want Toes Move Fase (By and Humosr)—-By Grace Cy Agar.
Kelly & Walsh,, Shanghai. $0.
Students of Chinese colloquial will be grateful to Miss Ager for her ingenious system of memorisation of tones which are the greatest stumbling block to those who wish to perfect themselves in the Chinese spoken language." Her system of stringing together into short, pithy sentences, two or more words of the same sound and tone but elated meaning, if conscientiously studied, ought to be of the greatest help in fixing in the mind of the student the correct tone of any one] Th of them, "The nonsensical sentences fare perhaps more Li stick in the memory than the others, and the author might indeed have éndulged herself in humorous fancy to an even greater degree. sentence "the flea bathes early" is example and could scarcely fail to fix in the mind the act that the character "tsao", which Joceurs three times in this sentence, fs definitely in the third tone, Fortunately for the student Chinese, monosyllables in the spoken language are so far modified jas to become in practice, with the addition of another monosyllable, practically words of two syllables, the second syllable being very fre quently a diminutive," such as, "tau" or "erh", resembling in. thi respect the German suffixes "chen" and Hein." Moreover, a. speaking Chinese, as is the case with other languages, emphasis is only placed jon certain words in a sentence. Thus, while it is essential for the correct speaker to know the tone of the various syllables he is using, he need only take care to be accurate fin those which are specially _em-Jphasised in any particular sentence: the west are comparatively toneless in English, German or any other European language.
If one might therefore venture suggest a slight improvement in Miss Agar's excellent. little work, would be that she should differentiate in her tone-signs, between em-phasmed and non-emphasised syle ies. The failure to do this is apt to be a little confusing and tf and when further editions of this tonic volume are published, it might be a distinct improvement if by using italies or by game other means the Indication of emphasis might Jadded to the indication "of tone.
other improvement would be an index or glossary at the end of th volume for easy reference to the Jactual characters and. sentences used in the volume of the work. Might one also hope that a successor may be found to the ingenious Mr. Nittle, whose illustrations to the first part ofthe book add not a little to its humour and consequent studied Latin Jand Greek in their school days have much to be grateful for to the authors of little doggerel verses the memorizing of which jhas pre-from many a "howler". has been the fashion in. "Man; 1s in is! we to decry such aids to
igned" £ollowed by a said nouns, yet it is astonishing how they stick jin the mind long after the facility ito quote the hexameters and pentameters of classic verse hax been perhaps reached their hig Systems of memor
Slopment so far io Pelmanism, and While alist Agar can hardly" lair have completely pelmanited. th Chinese. spoken language, stil fits mide' notewsrthg" contra lon for which those seeking to im-Prove. the lation of the beauty If Miss Agar is looking for fresh fields to conquer i task simplifying the complexities of the Chinese language, she might. ce [tinue the good work her ingenuity to the radicals and Phonetics of the written character. tural authorities. Opiaion varies as {0 exactly how much could be grown, But "all authorities. aptes "that "we sguldcprodscn at leat 80 General of Food Supp changed our" diet to. the extent of ating less meat and more cereals, countries which become over: populated tend To substitute cereals for meat.
This book is full of such straightforward, simply expressed common sense on every aspect of the most vital topic im generations: here, at least, one is not lost in the wood [when in search for truth—N.AxK.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.