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It is classical Chinese but Han and later. Buddhism was introduced to China in the Han Dynasty, texts only started to arrive in the Eastern Han. Kumarajiva lived during the eastern? Jin dynasty. Xuanzang during Sui and Tang. Bodhidharma, 6th Patriarch, and others: Tang. Lots more after Tang. Check cbeta's Text selector > By date and Dynasty at : https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/en/ First, start with traditional characters only. Drop "Practical Chinese Reader" and anything from PCR. If you're a beginner, De Francis (if you can find it) is probably best. There must be good textbooks from Taiwan, but I'm not familiar. On the Classical Chinese front: grammars (Pulleyblank, Archie Barnes, Vogelsang) may help. Definitely Kroll dictionary. What I've seen of original texts, it's not a heavy strict 文言文，more a sort of hybrid 文言文 /百话。 But Buddhist Chinese is a branch on its own, neither typical Classical nor Modern Chinese will prepare you for translating Chinese Buddhist texts. You pick up the Sanskrit as you go along reading texts in translation, most serious translations will include the sanskrit terms. Besides reading lots of books, reading the Chinese texts alongside good translations is very, very helpful. Many texts here as you know 😊 https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/en/ This a very good tool by Jean-Soulat: https://www.smarthanzi.net/en/index.php The app is available for Windows PC, Mac, Android and iOS. It incorporates the DDB (digital dictionary of Buddhism). More about it in this thread: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/57872-chinese-etymology-in-smarthanzi/?do=findComment&comment=448995 And below an overwhelming cluster of references. Dictionaries W E Soothill "A dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms" online at: https://mahajana.net/texts/soothill-hodous.html If you have Pleco, this dictionary is also free in Pleco, search under Add-ons>Free Dictionaries. Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (Charles Muller) http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/ Translations and more references Lotus Sutra https://www.bdk.or.jp/document/dgtl-dl/dBET_T0262_LotusSutra_2007.pdf Avatamsaka Sutra (better known than Lotus Sutra in China) http://www.cttbusa.org/avatamsaka/avatamsaka_contents.asp.html Bibliography of Translations http://mbingenheimer.net/tools/bibls/transbibl.html Numata Centre for Buddhist Translations / Hamburg Buddhist Studies https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/en/publikationen.html https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/en/publikationen/hamburg-buddhist-studies.html (refs, open access) Khyentse Foundation / 84000 https://84000.co/resources/translator-resources https://84000.co/ ( includes Readinng Room with translations from Tibetan sources) Centre for Buddhist Studies - Universiteit Gent https://www.cbs.ugent.be/node/403 Centre for Applied Buddhism (UK) https://www.appliedbuddhism.org.uk/library Center for Buddhist Studies of National Taiwan University https://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~ntucbs/info/index_en.html#4 Major Buddhist temples: City of 10,000 Buddhas (Master Hsuan Hua) http://www.cttbusa.org/buddhadharma_tableofcontents.asp.html Dharma Drum Mountain (Master Sheng-Yen) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_Drum_Mountain https://ddmba.org/ Fo Guang Shan (Buddha Light Association) (Master Hsin Yun) https://www.fgs.org.tw/en/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fo_Guang_Shan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fo_Guang_Universit Probably in Taiwan, email any of the major tamples and they will help you. In fact, if there is a branch of a (reliable) Chinese Buddhist organization near where you live, visit them and you may even find a teacher, they are so incredibly helpful (at least they were when I was looking for Chinese tutors) Hope this helps.

Apologies for recent downtime and errors, folks - I've only been able to keep one eye on the site lately. I'm hoping to move to a more suitable host in the near future.

