Under the above title there has been issued a truly' great and exhaustive work on Mandarin 57 A man eminently qualified for the tusk. It is incomparably the best and most complete book extant on the subject of which it treats and it is absolutely indispensable to every student of mandarin,.A man. who has thoroughly mastered its 700 closely printed pages will understand all of the intricacies of idiomatic Ghinese and cannot help being a fluent Appase of the language. A venerable sinologue suid to the writer, That book would have been invaluable to me "hen I began the study of Mandarin." Its value to the student of colloquial Mandarin cannot be overestimated.
The, Mandarin Lessous are the result of twenty-tive years' study snd labour; and for the last four years the author has devoted himself almost exclusively to investigate dialectic differences, collating materials and personally superintending the Publication of the book. Like all first dus text-books it is not the working out of 'a theory but it isa growth. Materials whi accumulated during the author's critical study of the spoken language, wore collected into the form of lessons for the use of new missionaries in Shantung; und more than half of the present series has stood the test of actual use for many years. The Jessons are the effort of a practical educator to meet an actual demand of students of the Chinese spoken language. Dr. Mateer's "name is a sufficient guarantee fur the practical character of the work as well as for thoroughness and accuracy.
'The plan of the work is unique, and the author 7 it as its distinguishing feature." "Each of the200 lessons is devoted to one or more idioms of the language, the word idiom being' used in a somewhat loose and comprehensive sense." The work is not a grammar of.the Chinese language nor the application to it of We grammatical principles, but the subjects were evolved directly from mandarin colloquial and with sole reference to imparting a complete and accurate knowledge of idiomatic Chinese. The subject" of each lesson is some grammatical construction or peculiarity of the language, such as '*Common Comnectives," "Common Future Forms," *'Intensives," "Restrictive Particles," the different Auxiliary Verbs," "The Specific Sufix BR," "Classifiers," Initial Interjections,""_' Comparison," "Special Intensives," "Reduplication of Compound Verbs," "BEf with Verbs and Adjectives," " Quadruplet Phrases," "Special Terms of Polite Address," "Pithy Metaphors," ' Puns," ' Riddles," ete. In their range they embrace all of the important peculiarities and features of the language. They bring out in a very striking way the richness, force and pithiness of colloquial Mandarin and we imagine the book will be a revelation to more than one old student of the language, who will find in it more things than he ever dreamed Mandarin to be capable of.
The subject of each lesson is clearly and fully explained and thoroughly impressed upon the learner by abundant illustrations in the Chinese text. The author says. the statements and illustrations of the subjects "contain the most useful and important matter in the books."
All extant Mandarin was considered legitimate field from which to draw material for the Lessons, and " competent teacher was employed for years in ransack Chinese literature for sentences covering all fields of thought and embodying - all forms of expression with which to enrich the volume. Where it was necessary. to construct sentences it was done by Chinese who were inno way influenced or biassed by the author. The result isa volume of lessons in pure, idiomatic Chinese (not foreignised), containing a vast amount of information' upon a great variety of subjects. It isan immense advantage to t learner to known that every sentence is purely Chinese in thought, style and idiom.
The object of the book being to teach the spoken language, the prevailing style is colloquial, although in the latter half there is a large sprinkling of book phases The volume is re-gratulate the author upon attempt to prepare a book greater part of Mandarin Chins, writer has read every and it was very rare for him to come across sentence where e one or other of the parallel readings did not fit his dialect. The lessons bouk contains a very interesting table comparing the sounds in these five dialects.
The vocabulary accompanying each lesson contains full definitions of all words and phrases, the meani propriate to the lesson being printed in italics for the convenience of the learner. Particular attention has been paid to giving all of the Mandarin uses of the words. No dictionary is required in reading the book. It is complete in itself. The translations are accurate, in the main literal, and in many nees very happy renderings of the Chinese.
'A large number of notes are giv each lesson, devoted to the explain idioms and the elucidation of ab-str use points in construction. They also contain much information upon matters historical, political, social and religious.
Tt is @ pity that the author could not have adopted Sir Thomas Wade's almost universally used system of romanization, but the more we have studied his book the devising some other system to accurately we can appreciate the nacet fed represent the sounds of several different dialects, The system of spelling used is not an original one de naze, but a combina tion of Wade and Baller, supplemented only was necessary to secure the end in He claims as points of superiority that it is simple, self-consistent, comprehensive and discriminating, in all of which we agree with him, although some of the combinations, as Hsiiod (Pekingese for st), Kicing' (Nanking JX) and Tshiiin and Tshtiung (Weihien and Ff) look rather peculiar.
The Introduction contains much valuable matter on the language in geiveral; an explanation of the author's system of spelling chapter each devoted to the tones and aspirates; tables of radicals; tone and aspirate exercises; sound tables for Peking, Nanking, Kiukiang, 'éngchow and Wei-hien, and some patticalarly useful advice to the student. 9 The supplement is made up of long lists of supplementary words and phrases illus. trating some of the most important lessons, three characteristic dialogues and the seme number of capital orations, besides syllabic and radical indexes.
The book is well printed on good paper and is substantially and neatly bound. Tt has no wide margins nor large. blank spacers but is evidently got up with, lew to give the purchaser the most for his money.
This volume is destined to become the standard work for students of the Chinese spoken language and we consider it final and exhaustive so far as the Mandarin dialect is concerned, 2
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.