Classical Chinese study group

[jiangping]

Wooo...we finally got a Classical Chinese forum!! I don't have much time to chip in at the moment, but I'll enjoy reading it anyway.

[Daan]

Yay! A classical Chinese forum! Thanks roddy Appreciate the pains you took to untangle that mess.

The reason I proposed creating a thread per text is mainly that some works are quite long, and we might end up having a lot of different discussions on entirely different texts in the same thread, which my structured mind does not like. Also, I think that creating a new topic for every text would make it easier for newcomers to add remarks to discussions later, since they don't have to read back 30 pages' worth of posts first. It might even encourage others to start reading texts that might seem slightly daunting at first glance, since all the relevant information has been collected in one place.

[chrix]

Yeah, as I wrote above, I agree with Daan, and as some kind of compromise I'd propose to use the year. This is for example the format used by Don Sturgeon.

So otherwise I would go ahead and split up the Zuozhuan thread.

Maybe we can agree on some kind of qualifier, so that people can see right away that it is about a specific text discussed. What about the format "TEXT: 左傳: 僖公元年" or "READING: 左傳: 僖公元年"? Each article would include a short description, and a link to the original text and a translation if available.

We can also leave a general 左傳 thread in place, in case you want to moan about the general difficulty of the text or whatever comes to mind...

[gato]

I think we can follow the "Chinese TV" forum model: one thread per book (such as 左传, 论语) and then in the first post of each thread have an index to certain posts within the thread or about the book, as needed.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

Chinese Television

There over 150 posts in the 奋斗 thread, yet it seems to have worked out.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/17355-first-episode-11-%e5%a5%8b%e6%96%97

First episode 11 - 奋斗

There are about a dozen selections from 左传 in the first 40 pages of Wang Li. Having 12 threads on 左传, or even 3 or 4, seems kind of unwieldy.

Why don't we continue with the 左传 thread and see how far we get? We might be too over-optimistic here about how much discussion we'll have.

[chrix]

Well, Gato, in the TV threads, people don't tend to discuss too many language-related questions. But here, if we have trouble understand some kind of construction, or if it's some interesting kind of construction, this might generate a certain number of replies. The forum software sorts everything chronologically. If you start discussing various parts of a large work such as Zuozhuan or even Mencius, at some point you will no longer know what part is referring to what. It's a bit unfortunate that the pieces in Zuozhuan are so short. Maybe one could find larger chunks of Zuozhuan, maybe everything in 隱公, 桓公, 僖公 etc. but the dukes of Lu naturally didn't all rule for the same number of years...

[renzhe]

Well, Gato, in the TV threads, people don't tend to discuss too many language-related questions.

This is not by design, but unfortunately, it worked out that way in many threads. But some of them have long vocabulary and grammar-related discussions.

I would imagine that most language related discussion dealing with a particular grammatical construct will be naturally grouped together in a thread, or come in a small number of clusters.

As long as the first post of the thread is maintained as a kind of index into interesting discussions within a thread, it could work. Or at least, it is worth a try.

[chrix]

Yeah, that's why I would propose having the thread for the entire book index all the sub-threads...

In the Fuller thread, we had a nice back and forth based on one post: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/21037-an-introduction-to-literary-chinese-michael-a-fuller

Now just imagine, having more posts like that onto it, simultaneously setting off discussions again. It's bound to get chaotic

[renzhe]

I don't know how much discussion you will have. I'd imagine that there are more people interested in watching TV than reading Chinese classics, and even in the TV forum, many threads are still basically empty. If you micro-manage things with a new thread for each chapter, it might be too much.

If a conversation gets too confusing because of several topics being interleaved, there is always the option of splitting the thread later, for the few works that require it. The rest can have one topic per book/work.

[chrix]

Or we'll split the threads like gato implicitly did:

- Zuozhuan, as in Wang Li

- Zuozhuan, as in Fuller

Some popular texts such as certain parts of Mencius are bound to appear in many textbooks, and one might need to find a different solution for them. But usually texts appearing in many textbooks are usually so easy and over-annotated that one might not need a discussion at all

OK, and if somebody wants to do a piece in self-study, I'd suggest opening a new thread regardless. Just put something like "self-study of Zuozhuan, CHAPTER X" or whatever as the title.

