A Study on English and Chinese Languages

Abstract

English and Chinese Languages, with the full title of A Guide to Conversation in the English and Chinese Languages for the Use of Americans and Chinese in California and Elsewhere, was compiled by Stanislas Hernisz and published in Boston in 1854. It is the first English Textbooks with the English Pronunciation Indicated in the Chinese Characters that was compiled and published in the United States to date. This book emulates the compilation style of early “Cantonese English” textbooks, using Canton dialects to mark English pronunciation, and arranges the content of the textbook in the order of phonetics, vocabulary, sentence patterns, and text. It integrates the characteristics of language teaching practices of China and the Western nations, and has had a profound impact on early English education and the compilation of English textbooks in China.