploitation of its own rich resources. 2. Ease of inflection, 
 all Chinese verbs taking the one (Japanese) verb sum, and 
 the formation of adjectives and adverbs being exceedingly 
 simple. 3. In many cases brevit}^, a saving of words. 4. With 
 those who have otherwise not much to say, an ever ready 
 means of pedantic display. 
 
 10 . Some ma}’ perhaps say : “ Let a student devote 
 
 all his time to the acquisition of the Chinese Characters ; 
 while thus engaged he wdll get a sufficieut hnnwledge of the 
 Japanese part of the language, and thus be able, at the end 
 of a certain time, to spcah as well as write Japanese cor- 
 rectly.” To a great extent, this is true ; if sufficient know- 
 leclge is changed to considcrahlc. Icnowledge, it w'ould be 
 true to a still greater extent. But “ the end of a certain 
 time “ is a very uncertain factor in the matter. To me it 
 sounds almost as if one were to say : “ Aim well at a tiger, 
 and you are pretty sure to bit it and a lion besides.” It is 
 a fact continual^ noticed by those who use Japanese as- 
 sistants in literary wnrk, that those avIio pride themselves 
 on their Kuiujahu are, almost without exception, lamentably 
 deficient in a knowledge of Japanese (Grammar ; in fact, 
 few of them are sure of their spelling [kanudzukai). So 
 much so, that one would almost he tempted to infer the 
 general rule, that the better a native is up in Kungaku, the 
 more is he lacking in Wagahu. On tlie other hand, it may 
 well be said that, while a student is engaged in acquiring 
 the more than 90 per cent of purely native elements of 
 w'hieh the language is made up, continually reading and 
 using liis dictionaries, he so frequeotl_y meets wdth the 
 same Chinese Characters, that his formal memory must 
 be worse than even mine, if, l)_y the time he can speak with 
 some ease and correctness, he has not also at his more or 
 
less ready command a respectable number of the most use- 
 ful characters. Besides, I wish it to be remembered that 1 
 do not advise a total disregard of the Chinese Characters, 
 even in the cuie of those who make speaking their chief 
 and more direct aim. I speak hero to those who are lack- 
 ing either the time or the talent to make the study of the 
 Chinese Characters a special object. While doing so, I wish, 
 en passant, to refute two errors very common among new 
 comers : 1. That a knowledge of the Chinese Characters 
 
 is absolutely necessary in order to be able to speak Japan- 
 ese lluentl}^ and correctly : and 2. That a knowledge of 
 the Chinese Characters is equivalent to a knowledge of 
 the Japanese language, and hence, that a man who can 
 read and write a large number of Chinese Characters is of 
 course able to speak and write Japanese fluently and cor- 
 rectly. Against these erroneous views 1 place the fact that 
 the Chinese Characters are not a language at all, only a 
 certain method of recording a language, and that this same 
 language may l)e recorded or written, and is often recorded 
 or written, by several other and simpler methods. He who 
 wishes to learn the language, while he has neither time 
 nor talent to bestow on a certain method of recording it, 
 need not feel discouraged. The language and the method of 
 recording or writing it are two entirely distinct things. But, 
 of course, if the student wishes to acquire also the ability to 
 read and write Japanese in the way the natives do, he must 
 learn to read and write the square and cursive forms of the 
 Chinese Characters ; but I cannot help repeating once more 
 that the mere knowledge of the Chinese Characters cannot 
 impart to the student a knowledge of the Japanese lan- 
 guage, and certainly not the ability to speak Japanese with 
 ease and correctness. 
 
11. When linally, l)y the use of some such methoh as 
 that here (iescril)ed, you have come so far as to speak arid 
 write the language with a good degree of readiness and 
 correctness, you are in a ])Osition to take a part in the 
 work of translation, and especially — if otherwise qualified — 
 in Bihle translation ; for a.ll the Chinese Characters you 
 now want (a veritable minimum, indeed; are ready provid- 
 ed for you ])V the best foreign and at least fair native 
 scholarship of China itself. In all translations, the more 
 Warialcn. is brought to bear upon them, the purer, the more 
 correct, and hence the better will be the result. 
 
 Let us suppose I were translating. With the original 
 before me, I dictate to my amanuensis : ‘‘ Yesu kuchi wo 
 
 hirakite karera ni oshive ii-keru wa : Kokoro no madzu- 
 shiki -mono wa saiwai nari ; tcn-hokn wa sunahachi sono 
 Into no mono nareba nari. — Nanjira madzu Kami no kuni 
 to sono tadashiki to wo motome-yo ; sateha, korera no mono 
 wa mina nanjira ni kiiwayeraru-heshi. — Mata subete no 
 koto wa Kami no mune ni yorite manekaretaru Kami wo 
 ui-suru mono no tame ni kotogotoku hatarakite ifeld wo 
 nasu wo warera wa shireri.” — The Chinese words (about 5 
 per cent) are italicised- Chinese Characters are not at all 
 needed in writing such sentences : if inserted, they add not 
 one whit to the depth or beauty of the sense : nor, being 
 explanatory, do they add to clearness. They are really, in 
 this case, quite superfluous ; but if you wish to insert them, 
 just turn to the Chinese Version, where they are all care- 
 fully sui^plied. But all Japanese is not so free from Chin- 
 ese words as would appear from the al)Ove specimens. 
 Here are some original ( not translated ) specimens : 
 “ Wakaki toki wa, sliijo (fumi) wo yomu ni, mitsu no yoki 
 koto ari. Ki (h tsuyoku-sh'te, s/d//o wo oku yonde mo, 
 
