Classical Chinese Materials

[Jive Turkey]

I'm getting to the point in my study career when I need to start thinking about studying classical/literary Chinese. My modern Chinese is now good enough that people who don't know I haven't really studied any literary Chinese just sort of expect me to be able to follow a lot of chengyu/yanyu laden speech. As for literacy in modern Chinese, if excluding highly technical or esoteric stuff, my level of literacy is probably about as good as it's going to get without studying non-modern Chinese. It seems like I've waited a very long time to pick up classical/literary Chinese in comparison to BA in Chinese students in the US or UK. Judging from the students I've met from the States or the UK, they usually start with classical Chinese before they've even reached intermediate level fluency and accuracy in modern Chinese. I guess that's fine; I've known people who couldn't utter a coherent sentence in modern Chinese but were decent readers of classical Chinese.

What's the best way to go about this? I'm a qualified language teacher and I know plenty about studying a modern language. Like anybody who's become proficient in another language, I've developed a lot of study skills; I'd actually say that I've learned modern Chinese a good bit faster than most other students I've known precisely because I had previously studied language acquisition and language teaching.

Unfortunately, it seems that all of these study skills for modern Chinese are pretty well worthless for attacking a dead language. All of the textbooks I've flipped through look boring as hell. The pedagogy, ahem, well it seems like there is pretty much no pedagogy for teaching classical Chinese. There's plenty of linguistic jargon and explanations, but there seems to be little or no method.

Has anybody here had much success with studying classical/literary Chinese? Did you use foreign published textbooks with non-Chinese explanations, or did you use secondary school books from the mainland/Taiwan/HK? Did you study on your own or did you have a teacher? Most importantly, do you feel like it really helped you improve your modern Chinese?

[skylee]

did you use secondary school books from the mainland/Taiwan/HK?

I think this is a good way. I know nothing about mainland/Taiwan textbooks, but the syllabus of HK secondary school enabled me to acquire basics on modern/classical Chinese.

a dead language

I think Chinese is very much alive.

I've known people who couldn't utter a coherent sentence in modern Chinese but were decent readers of classical Chinese.

Is it possible? This is so strange.

And good luck.

[Quest]

My modern Chinese is now good enough that people who don't know I haven't really studied any literary Chinese just sort of expect me to be able to follow a lot of chengyu/yanyu laden speech.

It is not necessary to learn classical Chinese in order to understand the chengyu and yanyu used in modern speech. I suggest you learn them as new vocabulary. You might find modern literature a better source for acquiring such idioms than 子曰 and the likes。

[trevelyan]

Are you interested in learning Classical Chinese, or fantizi, or both?

If you want a textbook that uses jiantizi, you might want to take a look at the "Classical Chinese" textbooks put out by the BCLU Press. I picked up book II (of III) today with kind of the same goal in mind. The text selections are pretty good, and are very heavily anotated.

[Claw]

The best book in my opinion is "An Introduction to Literary Chinese" by Michael A. Fuller. It has many sample passages and explains the grammar extremely well. This is the book that Harvard University uses in its Classical Chinese class.

One interesting thing about learning Classical Chinese is that you learn the original meanings of function words like 之, 所, 然, 以, 而, 於, etc., and how they evolved to be used in Modern Chinese.

[Altair]

I have a decent grasp of the basic grammar of Modern Mandarin and have done almost okay with classical Chinese using mostly reference grammars. It sound, however, that you are not interested in these.

I have not been happy with the other types of instructional material I have found. They give outlines of grammatical concepts, but provide too little translation or help with readings in context.

The book described at the following link looks promising: http://www.schoenhofs.com/app/detail?isbn=0691118310&referrer=WE:Just%20In%21%20at%20Schoenhof%27s. If I ever go back to studying classical, I think I will buy it.

[badboy]

Hey Altair, thanks for that link. Looks good so I ordered it, will pick it up when I'm in Rochester next week.

[pamokkha]

Hi,

so far i am also using Fuller's "An introduction to literary chinese". This books works well for me.

Is anybody familiar with Edwin Pulleyblank's "Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar"?

Florian

[Claw]

Is anybody familiar with Edwin Pulleyblank's "Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar"?

I have that book too. It's also pretty good. It focuses much more on the grammar though, and there are no sample passages at all, so it may be somewhat dry to read. I think it's meant to be used more as a reference than a book you read from cover to cover.

[yonglan]

The following link may be of some help . . .

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/1M8SRYGKFRHG0/ref=cm_aya_av.sylt_sylt/104-8520844-5157535

You don't need to learn modern Chinese first, but I think it would be more difficult.

I agree with whoever it was that suggested that if you just want to learn idioms, learn idioms by themselves. There are plenty of good books in English and Chinese for that.