Learning Classical Chinese from the ground up | Let's Learn: Classical Chinese #1
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- Welcome to episode 1 of a new series called Let's Learn: Classical Chinese. In this series we'll be going through an old, out-of-copyright textbook for learning Classical or Literary Chinese. I don't know very much about this language, so we'll be learning together.
Things I mentioned:
- Link to textbook: archive.org/details/introduct...
- Ben's Google Doc: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
- Link to Google Sheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
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This is a segment from live stream #3:
• 🔴 Let’s learn Classica...
#chinese #languagelearning #language
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I like Chinese poetry especially Shakespeare in Chinese. The economy, compression and logicality of Mandarin is truly mind-blowing (take the two horizontal lines - the higher longer one means end, finish, no further ((mo), the horizon is blocked) the higher shorter means unfinished, potential even the divine ((wei the horizon is open). Super presentation.
From my perspective as a person who learned classical Chinese in top schools in China for almost 10 years, there is no dispute in whether it is "I" or "You" before "often hear people say," because "I" is simply the natural use in classical Chinese. If I have to explain, it is a subtle cultural thing, as speaking about things from an anecdotal perspective ("I") is more humble, and being humble is considered very important given Confucianism. For the later two sentences, they are in fact abbreviated sentences (which you find a lot in classical texts). "鹊鸣吉" is an abbreviation for "鹊鸣（则）吉," where "则" stands for "then," as in "if-then." So, the sentence is actually an if-then structure, which can be translated to "(If) (a) magpie caws, (then) good luck (can be entailed)."
Many thanks! This is very helpful!
Outstanding presentation ! I'm studying Qing era medical books so must learn the Chinese of at least a century ago. Brandt's books are a great help as is your commentary on the substantial differences between the written and spoken Chinese of earlier eras. Brandt in particular underscores the differences and aids the learner by showing both the written text and then showing next to it the same material as it would be if spoken. Invaluable.
I was looking what youtube has on classical Chinese out of sheer curiosity. It turns out my first search result is exactly the same text from the same book I found for free.
There is some power in being in the public domain. It gives you a visibility, an audience, it gives a work a kind of status. It becomes a reference everyone knows, and uses/quotes/takes inspiration from.
I am really hoping to get back to this series once I can sort out what to replace the book (which I've heard is not super accurate from a knowledgeable source) with. I have half a mind just to go to some texts and plough through them but I'm not sure I'm up to the task linguistically yet!
As a linguist (in academia), it's so rare that I find good quality content in JUST the kind of thing that I'm interested in
I wonder if you would be interested in reading classic texts. I have a channel translating philosophical texts and poetry. I also offer online lessons. Please contact me if you are interested.
I'm loving this series, just started studiying lassical chinese weeks ago and it is helping me to understand better news and more elevated language in Modern Chinese. Glad I found this video too
Wow, this video was really helpful. I am self-learning Literary Chinese with Sino-Vietnamese pronunciations. Thanks!
I'm so glad someone else likes this very nice but oddly underappreciated book!
Nice! I started learning Classical Chinese today to read Zen and Taoist texts in their original language. Thank you for the video :)
You're very welcome - it's more fun to learn together!
Isnt the original reason that the classical Chinese uses single characters was that the sounds of the characters were much less alike-sounding due to the exclusion of -ch, -j, -g, -t (mandarin), etc? Didn't it also not need tones in older chinese for the same reason?
@@user-nf9xc7ww7m possibly, but to get chinese that ancient you'd have to go for at least ancient chinese
Brandt is a great textbook. "His Wen-LI Particles" is also very good. I was lucky enough to pick up a hard copy of Brandt in a secondhand bookshop many years ago.
Love your style! Keep going!
Thank you so much! Onwards and upwards :)
Nice, got this recommended just as I started learning C.C.!
Though I'm following Korean reading conventions and doing it YangBan-style (reading the classical beginner works like 千字文) this seems like it'll be fun to follow through :))
Thank you so much for this, I'm starting my Classical Chinese classes this week and I wanted to mentally prepare myself lol
文言 or Classical Chinese is very important in learning Chinese.
Wow, some Americans start to notice Classical Chinese. As a Chinese person, I can tell you the essence of Chinese culture is almost in Classic Chinese. You can't get it through any translation, you have to read the original version.
沒錯！但是我不是美國人而是加拿大人
@@ColinGorrie 哦，如果叫North Americans就可以吧？
Singaporean Chinese here and i absolutely agree that the essence of Chinese cultural is in Classical Chinese.
Very nice! Hope you make more=)
Thank you! The fourth one should be coming out soon!
This reminds me of the beginning of an Indian text. I believe the Mahabharat starts out very similar to this.
