Does this ancient textbook show how Qing dynasty Chinese tried to learn English?

English learners in China started using Chinese characters to help them pronounce the foreign language hundreds of years ago, according to Chinese media.

In an old textbook owned by a collector in Chengdu, southwestern Sichuan province, the English sentences – most of them grammatically incorrect – have traditional Chinese characters as phonetic notations, the Chengdu Business Daily reported.

A publishing date indicating “The 10th year of the Xianfeng Emperor”, or 1860, is printed on the book, according to the report.

According to the book, the Chinese sentence “cut the price in half” should be translated in English as “less one half of your price”.

Traditional Chinese characters put the English pronunciation as “Lei Si, Wang, Ha Fu, Ya Fu, You, Pu Luan Si”.