I work with a speech language pathologist on to improve my Mandarin pronunciation. Compared with regular tutors, she is far more effective at improving my Mandarin pronunciation. Many tutors noted my pronunciation was "wrong" and gave basic tips on tongue positions, but were unable to give me detailed feedback on how to improve. My SLP transcribed my speech production into IPA and highlighted the specific aspects that differed from standard Mandarin. She then gave me exercises designed to help me learn to understand and remediate my specific pronunciation issues. Most importantly, my SLP helped me prioritize my pronunciation issues. She highlighted aspects Chinese native speakers would find unintelligible, instead of merely awkward and irritating. For example, my overly-centralized vowels were a far more serious issue than my non-synchronic combination of various dialectal variations.

Another element worth considering is the traditional value of showing teeth as being rude in many Asian cultures. From my experience this stands true in China, many people smiling with lips together, or else covering their mouth with their hand when teeth are showing. This would be in contrast to the classic 'cheese' smile that I do when I'm chatting in English. I actually continue to smile this way in most situations when I'm speaking Chinese, but that's because as others have said, I feel like its more important to relax and do what feels natural for you. Of course, its important to also be aware of the difference in how such behaviour might be perceived by different audiences in different cultural contexts and make adjustments accordingly.

Hello everyone! I am looking for a very elusive recipe. When I was studying at Beijing University for 2 semesters in 2020 (I am American). I had the most amazing sponge cake of my life from the local mall about 2 miles away. I forget the name of the bakery/shop but I do remember the name of the cake ZaoGao funny right? because it was delicious... delicious actually doesn't do it justice, it was transcendental. It was soft and airy and wonderful in every way. It was a Date Cake with no nuts. Extremely simple and the second they pulled it out and cut it up it was sold in a matter of minutes. The picture included is the closest reference I have and most of the recipes I have found online my friends tell me are not accurate. Thanks for any assistance finding this Recipe and making it from scratch. All The Best!!

Do you always smile when speaking English? If not, then don't worry about smiling when speaking Chinese. Be yourself. That has a much better impact on others than a fake or forced smile.

Thank you @Luxi for referring to SmartHanzi. SmartHanzi actually encompasses 2 apps: SmartHanzi and DDB Access. SmartHanzi is for general purpose (contemporary Chinese), DDB Access is specifically for Buddhist texts. DDB Access includes the full definitions (meanings) from Charles Muller's DDB. DDB was originally a website, "DDB Access" adds a more comfortable... access from smartphone and desktops. Both apps are free. For details, see www.smarthanzi.net For Buddhist texts, one should use DDB Access since it shows the full definitions with explanations. The point is that DDB is a cooperative work with full access only for contributors. But practically, DDB and DDB Access allow 20 full definitions per 24 hours for anyone. BTW with "guest" login, be careful to use the main server. At the moment, guest access is not available on Japan mirror. The Soothill and Hodous dictionary was removed from DDB Access in 2011, since it seems to be considered now as out of date and inaccurate by most scholars. According to C. Muller: "The Soothill data that resides within the DDB has for the most part been carefully checked, and correct, removed, or annotated as necessary." Current versions: - Android, Windows(*) and Mac versions are up to date. - iPhone, iPad: significant updates to be published (hopefully) in a few days. (*) Windows: be careful to download from www.smarthanzi.net (avoid the Microsoft Store version at the moment, WIP). Let alone the apps and techical issues, some points may need to be clarified. "Buddhism" encompasses spiritual traditions as well as religious, social or political organizations which developed over 2500 years in a huge geographical area (Asia). The core teachings are common but the visible forms may be very, very different. IMHO, the core teachings are not that far from a modern "therapy" (my Buddhist friends might not agree) while many schools have their own views and corpus of texts with different meanings for the same word. "Classical Chinese" also seems to have no clear cut definition: see Kai Vogelsang's "Introduction to Classical Chinese" for a discussion. Moreover, as far as I know, the first Buddhist translators (from Sanskrit) in China were confronted to an Indian view of the world very different from the Chinese tradition. It took much time to "standardize the process". If I am not mistaken this had significant consequences on the Chinese language itself (e.g. description of past / present / future). "Buddhist Chinese" might be more appropriate than "Classical Chinese" for Buddhist texts. Referring to Sanskrit does not necessarily clarifies the issue: - Yes, Sanskrit is the lingua franca for Buddhism. It is helpful to know the original word in Sanskrit. - But the Sanskrit word may also have different meanings in different times or schools. For instance, "Buddha" in ancient Buddhism refers to the original Buddha ("M. Gautama", aka Sakyamuni). In mahayana, it has a much wider and abstract sense. - One should remember that Sanskrit words generally refer to simple, usual things. There is no mystery, the point is to understand them in the context, with our own words. Buddhist texts can often be classified with: - Root texts: very short texts with the main reasoning (concepts), not intended to be directly understood. See for instance the Trimsika (first sample in DDB Access). - Comments for clarification. - Comments of comments for clarification of the comments... For all these reasons, I fully agree with the recommendation above: "Besides reading lots of books, reading the Chinese texts alongside good translations is very, very helpful."