Thank you so much. Where can I get the right Chinese font for Windows?
My language’s interest lead me to this video. I love studying about languages evolving and their classical/ancient version
Not ancient, ancient, but from a century ago?
…ancient language institute Classical Chinese course? What a beautiful day that would be.
感觉‘而’对应 and then更贴切
謝謝！
intro song?
I'm currently learning Mandarin and I'm very curious about Classical Chinese... Regarding what you said about the pronunciation; is there a different way to go about pronouncing the characters other than using Mandarin pronunciation? You said it's usually standard for Westerners, but what other pronunciation system would they use?? Anyways, very cool video...
In Korea, for example, there are conventional Korean pronunciations of the characters which are used. Same, from what I understand, in Japan (which also has a more elaborate system of dealing with the many grammatical differences between Chinese and Japanese).
oh that is a rabbit hole that you don’t wanna dive into.
oh that is a rabbit hole that you don’t wanna dive into.
For flavor, you could use other Chinese varieties. Or you could use a Middle Chinese reconstruction lol.
@@kori228 There's at least one TH-camr who records in reconstructed Middle Chinese (or one reconstruction of Middle Chinese at least), @Phjong th-cam.com/users/Phjong . He's actually a friend of Xiaoma/Ari (white-guy-amazes-people guys), who recorded a good interview with him: th-cam.com/video/vFYbHUY9Sxg/w-d-xo.html .
大好
Still nobody has solved this mystery. Do the crows assemble in ONE tree in the courtyard, or are there multiple trees ? I should learn a more precise language !
"There were crows congregating in a courtyard tree and then they begin to caw with stretched necks". It is understood by context that there is only a single tree since a normal courtyard would not have more than a tree of the ordinary people. Understand culture and historical context would give more hints on translation. Classical Chinese is very terse and concise.
Is it a sin to read Classical Chinese using Japanese on-readings? 😅
A lot of the best critical editions of Classical Chinese texts were made in Japan back when it was the only "modernized" country in East Asia. Plus, a huge amount, if not the majority, of Sinology was (and to a certain extent still is) created by Japanese scholars, so I'd say you're in good company.
@@bureidokaiza2829 the Japanese on-reading are not the same as Classical Chinese …..
@@meic2387 ? Classical Chinese is the writing and grammar. Using Japanese on-reading sounds valid to me.
@@kori228 Japanese on-readings pronounces differently from Hanzi. Some are the same while others not..
@@meic2387 ...every possible pronunciation you can use is wrong y'know? Mandarin is out by over 2000 years to OC and doesn't have final p, t, k, m of Middle Chinese. Most other varieties are still too new, but at least retain features from Middle Chinese. Japanese retains a number of features of Middle Chinese pronunciation, though not everything. At this point, we're looking at the grapheme, the pronunciation really doesn't matter anymore.
Almost all books in Taiwan 10 years ago still go from top to bottom, right to left. Now with books flooding the market from China no longer so much.
斯文出自何書？遍尋不獲
在這裏能找得到：archive.org/details/introductiontoli00branuoft/page/n11/mode/2up
@@ColinGorrie汝的‘得’错矣，应用‘找的到’；
也可能是时代原因，现在已经错字错用了，就像中考考的炙手可热，原意为贬义
@@chemisthenry3001 得字正矣 何誤之有
@@chemisthenry3001 「得」是對的😀 找得到，看得到，聽得懂。
Sometimes the old stuff is pretty good? For educated people that really should not need to be said.
But in the context of classical language learning in particular, some old stuff available in English was pretty bad for a while. At least if you think the current fad away from grammar translation and toward more naturalistic methods is a good thing
@@joshuadonahue5871 ‘Fad’ has begative connotations, so saying a ‘fad’ is a good thing is contradictory.
@@ZephaniahL If my point depended on that particular connotation, this would indeed be devastating. Fine then, let's substitute 'trend' or 'tendency'
One knows this was written during the early 1900s not due to the style of publication but merely due to the translation of 莫大於天 as there is nothing greater than God.
It’s definitely a product of its time, isn’t it? After a few chapters I have my reservations about some of the grammatical explanations as well, but that’s the price of using out of copyright resources, or so it seems.
Nothing wrong with that translation
@@supermariozaken Yes there is. That's not the meaning a Chinese person would use it as unless they were a devoted Christian. Which is statistically insignificant.
It's so refreshing not to have to look at that awful Hanyu Pinyin, Wide-Giles is much more appropriate for the Chinese language.
I'd rather study more practical things such as coding or economics.. It seems not useful nowadays.
The good news is that you can code in Classical Chinese now: wy-lang.org/