What is sophisticated mandarin??

[calibre2001]

Was wondering if you guys can provide excerpts or links to modern chinese texts that uses high level stylised and sophisticated writing? I would like to gauge my level of reading comprehension. I would also think it is beneficial for all fellow learners too.

[renzhe]

I recommend looking at the (excellent) Chinese Sampler. It has excerpts from modern and traditional texts, graded by difficulty.

If you try a few texts, you should be able to gauge your level very quickly.

Keep in mind, though, that these are real texts, written by Chinese authors for Chinese readers, so even the simplest texts are quite challenging for foreign language learners.

[calibre2001]

Thanks. Very informative indeed. My reading still sucks!

Didn't read the entire texts but ...

I find the 2.5 rating for 'Midnight' and 'Eagle Shooting Heroes' somewhat misleading. The way Jin Yong phrases things is either very distant from Mandarin or he uses a lot of flowery but antiquated phrasings. Whereas for 'Midnight' if you've been learning Mandarin, it's definitely more straight forward to follow.

[skylee]

Re #3. It probably has to do with the background of "Eagle" being the Song Dynasty, vs that of "Midnight" being early 20th century. As to "a lot of flowery but antiquated phrasings", I would suggest you refrain from making such comments until you could write like Louis Cha or at least till you are able to fully understand his writing.

[renzhe]

LOL.

Keep in mind that the 2.5 grading falls right between 红楼梦 (graded 2.3), and 西游记 (graded 2.8 ).

As I said, it is not easy

While I was in China, I got a printed copy of 金庸's 射雕英雄傳. My girlfriend's mother's comment: "But that's for middle-school children! That's not high-level literature, it's too easy!"

[calibre2001]

skylee,

I'm not slamming down Jin Yong or anything. I have watched many tv series adaptions of his novels and have high respect for him. By those remarks I'm just saying that my level of chinese is still behind to appreciate it rather than to imply it's pretentious or anything of that nature. One of my aims is to be able to appreciate it the way native speakers can.

[calibre2001]

renzhe,

I found this website:

http://chinese3.cari.com.my/myforum/forumdisplay.php?fid=77&page=1

It seems to contain plenty of original short stories written by people. Having read one or two, I reckon this could be a useful stepping stone and source of practice for learners to familiarise themselves with creative chinese writing. For example,

http://chinese3.cari.com.my/myforum/viewthread.php?tid=1209136&extra=page%3D1

Let me know what you think. Would appreciate if you've found similar things in the past.

[renzhe]

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a look, but I'm quite busy nowadays.

What I personally found indispensable for practicing reading were comic books, and I've been raving about them to everyone willing to listen.

They offer oceans of reading material at all imaginable levels. From really simple stuff like Doraemon, through teenager comics like Ranma 1/2, to the darker, more complex ones.

Right now, I'm about 2500 pages into Ranma 1/2, and I love every minute of it. It's still full of words and characters I don't know, but I can read the vast majority of it just fine. It's done wonders for my reading comprehension and speed. I usually don't read comics at all, but this is perfect for my purposes -- easy reading, very funny, you can dip in and out, and the images give you clues when you're not sure. And the language is managable.

You can have a look here http://www.leftworld.net/shequ/luanma.cgi . I read the first 500 pages online, then got the whole series in China.

EDIT: Given the title of this thread, I must clarify that this is absolutely NOT sophisticated Mandarin !!!!!!!

[imron]

I used to read quite a few Tintin comics in Chinese. They were great.

[lilongyue]

After a recent trip to one of China's more historical Buddhist temples (and one that is still a functioning Chan monastery and not a tourist trap) I can back with a few collections of the abbot's teachings. Since they are transcribed talks, and not discourses on philosophy but practical ways to implement Buddhism in one's daily life, it's perfect reading, basically spoken Chinese, lightly edited. Every so often I run into a page or two with tons of characters I don't know, but usually if I'm too lazy to read with a dictionary in hand I can still understand the meaning. Anyway, that's been my Chinese reading material of late. Oh yeah, and I read Japanese comic books, too.