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An excerpt from the PREFACE: THE scheme of this work is to provide a complete manual of the Japanese language rather than a phrasebook for travellers and others temporarily visiting Japan. Such visitors have not been overlooked, however, for a large number of Conversational Phrases and Sentences, conveniently classified, have been added, together with full Vocabularies alphabetically arranged. The Publishers propose to develop these sections for issue under the title of Japanese Self-Taught. The Japanese people, by their intelligence, energy, and enterprise-so remarkably displayed of late years-have raised their country to a prominent position amongst the Nations of the World, both politically and commercially. A great and growing interest, fostered by our recent alliance with its government, is being manifested towards THE BRITAIN OF THE PACIFIC, and there is a growing necessity for a simple and inexpensive hand-book of the Japanese Language, which the present volume is designed to meet. The work is carried out in the Roman Character, as for all practical purposes of international communication the Roman alphabet is being steadily adopted by the Japanese themselves. The native characters are however given, together with the rules of transliteration and a number of illustrative examples, so that the student may possess himself of the key to native literature. Japanese is usually looked upon by Europeans as being terribly difficult to learn, but in reality it is extremely easy when studied in the Roman character; the want of a really practical grammar on modern lines has probably given rise to the idea referred to. The Syntax certainly is formidable to a European, as it is quite different from anything met with in Western languages, but Syntax is of very minor importance in Japanese-at least as regards making one's-self understood. A Japanese would be quite intelligible in England if he said I to shop went, a book to buy, and vice versa an Englishman would convey his meaning equally well by a similar distortion of a Japanese sentence, especially as the language itself is highly elliptical, thus accustoming Japanese people to readily infer meanings from context, &c. The simplicity of the language is shown by such facts as that there is only one person in each tense-no concord (cf. French, and especially German)-no long lists of exceptions to rules, -only two irregular verbs of common occurrence, -and that it is purely phonetic (a most important point). The Author speaks advisedly in stating that one can make himself perfectly understood after far less time spent in study than is necessary in the case of any European language. Of course, to attain anything approaching syntactical accuracy, a much longer course of study is necessary than for obtaining an equal degree of proficiency in French, German or Spanish. The Grammar has been compiled from the Author's notes, accumulated during many years' experience in preparing candidates for examinations, etc., and much of the matter introduced has been suggested by the questions and the difficulties of pupils. No attempt has been made to discuss verb-roots, archaic forms, and other matters interesting to philologists, but of no value to anyone taking up the study for practical purposes. The Vocabularies and Conversational Phrases are the outcome of a very great amount of time and care, bestowed on them with the object of ensuring completeness and accuracy in supplying the words and phrases in actual use. The sentences are not mere literal translations from the English, but are those which would be used by a Japanese under similar circumstances. They are, in fact, not English-Japanese, but Japanese-Japanese, and in compiling them the Author has had the advantage of the co-operation of native linguists and others....

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