Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Progressive Course Designed to Assist the Student of Colloquial Chinese as Spoken in the Capital and the Metropolitan Department, Vol. 1 of 2
In producing the present reprint of Sir Thomas Wade's great work in an abridged form, the Publishers have acted upon advice which was approved by Sir Walter Hillier - the joint Author of the 2nd edition published in 1886 - and also with the sanction of Sir Thomas Wade's executors.
Since 1886 so many new text-books on Colloquial Chinese have appeared, that much of the Tzn Erh Chi has been superseded in the curriculum of studies prescribed for Student Interpreters in the British Legation.' The Hundred Lessons and Graduate's Wooing have been abandoned for many years in favour of other works, and as the ti Erh Chi was primarily intended for the use of Consular Students it was decided - for the time being at least - to reprint only those Parts which have continued to hold their own as a textbook.
The present reprint contains therefore only Parts I. To IV., that is to say, the introductory Parts on Pronunciation and the Radicals, followed by the Forty Exercises and Ten Dialogues. In the opinion of competent authorities the student of Colloquial Pekingese has in these four Parts an introduction to the language which will not fail to appear to him more and more valuable as he progresses. The collection of characters to which he is introduced has been so carefully made, that a sound knowledge of them will furnish a solid foundation upon which further studies of the language can securely rest.
So much has been said and written for and against Sir Thomas Wade's system of transliteration that we will here add no more to this perennial argument than a request to the tyro: and that is, to remember that it is the only system of romanisation which has so far attained any widespread and lasting success.
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