LEARNING A LANGUAGE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 5, 30 May 1890, Page 5

LEARNING A LANGUAGE.

How annoying it is nnt to be able to understand a language, says a correspondent of the Boston 'Traveller. With the scanty Spanish at my command I am able to ask for and get whatever I want, bat in conversation can only obscurely guess the speaker's meaning; by a word caught here and there, generally at the end of a If only they would speak slowly, and use the shortest sentence! And simplest words ! Yet it is a decided advantage to be able to speak the language of the country, if only a little ; for the people always suppose that you understand an i know more than you really do, and this is a material benefit. One can learn witb ease and in a. very short time all that is absolutely necessary to make one's way through a foreign land. Here are a few hints : —

Take first a lesson or two in pronunciation from a competent teacher ; then master about a dozen verb9— the auxiliaries, of course — and several other irregular verbs should be acquired with perfect flexibility. Among the most useful of the latter are, in French, poiiroir, reuloir, and alter ; m Sp&nhh, 2>oder, queirr, and ir. Then the numerals should be learned, and so thoroughly as to be able quickly to count a hundred backward. After all, these amount to only two dcz?n words. Next follow half-a-dozen prepositions and half-a-dozen adverbs of time and place. And lastly, brief vocabularies of nouns — those in use in travelling (perhaps a dozen), at the hotel (a i-core), nnd in inquiring one's way about a town (a dozen),

Altogether, I believe that a vocabulary of ninety words, carefully Belected, would answer every pressing need. Of course, in order to be thoroughly comfortable, one should carry with him a pocket dictionary. It is far better to procure this than any of the conversation manuals offered at the bookstores as royal roads to the acquisition of language. These are not to be recommended ; their vocabularies contain words that one would never need, and omit some of the most necessary ; their " conversations " are highly grammatical, stilted and unnatural.

Mr. Swift MacNeill, M.P., writes (says the Dublin Freeman of . r Ah April) to direct attention to a wrong inflicted on the Irish Protestant clergy, as well as on the British taxpayer. He complains that army chaplains are brought over from England to minister to Protestant troops in Ireland, when the same duties could be performed by the Irish Protestant parochial clergy at one-third the expense. Mr. MacNeill, who has brought the matter before Parliament, shows that a similar grievance was successfully overcome by the Irish Catholic hierarchy.