I had assumed years ago that the "inscrutable oriental" stereotype was a myth but it appears to have scientific backing. Left is heatmap of where a Western Caucasian's eyes will focus when looking at a face to read its emotions; right is the same for East Asians. According to this: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(09)01477-8.pdf The implication is that if people you grow up with aren't using their mouth to communicate emotions then you (a) won't use your mouth to communicate emotions, and (b) won't waste time looking at mouths when wanting to discern others' emotions. ... which is quite a bold suggestion because it suggests that East Asians are at some kind of disadvantage (unless it isn't a disadvantage) in being not well able to distinguish between fear and disgust.

My recommendation is to think COMMUNITY > COMMERCIALIZATION. If you think about community and how you can serve it, you will get a greater ROI and for less money. More money spent doesn't actually always mean more impactful. It also does not always mean professional. You could just be a target of a marketing team. The University of Melbourne has over 15,000 Chinese students. Places you could volunteer or join: Universities Community Colleges Chinese Language Schools (for Australian Born Chinese) Chinese Churches The Confucious Institute That would be more along the lines of immersion. You could also replicate that by doing flashcards (29.99 on Pleco, basic bundle), immersion through video and audio (youtube etc). Anki is also free but I prefer Pleco as I don't have to waste too much time making cards. I remember spending hours making the perfect Anki cards. With Pleco, I just study or make simple sentence cards. While people may shame me for using flashcards, there is constant commercialization in learning Chinese but not as much in learning Japanese-- largely free, open-source and interest based not level based. Sure you could get on a flight and study in Beijing with a private teacher for awhile but I think you will get further in Australia and also studying independently. Cons of a Private Teacher: - Not as professional as you would think. - Only experience teaching who are their consistent market (begginers). - May just become like a friend and so become less professional. - Your teacher will understand you but the rest of Chinese speakers won't. - Native speakers don't just speak Standard Mandarin. - You become part of a sort of artificial language world (You and your teacher). - They will talk about largely whatever you are paying them to, but native speakers may not truly be interested or may be offended. So thus, you are not actually learning about Chinese culture.

Both myself and my SLP live in the same region of North America. Licensing requirements mean that SLPs are generally unable to offer their services across jurisdictional boundaries.

Vowels are (in part) defined by tongue position. A vowel is centralized if the tongue closer to the center of the mouth, as opposed to at vertical or horizontal extremes. Different aspects of my pronunciation were more aligned with different regional dialects. My overall pronunciation was not consistent with any given regional dialect, so native speakers found it irritating. Think, for example, of someone flipping between British English and American English on a word-by-word basis, without any consistency.

Funny name. A pun, of course. A play on the exclamation 糟糕! （terrible!; too bad!) The cake name is probably short for 红枣蛋糕。I don't know how to make it. But I'll bet your search needs to be for recipes using 红枣 hongzao, aka "jujube," not Middle Eastern or Arabia-style dates from date palm trees. (Medjool dates.) Hongzao grow on tall flowering shrubs. They are beloved all over China. Sold dried. Used widely in cooking everything from savory meat stews to porridge. Here's one such recipe: https://www.ixigua.com/6978524919000891945?wid_try=1

May I ask where you are doing this? In China? Welcome to the forum! I hope you will contribute more.