[Daan]

I think having a thread per text is still ideal, but gato's solution seems a nice 中庸之道. And yeah, it's probably a good idea to posts all texts you are reading. They might be of interest to others, or there might be others who've read them (or recognise references you didn't spot). In fact, I have been thinking about opening threads for the easier texts I read when I started to learn Classical Chinese, with my own notes appended to the original text. This could help beginners who are looking for something to read at an appropriate level. Do you think that would be useful?

This would be a project for next month though, since I have to sit the TOP (Taiwanese HSK) this week and am travelling to Beijing on November 20th. I still have to make some preparations for that trip, so my quality time with Wang Li might be shorter than usual this week.

[chrix]

Daan, by all means, please do so! Especially introductory texts might be of interest to more people (though I personally am greatly enjoying Wang Li's textbook). I'll try to follow up on the Fuller thread and post some more lesson comments (and include the texts if possible).

And as far as the TOP goes, please let us know about your experience in the "HSK and other exams like it subforum", I'd be interested in hearing about it. 加油, 祝你考好!

[chrix]

So, I've got the rest of the Zuozhuan texts from Wang Li in the pipeline.. I won't post my remarks before Daan gets to address the rest of what's already there. Anybody else working on Zuozhuan right now?

Now, the next lesson is about Zhan'guoce, we might need to look for English translations if any, and also Modern Mandarin translations and additional annotated versions of the original text, since that will be of great help when reading the original text.

If there's any interest, we could also discuss Wang Li's frequent word lists (and anything else in the textbook outside of the Classical Chinese texts), the first one being on pp. 42-68. Quite valuable, I think.

[chrix]

Still waiting for Daan (but don't feel pressured )

BTW, gato, are you still interested in Wang Li? Also, I found my copy of 古文觀止, so if you were willing to lead a study thread on that, I'd be game too.

[Daan]

No, it's good to put some pressure on me, will stop me from reading random passages from the Analects on the evolution of early Chinese society from a clan-based aristocracy to a unified empire, which entailed a lot of structural changes and newly emerging middle classes clamouring for influence, which threatened the position of such privileged thinkers as Confucius himself. Highly interesting debate, that. But I think Wang Li's chapter on the Analects also features some of those passages, so let's crack on with the Zuozhuan and the Zhanguoce first. I'll be back with remarks on at least some of the texts later today, depending on how hard they are!

[gato]

Oh, I'm definitely still interested in going through Wang Li. Been a bit busy with work lately.

Wang Li has a good portion of the texts in 古文观止, as well. I'll probably just use 古文观止 as a supplement for now.

[chrix]

No problem at all. So let me tell you and anyone else interested in the texts we've been discussing here. Even though Daan and I have been pressing forward, it's absolutely no problem at all to get back to texts we went through earlier. We (I think I can speak for Daan here as well ) will always be more than happy to discuss them at any time, even months (or years) later...

[chrix]

So Daan had a suggestion of creating some kind of study guide of our own here, seeing that we have so many Chinese-language study guides already in our possession

Any suggestions, comments, as to the format etc. of such a thing? Perhaps we should have different parts such as

- Characters

- Words

- Grammar notes

- Background info & other explanatory notes

Probably in that case it should be one thread per text?

[chrix]

For easier reference, I added a hint on the very first posting of the thread with links to the texts we are currently focusing on in the study group

[chrix]

So, it looks like we have some people interested in Fuller. As I said, I don't have the book with me right now, but this shouldn't prevent people from working on the lessons through this forum. I think, as of now, the one thread is still fine, but if it becomes too large, we can consider splitting it up like we did for Wang Li.

As far as the Wang Li thread goes, I have a question to those I had invited to join in Are you waiting for Daan and me to finish the Zuozhuan so we can all start doing the Zhanguoce part together? If so, you don't have to wait, you can press ahead with Zhanguoce, though better still, you could just chime in on the Zuozhuan chapter as well.

I think, I'll just post my comments on the first Zhanguoce chapter to just get this started. This doesn't have to be a linear kind of undertaking

[transfer1947]

Gato could you please help me about gxsd forum.

I don't speak chinese so it is very hard to figure out how to post or download documents from threads

I have just now register here too butfor now I can't send PRIVATE MESSAGES

Could you please contact me directly at

archivist1947@gmail.com

Thank you in advance and thank for your thread here.