CONSONANTS.  IffJ

iV  final  is  pronounced  Imlf-way  between  a  true  n  and  thoJ
French  nasal  n.  When  (as  happens  chiefly  in  Chinese  1
compounds)  a  syllable  ending  in  n  is  followed  by  i
the  next  syllable,  the  «  sounds  very  nearly  like  English  ng,  I
and  a  distinct  hiatus  is  made  before  the  vowel.  ThasgeiMOt  I
(almost  fe«^  a«),  "the  draft  of  a  document," — quite  dif-1
ferent  iiom  ge-fian,  which  may  equally  well  be  written ^e»«»i,.r
"a  man-servant."  When  the  vowel  next  to  n  final  is  s,  i
o,  a  different  method  is  resorted  to  (see  ^f  14}.
li  is    the   very  softest  of  Englisli  r's,  and  is  never  rollediJ
or  gargled   as   in    French    and    German.      Some  speakeni  '
pronounce   it  almost  as    if  it  weie  a  dental  <i,    especially
before  the  vowel  ;'.
.S  is  always  sharp  as  in    "  past,"  never  assuming  the  soft
or  z  sound  heard  in  "  misery.''.
It  34.  W  (pronounced  exactly  as  in  English)  shows  so  '
strong  a  tendency  to  become  obsolete  after  k  and  g,  not
only  in  Tokyo,  but  in  most  parts  of  the  country  excepting
the  west,  that  it  is  optional  to  write,  for  instance,  kwa-
sM  or  kashi,  "  cake;"  Gwai'musku  or  Gmmus/io,  ''the
Foreign  Office."  Even  between  two  vowels,  as  in  omo-
itv)anai,  "I  do  not  think;"  kama{vi)anai,  "it  does  not
matter,"  many  natives  of  Tokyo  drop  it.  In  the  present
work  the  w  has  been  retained  in  all  such  cases,  in  order
to  conform  to  the  usage  of  the  dictionaries.  Frenchmen,
Germans,  and  other  Continentals  are  apt  to  sound
instead  of  a  u'.     This  bad  habit  should  be  carefully  guard<


'-^


is   always    a
myaku,   "the  pulse,


Thus  the  syllable  mya  in
pronounced   asj  one  syllable,  like
aminhlg.