This should be a fairly easy upgrade on the user side - I can't see anything that's changed. Some of the minor customisations I've made may have stopped working but I can't think of any. It took a little longer than expected - had to upgrade the server to PHP 8, which didn't take first time round. If anything doesn't seem to be working, let me know. The site does seem a bit slow, but it's redoing the search index so should speed up when that's done.

Definitely normal for some people including myself to look super-serious when concentrating on getting foreign words to come out of your mouth right. Following identical advice - try smiling when you talk to a stranger - I instantly got a warmer response. Thoughts: 1. I'm sure you know you're actually supposed to squeeze your lips into something close to a smile when making certain Chinese sounds 2. Doing so has the bonus effect of making your voice sound more animated and lively 3. I think smiling will make your eyes seem more sparkling and friendly too 4. East Asians generally ignore the mouth for visual clues about the speakers mood and focus only on brow, eyes and nose area, unlike Westerners who focus them all 5. After a certain age I think foreign men in China typically have to inject an extra bit of cheer into their demeanor when talking to most strangers who don't normally have much interaction with people like us.

Funny I missed this, but as the OP mentioned it in the same sentence as Fuller and Pulleyblank, I just automatically read "Practical Chinese Reader" as Rouzer's "A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese". Obviously, the latter will be infinitely more helpful for the OP's aims. Where are you based? The Sheng-yen foundation out of Dharma Drum Mountain fund outreach work and maybe even scholarships. When I was in London, I attended a weekly workshop and even a few weekend conferences around the translation and interpretation of Buddhist texts organised at SOAS which were funded by Sheng-yen.

@SmartHanzi I came to correct the apps mixup in my post, but you'd already done it for me. Thanks! I haven't used the DDB in a long time, obviously 😕 Sorry about the confusion!

Certainly plenty of Sanskrit loanwords. If you're focus is purely Chinese Buddhist texts, you might find this webpage useful: here Aside from loanwords, another major issue is the complexity of the Buddhist philosophy. From what I remember, in a number of the key texts, the central idea is one of paradox, so you end up reading lots of sentences which translate as: "A is A, A is not A", or some such meaning. So, translating it is one thing, understanding it something else entirely. The most enjoyable text I remember reading was the origin story of Huineng at the beginning of the platform sutra. This is contained entirely in the first chapter (I never made it to later chapters) and is supposedly very famous. It contains a well-known poetry contest for succession.

I'm not sure who's still following along, but I'm nearly at the 500-hour mark (This says I'm at 445.5 hours of uploaded videos). So what's new? I've been getting out and about in China, and just narrating what I see. Sometimes people talk to me, sometimes they don't. (Sometimes they wait until after I've finished recording a video before talking to me.) My friend gave me a gimbal, and that's "upped my video game", and I bought new lapel mics. I feel utterly exhausted; 500 hours really is too much, and it's hard finding motivation nowadays. If I were going to do a similar challenge again, I might do 200 or 300 hours. I'm likely over 500 hours already, since sometimes I don't upload videos for various reasons (e.g. no sound; too much noise; no battery; computer crashes; accidentally reveal personal information). I spend too much time fumbling around with videos (storing them, uploading them, generating subtitles, etc.). I feel a kind of "diminishing returns" effect is taking place. The benefit in going from 0 to 100 hours was huge, but going from 400 to 500 hours is not nearly as noticeable. While my oral Chinese has improved, it's come at the expense of other aspects. I'm looking forward to reaching 500 hours and focusing on other things. I think next on the agenda is taking the HSK6 again. Perhaps I'll continue studying the HSK7-9 vocab (but my study methods have changed with the advent of ChatGPT). As for my channel? It would be nice to make better videos---ideally shorter, scripted, well-rehearsed videos that people might benefit from. I like a style that starts off very easy, but gets increasingly challenging as the video progresses (think: the house that jack built). The thing is, I don't have video editing skills, and learning this would detract from studying Chinese. I also worry there's so many videos on YouTube already; what's the point? The other thing is, maybe I should go and get a job now that China is kind of back to normal. I have a maths PhD and there seem to be relevant jobs being advertised.

