4 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
now and then the Theoretical Part should be consulted on difficult points. It should be read through carefully a little at a time, after a diligent study of the Practical Part and a committal of a few pages of the latter to memory shall have caused the student to make some way in the mastery of the language.
II 2. The necessity for memorising cannot be too strongly insisted on. It is the sole means of escape from the pernicious habit of thinking in English, translating every sentence literally from a whispered English original, and therefore beginning and ending by speaking English Japanese instead of Japanese Japanese. It is not only that the words and idioms of Japanese differ from our English words and idioms, but that the same set of cir- cumstances does not always draw from Japanese speakers remarks similar to those which they would draw from European speakers. Japanese thoughts do not run in the same channels as ours do.
To take a very simple instance. If an Englishman wishes to make a polite remark to a friend about the latter's sick father, he will probably say " I hope your father is better to-day". In French, German, Italian, etc., the expression would be pretty nearly the same. In each of these languages the same kindly hope would be expressed. In Japanese it is quite different. The phrase would run thus :
Ototsan wa, do de gozaimasu ?
Ifonotirable-fathcr-.JIr. ti.f-ttn; How is?
or more politely
Go shimpu wa, ikaga de irasshaimasu ?
Itsffttst real-father as-for, hott delgtis-to-be ?
The idea of hoping or fearing does not present itself to the Far-Eastern mind, as it does so constantly to ours.
