余幼时诵方望溪姚姬传刘大櫆诸先生所为古文辞，窃喜其意在言外，淡而弥永，至于循玩不忍释手。长习英吉利文字，仍嗜读其隽逸有神味者。求诸国内殆鲜其人；有之自嘉定葛君传椝始。葛君夙赋天禀，又能力学不倦。骤聆其言论，似尚诡辩，多偏见；然静焉思之，确有至理存乎其间。譬食谏果，初甚涩口，终则齿颊间津津有余味也。其……

Except for the fact that it is issued in three volumes, this book may be properly called an omnibus. It contains special articles, letters, prefaces, ……

《葛传椝英文学习法》所收文章多出自《葛传椝英文集》（Man and Student）第一集，书中最后四篇“On the Europeanization of the Chinese Language”，“Some Fragments of Pai Chü-I's Poetry Concerning ……

I ask you this question. But I do not want you to answer me. I want you only to answer yourself. You might answer me falsely.You might answer anybody ……

In this book you will find many bits of advice and information that you have not found elsewhere. I shall write in the light of my own experience and……

It goes without saying that every student of English must have a dictionary. I do not know what dictionary you use. Do you use a large or a small one?……

As you know very well, dictionaries are reference books — books not for continuous reading but for occasional consulting. But I would here advise you ……

Do you think your pronunciation is good, reader? Your friends may tell you so. You speak English and they understand you. They speak English and you u……

The best way to learn good pronunciation is to study under an Englishman or American and imitate him. But I have to suppose that you do not study unde……

Suppose you have two friends, A and B, both of whom have been studying English for some years. Both are clever young men, and both are anxious to acqu……

Do you ever read aloud? The chances are that you do not now read aloud. You used to read aloud when you were a small child. But you ceased to read alo……

When you open a new book, which part do you read first? I read the preface first — that is, after glancing at the title-page. I read the preface very ……

I have heard several people tell me that in reading English-language newspapers they find Chinese news far easier to read than foreign news, and that ……

I improvised the following four lines the other day: Repulsed by kith and kin The young man is exceeding sad: But fortunate for him, A former teacher ……

Read the following simple poem by Mary Lamb: In Memoriam A child's a plaything for an hour; Its pretty tricks we try For that or for a longer space, —……

Books on composition contain some "don'ts" that are quite useless to Chinese students of English. For example, they advise the avoidance of slang; but……

Before reading on, please consider the following short sentence: They cannot see enough of each other. What do you think this sentence means? Well, pl……

Idiom and slang are often hard to distinguish. They oft so mix, the difference is too nice Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice. Theoretically, i……

What do you think is the real meaning of the often quoted line from Shakespeare "All that glisters is not gold"? The strict sense would be that gliste……

Quotation-marks, as you must know, are used to mark quotations, as in:"Where are you going, Mary?" asked John. "I am going to my uncle's, John," repli……

An English editor of a famous classic says in his notes to the book:"Double negatives in Elizabethan grammar amount, not to an assertion as they do in……

Once a student found the expression "would of come" in a magazine and asked me to explain it. Do you understand it, reader? Have you ever seen such ex……

A little girl in Charlotte Brontë's Villette cries "No! No! NO!" when a boy threatens to cut a picture of a child playing with a pretty dog. "No!" is ……

Some time ago a visitor in northern England asked a business friend if trade was improving. "Oh", said the merchant, "let's look on the bright side of……

This somebody has said of the rhetorical figure called the hyperbole. If you are very lazy and yet tell your friend that you work ten hours every day,……

Perhaps you have read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, one of the best-known nonsense stories in English. In case you have not read i……

"Humour" is one of the very few words that have been translated into Chinese according to their sound and sense alike. As probably you know, the trans……

Well, I am not going to talk about any Irish breed of male oxen. You are a language student, not a zoologist. Nor do I possess any special knowledge o……

Once when Oliver Goldsmith was a boy, a ne'er-do-well relative asked him when he meant to grow handsome. After a painful silence, the awkward boy repl……

Jokes, as everybody knows, serve to excite laughter. But a joke cannot make those laugh who do not see its point. Many Chinese students of English can……

There are riddles in English as well as in Chinese. The following little poem is a common English riddle: Formed long ago, yet made today, Employed wh……

If you look up the word "essay" in a dictionary, you will find it has two senses: the very common sense of a kind of literary composition and the unco……

I have heard several people say that they often find it more difficult to read the heading of a news item than to read the news item itself. This is n……

Besides its heading, a news item often has one or more sub-headings, which give more information about the news. For example, the heading "Night Train……

There are news items that consist of only one or two sentences, such as (all fictitious): 1. It is reported on good authority that an air service will……

