A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese

An 1888 primer on the Japanese language by a British professor of Japanese at the Imperial University, Tokyo.

Basil Hall Chamberlain (Author)

9781108080477, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 March 2015

498 pages
22 x 14 x 3.4 cm, 0.55 kg

Travelling in order to recover from a nervous breakdown, Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) arrived in Yokohama, Japan, in May 1873. He was immediately fascinated by traditional Japanese culture. At the same time, the national drive for modernisation in the wake of the Meiji Restoration had created a demand for teachers of English. Chamberlain was taken on as a tutor in the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, at the same time studying the Japanese language to such good effect that in 1886 he was made professor of Japanese and philology at the Imperial University (later Tokyo University). This 1888 Japanese primer is split into theoretical and practical parts: a Japanese grammar and a vocabulary of useful words and phrases. Chamberlain gives both literal and free translations of phrases and short texts for the learner. His encyclopaedia of Japan, Things Japanese (1890) is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Preface
Part I. Theoretical Part: 1. Introductory remarks
2. Pronunciation and latter-changes
3. The noun
4. The pronoun
5. The postposition
6. The numeral
7. The adjective
8. The verb
9. The verb (cont.)
10. The adverb, interjection and conjunction
11. Honorifics
12. Syntax
Part II. Practical Part: 1. Anglo-Japanese vocabulary
2. Short phrases in common use
3. Additional useful phrases
4. Easy questions and answers
5. Proverbs
6. Scraps of conversations
7. Anecdotes
8. Two chapters of a novel
9. A leading article
10. Japanese-English vocabulary
Index of subjects treated
Additions and corrections.

Subject Areas: Linguistics [CF]