With some of the more vigorous and alert villagers of the North, extreme caution is unnecessary, but even in dealing with these it is advisable to lead gradually up to a subject, first asking the villager his name, then the name of his village, etc. Study, too, the way natives express the simplest sentences ; for idiom consists in using simple expressions as a native does, and not as most candidates imagine, in collecting and learning by heart out-of-the-way words or expressions such as "to become camphor" and "the parrot of my hand flew away." Why write, "These two rocks exhibit considerable petrological consanguinity to each other, " [1] when you can express the same idea by some such simple and idiomatic sentence as "These rocks are very much alike"? The other day an engaging-looking European suddenly put his head into my railway-carriage and said : "Are you alone in here ?" His English was perfect, still I at once decided he was a foreigner, for an Englishman would probably have said "Is there only one in this carriage ?" My questioner, it turned out, hailed from America, though he had no American accent.
A native, squatting by the roadside, might be asked what he was doing. He would probably reply : "I am doing nothing," and such a sentence would certainly be rendered by a H. S. candidate, MaiN kuchh nahíN kartá húN. The native idiom, however, would be [MaiN] Aise baiThá húN "I'm just seated like this."
Those interested in the modern methods of studying languages should refer to Professor Rosenthal's pamphlet, from which I have so freely borrowed.
CALCUTTA, September 1910. D. C. P.
- ↑ This sentence actually occurs in a certain Government report.