It is only by swimming that one can learn to swim. Likewise, it is only by reading English news items that one can learn to read English news items. "……

Newspapers contain several things besides news items. That which is in nature somewhat like the news items is the letters from correspondents. For ins……

An English newspaper usually carries a department called "Letters to the Editor" or "Correspondence". The letters printed in it are addressed by the r……

English newspapers contain leaders, or leading articles, and leaderettes. A leader is the expression of the newspaper's opinion on some subject of gen……

Many English newspapers carry a book page once every few days. It contains notices or reviews of new books and little bits of literary news, and is a ……

A "woman's page" is not a necessary feature of a news­paper, but many modern English newspapers have a column called "The Woman's Page" or something l……

Many English newspapers have special sections for articles and notes on dramas, movies, dancing, and other forms of entertainment. Such articles and n……

Every English newspaper carries advertising. There are various forms and styles of advertisement, and it is impossible to give any example of full-pag……

In a manual of idiomatic English written by an English­man for Indian students, the author says in the preface: "All teachers of youth in the East sho……

When you read a short story, you may read it merely for pleasure. When you read a biographical sketch, you may read it merely for information. But as ……

I have been told by more than one bookseller that, here in China, so far as books on English are concerned, grammars sell better than other kinds of b……

Many Chinese learners of English know just enough grammar to go wrong. "It seems I have seen such an expression several times", they say to themselves……

Books on rhetoric may tell you many principles of composition. But the principle that I am going to explain is one that I have not found in any book o……

Do you often meet with a word or phrase or construction that you understand fully without being able to translate it into readable Chinese? I believe ……

Do you, reader, find any mistake in the following sentences? 1. I study English for going abroad. 2. I have met him for five times. 3. Pardon me for ……

After reading my article "Some Mistakes to Consider", a reader wrote to ask me to give more mistakes to consider. I hope you will be interested to rea……

A word is not your own until you can use it correctly. You may know one or more Chinese equivalents for a word and yet you may not be able to use it c……

Whenever I read a school composition, I am ready to find one or more of a few words — "diligent", "society", "famous", "suitable", "strong", "always",……

Below are some common English metaphorical idioms, given at random, that every learner of English should know: Better half　Keep the wolf from the door……

Quite recently I found in a returned student from America a votary of Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan's The Rivals. As we are both natives of South Kiangsu, ……

Once in an essay written by a man who had studied in England for several years I saw the word "destruct", which was evidently used in the sense of "de……

Books on rhetoric and composition tell us that English may be roughly classified as (1) literary English and (2) colloquial English, and that literary……

As you may gather from what I have said before, idiomatic and pure English does not consist in the use of hard words and phrases and involved construc……

"And you can write commercial English, can't you?" — I was asked this question by a business man some weeks ago. He seemed to say:"For all your litera……

The following sentence is taken from The Spectator, a newspaper formerly published in England:"A Resolution was moved and carried in favour of giving ……

Too often a learner of English who has read one or two classics tries to imitate their style. The fact, however, is that style cannot be imitated. Dif……

Paraphrase, according to The Concise Oxford Dictionary, is "free rendering or amplification of a passage, expression of its sense in other words". For……

What do you mean when you say "I get good marks for English composition"? Of course, you mean you get good marks for writing compositions in English —……

One of my favourite books is William Cowper's Letters. I like his poems very much, but I like his letters much more. Cowper was a great English poet o……

The following is a letter that I wrote for a friend a few days ago (but the names and addresses have here been replaced with fictitious ones): 6489 An……

"I'm afraid it's too short." Often, when I have written or corrected a letter for a friend, he says this. My usual answer is "Never mind the shortness……

Nearly every manual of English letter-writing that I have ever read says that a letter should not begin with the pronoun "I". The fact, however, is th……

I wrote the following letter to Shanghai Power Company for a neighbour of mine some time ago: Address Date Shanghai Power Company Nanking Road Shangha……

There are a number of words especially common in letters. Below are some of those that seem to me to be often misused by Chinese learners of English, ……

Some time ago I told a friend on the telephone that I would like to call on him on the following Sunday, and he promised that he would be at home. Whe……

As is well known to the general newspaper and magazine reading public, the Chinese language, as employed by the "new" literary men, has during the pas……

Pai Chü-i（白居易），alias Pai Lo-t'ien（白乐天），was one of the most eminent poets of the Tang dynasty. He has been considered the greatest Chinese folk poet, p……

The Oxford English Dictionary defines lyrics as "Short poems (whether or not intended to be sung), usually divided into stanzas or strophes, and direc……

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very glad to have a chance to talk to you. I am well aware that I speak Chinese better than English. I have decided to spea……