Literary Chinese for Advanced Beginners, 1997

[chrix]

進階文言文讀本, by the Inter-University Board for Chinese Language Studies. ISBN 957-638-419-2

Thought I'd mention it here since it has also a lot of Literary Chinese. Less than half of the texts are from before the Qin, the rest span the entire range from Han through Minguo.

I bought it in Taiwan, I can recommend it. It's basically annotated texts, with a short appendix of function words and polysemic words at the end. It is a very good supplement if you already have done Fuller (and IMHO Pulleyblank as well).

[doezeedoats]

Where in Taiwan, city (Taipei?), bookstore?

[chrix]

I don't remember, that was almost 10 years ago. But it shouldn't be hard to order or something....

[chrix]

Published by 南天書局 SMC Publishing. Sometimes publishers even sell directly, and this publisher has a lot of books related to Mandarin learning, so it wouldn't surprise me if they did. Be sure to tell us if you do go check them out

[Daan]

SMC sure do have their own bookstore. To me, that place is almost like heaven It's near the corner of 新生路 and 羅斯福路, address as follows: 羅斯福路三段283巷14弄14號1樓. You might have some trouble finding it, as it's well-hidden, but it's definitely there. Look it up on Google Maps before you go. Thanks for the hint, chrix, I'll see if I can find any time to check it out tomorrow!

[Daan]

Glanced through this book today. Looks really good! I'm always in awe of SMC's readers. It was only 180 NTD, so it was difficult for me not to buy it, but I already have plenty of textbooks to work through. Though I suppose I will still buy it before I leave

Highly recommended!

[gato]

I think I've read through this one before. I remember it being very well organized. There's an essay by 梁启超 near the end, right? I think I read it after working through the two volumes of Gregory Chiang "Language of Dragon", which is a basic beginner's text.

[chrix]

yep, that's the one!

[OneEye]

I picked up this book a few weeks ago. It looks really great, and I'm itching to start it, but chrix's comment above ("It is a very good supplement if you already have done Fuller (and IMHO Pulleyblank as well)"), has given me second thoughts. I'm not finished with Fuller, but I've done the first 24 lessons, through the end of the "Intermediate Texts".

I took a look at the first lesson (季氏 from 論語) and it doesn't seem all that difficult. No more difficult than what I've done up to this point anyway, aside from reading definitions in Chinese rather than English, which is actually quite nice. I thought it might be a good idea to work through at least some of this book (I'll call it LCFAB) before tackling the Advanced Texts and Selected Tang and Song Dynasty Writings sections (the latter of which is not glossed) in Fuller, since the texts in LCFAB seem less intimidating (no commentary to work through, shorter, etc.). I can still make use of commentary for the texts in LCFAB when I need to anyway, and I always have Pulleyblank handy.

So my question is, do I really need to finish all of Fuller before starting this book? Or if I were to study, in this order:

先秦, 漢, and 南北朝 texts in LCFAB

Advanced Texts in Fuller (all of which are 晉朝 or earlier)

唐朝 through 民國 texts in LCFAB

Unglossed Tang and Song writings at the end of Fuller

would that be a reasonable plan?

The goal is, after finishing both books, to start reading from 三民 editions of 四書, 古文觀止, 唐詩宋詞, etc. with the help of 王力古代漢語 and a good dictionary or three. I'd like to start on this book, since I'm kind of dreading and intimidated by the suddenly very long passages from the Advanced section of Fuller and like the idea of continuing to use glossed texts for now. It seems LCFAB will help bridge the gap, but at the same time if it really is much more difficult I don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

I hope I wrote clearly, it's pretty late here.

[Daan]

My two cents: I found LCFAB to be an excellent introduction to reading Classical Chinese with only Mandarin to help me out when things got confusing, so by all means give it a try and let us know how you get on

[gato]

I consider this LCFAB still to be a beginner's text, only slightly more difficult than Gregory Chiang's "Language of Dragon". The main difference is that the explanations are written in Chinese. You are probably ready for it if you are starting to get comfortable with native material in modern Chinese.

[OneEye]

Cool, thanks guys! I'll get to it, then. It looks like there will be a new word or two here and there in the explanations, but that just means I'll also get some new vocabulary out of the deal. It will be good to make the transition to only using Chinese. I'm doing the same thing in my class next term. The textbook is Mini Radio Plays 《迷你廣播劇》 and there is no English in the book at all except when absolutely necessary. So I'll get lot more "learning Chinese in Chinese" time. Daan, I'm actually taking that class with one of the undergrads from Leiden.

Thanks for the help!