 (l) A defective Chinese word in the .Japanese language, having no hun. 
 Here (and often elsewhere ): the mind, ar rather the intcUectiuil faculties. 
 
21 
 
 tsiikarezn ; kore liitotsii nari. Itoma Oku, samatage naku- 
 te, sh'yo wo Oku yomi-yasuslii ; kore futatsu nari. Waka- 
 ku, ki sakan nareba, ki-oJm tsuyoku-sh’te, oboye- 3 'asuslii ; 
 kore mitsu nari. Kono mitsu no koto, sh'ijo avo yoinu ni 
 yoshi. Mata, tosbi takete nocbi, s/i’yo wo yomu ni, ashiki 
 koto mitsu ari. Hitotsu ni wa ” : — • etc. etc. From an- 
 other book, whose stj^le, though a little higher, very nearly 
 resembles that of the Japanese New Testament : — “ Yo no 
 hito, waga ij^e ni wazawai nakute, saiwai aran-koto wo 
 negawazaru wa nashi. Negaite, zen wo nasazu, aku wo 
 osorezaru wa, tatoyeba, minami ye juikan to omO hito no 
 nagaye wo kita ni mukoru (mukafuru) ga gotoshi. Ika-ni- 
 sh’te negai no gotoku naran ? — ^Negai no gotoku naran to- 
 te, tsuki wo ogami, hi wo machi, kami hotoke ni inoru hito 
 mata oshi. Sono mi ni zeii wo-ba nasade, tsuki hi kami 
 hotoke ni saiwai wo inoru wa, tatoyeba, yone no tane wo- 
 ba makade, inaba shigeran-koto yvo negd (negafu) ga goto- 
 shi.” — 
 
 These three specimens show some of the kinds of style I 
 should advise students to apply themselves to. By the 
 waj", please to take note of the paucity" of the Chinese words 
 in these styles. The ability to read and anal^’^ze every 
 word and syllable in some 20 or 30 pages of such Japan- 
 ese is, in my opinion and experience, of vastly more value 
 for a missionary’s speaking purposes, than the memorizing 
 of any number of Chinese Characters. But some one says : 
 “ Very well, but Ave want to get both the Japanese lan- 
 guage and the Chinese Characters.” I wish to discourage no 
 one ; by all means get all you can. I repeat that I sj>eak 
 for the encouragement of those Avho by all means Avish to 
 learn to speak, and spjeak ivell, but have neither the leisure 
 nor the necessary faculties to go extensively into all the 
 
22 
 
 peculiarities of the formal expression of the language. 
 
 r in conclusion of all this long talk I sa_y with confidence ; 
 Pkemain 20 years in the country, mix much with the i^eo- 
 ple, read and stud}^ much, and above all, talk much— and 
 with the many helps you now possess, you are sure to make 
 more and ))etter progress than perhaps any one of us older 
 ones haye done. When I consider how long I have been 
 here, I feel ashamed that I do not know more of the lan- 
 guage and cannot do more with it. 
 
 Since reading the above, a little bird told me that a 
 number of my hearers have been discouraged rather than 
 encouraged by the method proposed. I would here add 
 the opinion that, for those of the ladies and others who 
 do not aim at more tlnin the excellent work of teaching 
 Bilde and Sunday School Classes, something much less 
 than here set forth may be found to answer the purpose. 
 Yet, in this case, with the dictionaries and grammars al- 
 ready extant, the students should be supplied with a good 
 ]dirase book, a series of graduated reading lessons, and a 
 l)ook of exercises. 
 
 The same little Ifird whispered to me that another num- 
 ber of my hearers had expected that, in the present paper, 
 they would have had a regularl}' mapped out “ course of 
 study ” laid before tilt m. It seems to me that the topic 
 set for the day would not have justified me in laj'ing down 
 a regular course of study. I do not see that anything 
 beyond the discussion of methods or a method could well 
 have l)een expected of me. Besides, I was aware at the 
 time that a committee of able scholars was under appoint- 
 ment, charged with the pre])aration of such a course and 
 I shouhi have been loath to anticipate their work. 
 
23 
 
 P.S. Those who wish to begin the study of the Chinese 
 Characters will find it profiable, I think, to do so on the 
 basis of the Eev. Mr. White’s new book prepared for this 
 purpose. It is founded on Mr. Gamble and Dr. Martin’s 
 economizing selection of characters. 
 
J 
 
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