茶煙永日香 - "Eternal fragrance of steaming tea" as a rough translation. It's a quote from a poem by Fang Hui: 谷雨深春近，茶烟永日香_作者方回_出自《治圃杂书二十首·芍药抽红锐》_国学荟 (gushicimingju.com). I'll have a look in my anthologies and see if a better translator than me has given a good version. The 煙 is smoke rather than steam literally but I don't think it's used here to mean the charcoal under the pot. ETA Nothing in the anthologies I have to hand unfortunately. Seems there's a French translation of some of his poetry but nothing else mentioned.

+1 for night mode. I do use a browser extension, but having a native night mode is always way way better.

Hi Dr. Mack, Outside of Chinese Forums, I write and teach about the needs of introverts. While I don't know you, and your needs may differ, I can offer some advice based on more than a decade of study, observation and interviews with introverts. * Introverts generally do well with one-on-one conversations on topics they care about, with someone who has just as much to offer as themselves. Introverts tend to hate and look down on social chitchat. Therefore you should try to find someone who has common interests and to talk about those areas of common interests. Most likely this would be either a hobby (such as chess, running, art appreciation, etc.) or what you do for work (another doctor?). You'll need some good searching and trial and error to find the right conversational partner(s), but otherwise this activity won't keep your interest and will come to feel awkward and pointless. * Another, alternative tack is to try to make the conversations as practical as possible. For instance, if you plan to visit China someday, then sessions where you role-play real-world situations (buying train tickets, trying to sort out a problem at the hotel) would probably keep your interest. This works because there's a clear point to this practice. There are some people on the forum (can't remember who) who have done this with their Chinese tutors and loved it. * Finally, think about the kind of conversations you have in English that most interest you and come up with ways to recreate them in Chinese. Ditto for the kind of people you enjoy speaking with in your day-to-day life. Good luck, Moshen

It's evident you never tried children books. If I would have defined "useful" vocabulary as words and lines I can use tomorrow at the mall I would have: 1. Bore myself to death with dull graded readers. 2. Unkowingly reach a glass ceiling and get stuck. 3. Quit learning chinese or worse - deceive myself that I'm learning Chinese. The most advanced graded readers use about 5,000 words (hsk 6) which is a 5 years old child's vocabulary level. Will it be "useful" for you to speak like a mentally ill 5 years old Chinese kid? In what capacity will it be of any use? What input will it allow you to consume? If your goal is speaking like a coherent adult, you will need at least 20,000 "unuseful" words to complement those 5,000 graded reader words you call "useful". How will you do it? By more graded readers? Literature seems the only (not masochistic) way. And what Literature? To live? The three body problem? Lu Xun? Definitely, but you cannot jump to there without first reading works for children of different ages. Graded readers are at best an entrance to the world of children literature. "Men read the witches by Roald Dahl in chinese, children read a three hundred characters version of Ulysses" (an unnamed laowai who mastered chinese).

I've used maybe about $800 USD worth of resources so far: --Pleco add-ons (dictionaries, SRS flashcards, stroke order animations, etc.) --40 graded readers --25 novels --Textbooks for the 2 Chinese courses I was able to take at my University for free (because I work there) --A very short-lived TCB subscription (it was great, but I stopped for whatever reason) --A few iTalki lessons I feel like if I hire tutors on iTalki to practice Chinese speaking, even ones that don't charge that much money, things are about to get way more expensive. Learning to read is fairly cheap, and learning to listen is virtually free.

