問我anything with OneEye

[Shelley]

I would have expected classical Chinese to be written in full form because they were written before simplification took place.

[OneEye]

I took a look at the passage you recommended. Pardon my ignorance, but are such 文言文 texts always written using 繁体字？

 

Well, there should be simplified versions available. Actually, Wikisource has it in simplified:

 

项王军壁垓下，兵少食尽，汉军及诸侯兵围之数重。夜闻汉军四面皆楚歌，项王乃大惊曰：“汉皆已得楚乎？是何楚人之多也！”项王则夜起，饮帐中。有美 人名虞，常幸从；骏马名骓，常骑之。于是项王乃悲歌慨，自为诗曰：“力拔山兮气盖世，时不利兮骓不逝。骓不逝兮可柰何，虞兮虞兮柰若何！”歌数阕，美人和 之。项王泣数行下，左右皆泣，莫能仰视。

 

于是项王乃上马骑，麾下壮士骑从者八百余人，直夜溃围南出，驰走。平明，汉军乃觉之，令骑将灌婴以五千骑追之。项王渡淮，骑能属者百余人耳。项王至 阴陵，迷失道，问一田父，田父绐曰“左”。左，乃陷大泽中。以故汉追及之。项王乃复引兵而东，至东城，乃有二十八骑。汉骑追者数千人。项王自度不得脱。谓 其骑曰：“吾起兵至今八岁矣，身七十余战，所当者破，所击者服，未尝败北，遂霸有天下。然今卒困于此，此天之亡我，非战之罪也。今日固决死，愿为诸君快 战，必三胜之，为诸君溃围，斩将，刈旗，令诸君知天亡我，非战之罪也。”乃分其骑以为四队，四向。汉军围之数重。项王谓其骑曰：“吾为公取彼一将。”令四 面骑驰下，期山东为三处。于是项王大呼驰下，汉军皆披靡，遂斩汉一将。是时，赤泉侯为骑将，追项王，项王瞋目而叱之，赤泉侯人马俱惊，辟易数里与其骑会为 三处。汉军不知项王所在，乃分军为三，复围之。项王乃驰，复斩汉一都尉，杀数十百人，复聚其骑，亡其两骑耳。乃谓其骑曰：“何如？”骑皆伏曰：“如大王 言。”

 

于是项王乃欲东渡乌江。乌江亭长檥船待，谓项王曰：“江东虽小，地方千里，众数十万人，亦足王也。愿大王急渡。今独臣有船，汉军至，无以渡。”项王 笑曰：“天之亡我，我何渡为！且籍与江东子弟八千人渡江而西，今无一人还，纵江东父兄怜而王我，我何面目见之？纵彼不言，籍独不愧于心乎？”乃谓亭长曰： “吾知公长者。吾骑此马五岁，所当无敌，尝一日行千里，不忍杀之，以赐公。”乃令骑皆下马步行，持短兵接战。独籍所杀汉军数百人。项王身亦被十余创。顾见 汉骑司马吕马童，曰：“若非吾故人乎？”马童面之，指王翳曰：“此项王也。”项王乃曰：“吾闻汉购我头千金，邑万户，吾为若德。”乃自刎而死。

[roddy]

Which if any site members have you met? Who of us, again if any, would you like to have round for dinner?  

[OneEye]

Which if any site members have you met?

 

I've met Daan and etm001 in person. I really enjoyed meeting both of them. And humblegeoff from the Grand 文言文 project, of course. I've probably met others, unbeknownst to both of us. I actually talked to someone at MTC once who said he was there because of "some forum thread I saw where this guy talked all about the school," but if I remember correctly he wasn't actually a member here. I dunno, is Glossika a member here? If so, then I've met him a few times.

 

Who of us, again if any, would you like to have round for dinner?  

 

Oh, I dunno. I'm a pretty friendly guy, I'd do dinner or a beer with pretty much anyone. You heading to Tokyo any time soon?

[roddy]

Tragically no. Of those folk I've only met Daan - once, maybe twice, when he was in Beijing...ooooh, four or five years ago?

[OneEye]

Daan's a really impressive guy. I met him in the Classical Chinese reading group I helped start in Taipei 3 summers ago. He was just there for the summer. He's in Dublin now doing computational linguistics at G....I mean, a very large tech company with an office in Dublin. Saw him again in Taipei a few months ago, it was good to catch up.

[abcdefg]

I would have expected classical Chinese to be written in full form because they were written before simplification took place.

 

@Shelley -- I figured that was probably the case. Makes good sense. But I fail miserably in reading anything that's written with Traditional Hanzi, even easy stuff. I will try the Simplified edition @OneEye kindly posted.

[Xiaoxiongwv]

What made you decide to move to tokyo? Do you find you are getting enough practice in Chinese?

[Greeney]

Hi OneEye,

 

In a previous post I see you mention intensive studying with audio in order to rapidly improve speaking and listening ability, as per this blog post http://www.tommasonjr.org/?p=21. A recommended text is Talks on Chinese Culture. I can find the book, but not the audio files to go with it. Do you happen to know where one could find them?

 

If you don't, are there any other audio books you can recommend for this type of studying?

[OneEye]

What made you decide to move to tokyo? Do you find you are getting enough practice in Chinese?

 

A few reasons:

 

1. In Taipei, my wife had a terrible job at a terrible school with a terrible human being for a principal. She teaches music, so those jobs are few and far between, especially in Taiwan where there are only a handful of international schools. So I encouraged her to look elsewhere. She applied in China, Hong Kong, and Japan, but Japan was our first choice, because...

