Reading xiyouji without the dictionary!

[Johnny-5]

I was over on Billibilli looking up lectures on confucius (found one that was really quite interesting, though my daughter says it's boring...) by and by I looked up "Journey to the West" and found an audiobook. ( https://b23.tv/Z0ns9yp )

At this point I wasn't thinking "Now is the time to start reading the classic Chinese novels!". After all, according to the almighty Chinese Text Analyser I only know 79% of the words in 西游记, and I find anything under 90% tends to be too incomprehensible.

But I thought "hmm how closely does this version match the version on my e-reader?". I had a look and listen and found that they're nearly identical (except for a few "he saids" "she saids" omitted for smoother reading.)

The thing is that in spite of the old fashioned language I could still mostly understand what was going on, but I also found that the biggest reason for the 79% score was the tendency of characters to break into incomprehensible poetry that really has little impact on the narrative. 

 

My e-reader has a dictionary and translation functions built in, and I tried using those to understand more of the text, and while I could do that I found that slowed down the story way too much and sapped all enjoyment out of the experience. I found that I can get and enjoy most of the story without looking up anything and also the skillful voice acting does a good job of conveying what is happening even when I don't understand the words. (much like a child would listen to a story without understanding all of the words)

 

The experience of trying to look up all the unknown words actually reinforces my dedication to not worrying about that stuff and just enjoying compelling comprehensible input. It reminded me of the shortcomings I always experience when looking up words in Chinese since so many of the "words" turned into looking up a single characters at a time and didn't actually help in figuring out the meaning of the word or the phrase because the writer was using a fancy artful way to express himself which is not in the dictionary. 

 

I just don't see any utility to using a dictionary when reading it takes a book that is quite long and makes it interminable. By my calculations it may take a month or two to get through 西游记 at an hour or two each day, but if I spent the same amount of time and stopped to look up words it would take closer to a year to finish. In that same time I could go ahead and read 红楼梦，水浒传， and 三国演义 if I really wanted to and I probably wouldn't have to look up any words if I don't want to.

[Babylon]

Please cherish life and stay away from the ancient Classical Chinese(文言文), the PRC locals couldn't understand those extremely turgid, cryptic and overfastidious verbiage.

[TheBigZaboon]

@Babylon,  In one sense, you may be right,  obsessing over every word, turn of phrase, and classical reference in those novels may not be remotely worth the effort. However, EVERY Chinese person, anywhere in the world, knows in the deepest part of their identity, every twist, turn, emotion, brave deed, and betrayal in those four novels. If one can get even a shallow taste of that vast cultural heritage by approaching them exactly as the OP explains, understanding many things about China and the Chinese language (and even dealing with Chinese people) will be a lot easier.

 

At least that's been my experience...

 

TBZ

[Babylon]

Maybe I hadn't clearly explained my opinion yet. The four masterpieces of China are definitely treasures for the world, but we don't need to read the original works, to delve in those obscure words, there are so many derived TV serials, movies or translated versions which are worth appreciating. furthermore, especially for those foreign friends who are learning Chinese, to study well fluent and idiomatic modern language is far more important than to acquire a few unpopular, esoteric and obsolete words. I meant even if you have endeavored to remember some, you still neither can use them in normal life, nor to communicate to Chinese people with them.

 

[Johnny-5]

On 7/11/2023 at 6:16 AM, Babylon said:

to study well fluent and idiomatic modern language is far more important than to acquire a few unpopular, esoteric and obsolete words. I meant even if you have endeavored to remember some, you still neither can use them in normal life, nor to communicate to Chinese people with them.

Well I actually agreee with you, which is why I'm just lightly skimming the material and getting what enjoyment I can, not trying to dive deep into learning words and expressions that are 500 years out of date. Frankly I don't have any interest in watching movies or TV shows, and I think it's amusing to see how many different names they give to 孙悟空 throughout the story.

 

It's kind of like reading Shakespeare (though those are plays and not really meant to be read) in that you're not going to pick up a lot of modern English, but you could still get enjoyment out of it, and learn about the culture and history of the language along the way. I mean any educated speaker of English who does not have some familiarity with Shakespeare would not be seen as "well educated".

 

Anyhow, I've skipped out on the journey to the west because it became too bogged down for my liking and in the mean time I've been listening to lectures on confucius and a five volume study of 红楼梦 which is not a book I've ever read, but the author keeps the discussion compelling so I don't care.

[Explore Chinese]

@Johnny-5 curious about the use of Chinese Text Analyzer. How does the tool know which characters you know to give you the score of 79%? 

I've seen the results split by HSK etc, do you have a list of known characters for the tool to use, and if so where does it come from?

 

Curious mostly if there is an easy way of doing it, other than entering in all the characters you know   

[Johnny-5]

On 11/6/2023 at 6:45 PM, Explore Chinese said:

 

Curious mostly if there is an easy way of doing it, other than entering in all the characters you know   

Yeah, actually the developer pointed out that if you go take the books you've read and just tell CTA that you know the most frequent 95% of words it'll be approximately right. I took his advice and then used an app to put all the books that I remember reading and have the text file for into one file and then took all words that occurred more than 42 times (cuz it's a good number)... then I counted those words as known. (and he earned a purchase for sharing such a handy tip and making such a cool program  )

 

So then you don't have to try and figure out which words exactly you "know".

 

According to the work of people like Paul Nation you could count any word that occurs more than 12-20 times as "known", but I don't always read/listen carefully, so maybe I don't know the words.... and anyway I'm just looking for an approximate rating of what I should read next and not some kind of absolute final word.

[Explore Chinese]

@Johnny-5 thanks for the tip, definitely be looking into this!