I've never studied alongside the HSK curriculum, but I did buy graded readers based on what I considered to be an approximation of my level for awhile. The zone you mentioned in this post (HSK4-5) is about where I started to get frustrated with my graded readers. I was reading the Sino-Lingua readers, and it felt like they weren't getting much harder, because by that point you know the foundations and there's no good way to cram so much specialized vocab into a short story on a basis that would have enough repetitions to stick. Also, the graded readers were starting to give me a false sense of security, where I was starting to believe that my Chinese was almost perfect because I was understanding these 300 page collections almost effortlessly. Then one day I tried to read non-HSK version of a story in one of the Sino-Lingua readers and was shocked by how hard it was. I put Graded Readers down for good, and haven't looked back since.

I think the way I use flashcards and SRS is a bit different. I don't add words to an ever increasing list/deck until it becomes unmanageable and daunting. I have a separate deck for each lesson (labelled as lesson 1 etc.) so my earlier lessons had maybe 7-10 but as the lesson progressed the number increased to about 30-50. I study each lesson's list along with the lesson as a whole. I study the list quite extensively during the lesson which lasts about 2 weeks. When I move on to the next lesson I start a new list with the lessons new words and study these. Every so often I will go back and do the previous lesson if I have forgotten some (which is usual) I then study the list again as review. I also review all my previous lists sort of randomly just to keep it all fresh. I find this method works for me, I would feel very stressed if my list was in the thousands or even the hundreds, I just wouldn't start and it would all get out of hand. Doing it in handy sized chunks is encouraging and doable. I will carry on doing lists as long as I have lessons and new words. I will probably continue to use Pleco flashcards for ever but not necessarily intensively.

This is probably true, but in my experience, one component of learning a language is simply learning a large amount of vocabulary. If I come across a word in an especially memorable way (or even if someting unrelated but moving, happy or sad happens around the time I learn a word), I remember it better. But I can't wait for every word I need to know to become attached to something especially ugly or beautiful, so I use SRS to learn the words regardless. If I do come across them in a grand or terrible occasion, I have a better chance of recognising them.

to my mind the main problem with SRS is its underlying assumption: to remember something is a function of how often you come into contact with it (+ some algorithmic stuff about durations and delays). However, human beings are not computers - if we were SRS would be unproblematic. But something is memorable not because of how often we see it, but how persuasive, how moving, how beautiful it is (or conversely, how vile, vulgar or ugly). Human beings are feeling as well as thinking beings. It is difficult for words or characters in themselves to be any of those things -but the context in which they appear maybe - therefore, for that reason, I would say reading is very important. The big difference between chinese and other language however is a much more basic one -namely the number of characters. If I am learning words in Italian - I don't have to know how to write the various subcomponents of them - in chinese I do. Therefore learning the arrangements of characters becomes an important underlying skill (because a character can be defined by its parts) - but very often using SRS for words, means we identify not by subcomponentialization - but by difference (it is a because it is not b, c or d). If you are memorizing by difference rather than componentializtion - then you never truly "know" - you can only "distinguish" - but that means, as your vocabulary becomes larger, you have more differentiations to make, and something that yuo may have previously recognized, becomes suddenly something that you can easily confuse.

I've found what may be sort of a compromise. I live in China and use Chinese all the time. When I encounter things I need to look up, either from reading or from conversation, I use Pleco on my phone and flag them so that they go into a flashcard deck. Then I review each day's "looked up" words that night before bed. When weekend comes, I review that week's new words a couple more times. Then I "flush" them, wipe the slate clean, and move on to a new week, maybe keeping five or ten that I really like and don't know yet. This way the task does not become ponderous, like it used to with Anki, ZDT, and Skritter, and I continue living in the real world, in present time. Figure that I will re-encounter most of what I need naturally in the normal course of things, and after several such meetings, it will finally stick. All my learning is in context; none is "just because I should." Might add, as a disclaimer, that this might not be best for everyone. I'm not in an academic setting and don't aspire to ever pass any exams. Chinese is both a hobby and a daily living tool, but it is not an obsession. Furthermore, I don't expect my Chinese to ever be perfect.