 

2. I have to learn Japanese eventually anyway. I'm planning to do a PhD in Chinese (focusing on palaeography) at some point, and since some of the best research is published in Japanese, it's a must. I was advised by a very well-known palaeographer in the US that at this point, I'd be better off spending a year or two in Japan than to remain in Taiwan or China for the same amount of time, so when my wife got a job offer here in Tokyo, we jumped at the opportunity.

 

I can find the book, but not the audio files to go with it. Do you happen to know where one could find them?

 

If you don't, are there any other audio books you can recommend for this type of studying?

 

You're persistent, eh? You posted on my blog too.

 

My copy of TOCC is over 20 years old. Odds are that, unless you found yours tucked away in a used bookstore in Taipei or something, your copy of the book is very different from mine because they re-wrote in 1997 or so. Pretty much any decent textbook at that level will do, though, and hopefully one more modern than TOCC. Mason recommended that one because it's what he's familiar with (if I'm not mistaken, he attended ICLP), but you could choose something like Mini Radio Plays or any other number of intermediate textbooks with good audio. The important thing is the method of working with audio, not the choice of book necessarily, and that particular book will probably drive you crazy with 國民黨 propaganda. It was so bad I couldn't even finish it. Seriously, there was a ton of stuff like "China's primary goal is to liberate the mainland from the communists," and the vocabulary and usage were very dated.

 

Anyway, good luck!

[Greeney]

Haha, yeah, I was looking around for advice on improving listening and noticed some similarities between the blog and your posts here afterwards. Cheers for the advice! Going to try the method with some of my 成功之路 books and that mini radio plays one. Enjoy Japan!

[oceancalligraphy]

Since you like stinky tofu, I have to ask, do you like natto?

[OneEye]

I do, actually, on some rice with mustard and a bit of soy sauce. My wife can't stand the smell though (her nose is very sensitive), so I have to eat it when she's not around. Yum.

[roddy]

I meant to ask you about this, but am only now just getting round to it: 

I'm still naturally inclined to laziness, though. It's a constant struggle. But keeping the goal in mind helps.

 

This again could have been written by me. What other tips do you have for fighting the battle against laziness? Productivity tools, gamification, to-do lists and apps. Any particular methodology?

[OneEye]

I like HabitRPG. I quit using it for a while but restarted it about a month ago. I also have an app called SelfControl (might be Mac-only). You enter a list of websites (I use a blacklist, meaning I can't access them, but there's also a whitelist option, meaning those are the only ones you can access), set an amount of time, and click Start. It completely blocks those websites for that amount of time, no matter the browser, no matter if you restart your computer. I use that and put my phone on Do Not Disturb, and then I can get down to work.

 

Also, I've noticed I work best when I'm able to spend the entire day, or at least a long period of the day, focused on one thing. That's not always possible because I have so many irons in the fire right now, but I try to do it when I can. Yesterday it was a new post for the website. Today it was networking and brainstorming for new post ideas. Last week I spent most of one day reading in Chinese; I guess I was having withdrawals. Maybe soon I'll spend a day on Japanese, though that feels a bit indulgent right now with all the work I have to do. I try do a few other things even on those days (today it was some Chinese maintenance and Japanese review), but I really enjoy being able to spend most of the day focused deeply on one thing. I might not get a lot done per day this way, but I think the quality increases.

[roddy]

Thanks. Feel free to go and post the same question back to me. We can skirmish like this for years, I reckon...

[OneEye]

You're on.

[OneEye]

Which if any site members have you met?

 

I just realized that I forgot to mention Olle Linge, from Hacking Chinese. He came to the Outlier office a few months ago, right before I moved to Tokyo, and we gave him a little presentation. Nice guy, really sharp mind.

 

I also talked to Hofmann via Skype a few weeks ago. Seems like the kind of guy I'd like to grab a beer with. Actually, my drinking buddies the past several years have nearly all been really into language or Chinese characters (you can imagine the scene at 45酒吧 in Taipei: three foreigners several beers in, huddled over a notepad, scribbling out ancient character forms while everyone else keeps their distance), so Hofmann fits the profile.

[Shelley]

"blacklist, meaning I can't access them," from post#35

 

I am trying really hard to think of a website I find I cannot keep away from without some sort of restraint.

 

I have never heard of this sort of thing, I'm intrigued.

 

I suppose it might be because I do not play games online or at all really. Or is it something I couldn't even imagine.

[Yadang]

 

 

I am trying really hard to think of a website I find I cannot keep away from without some sort of restraint.

I have never heard of this sort of thing, I'm intrigued.

I suppose it might be because I do not play games online or at all really. Or is it something I couldn't even imagine.

 

Actually, when OneEye posted the post you were just quoting, I promptly installed a similar addon for my chrome web browser (called Strict Workflow). It's not that I can't keep away from websites, but this add on still really helps. I click it and it locks all of the blacklisted websites for a period of time (I can change how long). Then it rings when the time is up and opens up the websites for a certain period of time (which you can also change). Sometimes I find that I'm just scrolling down Facebook or Chinese-Forums or something. And I keep just saying "five minutes more". But with this add on, I don't - with the click of a mouse, all of my blacklisted websites are unavailable - and will stay so even if I restart the computer. It's so easy to on a whim click the button and then be forced not to return to all of the websites that eat up my time.... (I also don't play games online or at all)... I don't know why it's easier to force myself with a click of this add on rather than just press the close button on the website, but it seems to work...