INTRODUCTION.
While engaged in my studies in the Hakka dialect I put the sentences in Giles' Handbook of the Swatow Dialect into Hakka. Though I had not the pleasure of his acquaintance, Mr. Giles, with the greatest courtesy and kindness, accorded to me the liberty of publishing this translation of his book. I call it a translation of his book as the phrases are for the most part the same, but I have altered some of them and omitted a few, putting others in their stead. It will also be found that some words have been left out in the Vocabulary, while at the same time more Chinese equivalents are given to certain English words than appear in the Handbook.
Chinese, at the best, is a most difficult study, but there is no reason why Europeans should not, with a little trouble, pick up sufficient conversational knowledge of any of the Chinese dialects, so as to be able to understand much of what goes on about them as well as to make themselves understood. Large numbers of Hakkas have gone abroad, during the last few years, to the Sandwich Islands, Australia, America and the Straits Settlements; and we have also a considerable number in this "dot in the ocean" so thickly populated with Celestials. This little pamphlet, it is hoped, will be of some assistance to those who may wish to commence a study of an interesting member of the Fokinese family of dialects.
No doubt a considerable amount of the difficulty which attends
