Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-02-08
CHINESE AND JAPANESE.
a Jap Says That He Never Knew q
European to Speak His Native
Language Eluently.

I European to Speak His Native
| Language Fluently.
tsWe hear great deal about the
ease with which missionaries acquire
the Chinese language" said q gentle
man of New Orleans, says the Times
Democrat of that city, who has de-,
voted a good deal of time to oriental
study, land the assertion that most
of them pick it up inside of couple
of years rather upsets our precon-
ceived notions as to its difficulties.
What they learn, however, is general
~ a mere collection of handy phrases
in some one particular dialect. It is
true they can preach in Chinese; in
fact, I believe 1t is required by all
the denominations supporting mis-
sions; but sermons over there are en-
tirely different from our own concep=
ton of public discourse. They con-
sist of series of maxims or pre-
cepts framed with more or less ref
erence to certain Biblical texts, and
are recited as one would recite a
| poem. It is form of religious in
struction that appeals particularly to
the Chinese mind, and a number of
/
the special assistance of the mission
airy along that line. By little rear
ranging variety of sermons or reci-:
tations can be prepared from a COM
paratively small amount of material,
and such thing as free familiar
talk is seldom or never attempted.
Corps of interpreters are kept at all
the principal establishments, and lam
told that they are indispensable at the
hospitals, to ascertain the symptoms
aof patients. Please understand" con-
tinued the speaker, shat I have no
desire to belittle the wonderful work
of our devoted missionaries in the far
east. I am merely trying to point
out one of the great obstacles they
have to encounter-the learning of
the language.
ga mission surgeon who had been
stationed nearly Is years at Tientsin
told me not long ago that he knew
only one European who could con-
verse freely and fuently in Chinese.
He had spoken a moment before of
being on friendly terms with num-
Der of native dignitaries and of even
ings he had spent at their homes.
| asked him whether he took along
an interpreter on such occasions. oh,
no!' he replied, laughing, but I
never failed to prepare a little con-
versation in advance. There is no
general gossip during a polite call at
a Chinese home,' he went on, but
the talk consists of an exchange of
higb-fown compliments and modest
disclaimers. Half a dozen ready
made sentences, fortified by general
mattering of the language, would see
me through an evening very nicely
! This was from a man who is every
where regarded as an accomplished
Chinese scholar. The enormous diff
ficulty of really learning the lam
guage explains the trouble we have
in arriving at the Chinese point of
view.
'In this same connection" he con-
tinued, 81 asked a very intelligent
and highly educated japanese the
other day why his countrymen
seemed to learn English SO much
more easily than the Chinese do. His
reply was interesting. The Ian
guage is just as difficult for one race
as it is for the other he said, but
the Japanese are willing to study
and the Chinese are not. Nearly all
the Chinese who speak English have
picked it up by ear, so their pronun-
citation is, of course, very. imperfect
and their vocabulary small. They
are not studious race and will not
take the pains to learn a language
thoroughly. Hardly any of their up
per class officers, except few of
their foreign ministers, speak Eng
| fish and it IL next. tn imDQSSih1e tn
find Chinaman who can read it. With
u.s. he added, st is entirely different.
We study English Systematically at
all our schools, and nearly every ed
ucated japanese is able to read it,
even if he can't converse in the
tongue.) That surprised me, and
asked him for some further explana-
ton. Well, it is this way he said.
We have many japanese scholars
who make a business of teaching Eng
lish-hundreds of them, all over the
nation-but the trouble is that they
have learned the language out of
books themselves and do not know
how to speak it correctly.
$50 in Japan you will find any
number of people who can read and
write English with great readiness,
but comparatively few who can con-
verse easily in it. I spent four years
studying the language from books,
and then had to spend great deal
of additional time in learning the
pronunciation I asked him whether
Japanese was harder to acquire than
English, and he smiled. 4 never ex-
perienced any trouble myself in learn
ing Japanese he replied, with a