文言文 Reading Group in Taipei

[OneEye]

Wednesdays at 5pm, at Café Bastille. The address is 台北市大安區泰順街40巷23號. The regular meeting starts at 5:30. Once PMing is available to you, if you can send me your email address I'll add you to the mailing list and send you some of the stuff we're working with. Hope to see you there next week!

[roddy]

Everyone who's posted should have pm access now.

[sabrian]

Hello

I am french and I would like to join your Classical Chinese readers group.

But I am a very very beginner in classical Chinese, I am reading the 三字經 (the version for Taiwanese children.... )

Can I directly go to the Bastille Café next Wednesday?

[OneEye]

Hopefully roddy can make it so that you can send me your email address in a PM, and then I can send you all the information. If you're coming to the beginners' session at 5, I can also send you the material we've already covered so you can catch up for next week.

[roddy]

Already done.

[OneEye]

What a swell guy. Another green point, just to try to balance out all the negativity on the board recently.

sabrian, just send me a PM with your email address and I'll get the information to you once I have a chance.

[clucero75]

Is the reading group still afloat?

[OneEye]

Unfortunately, no. We met for a while and then ran into a few bumps in the road, people got busy with school or work, etc. You can find the discussion threads for the texts we read in this forum, in the Grand 文言文 Reading Project threads. I do intend to continue with that once things settle down here, but unfortunately I don't have the time these days to devote to a meetup.

However, if you're interested in taking on the organization of the group, you may still be able to find enough interested people. A new term is about to start at MTC, so if you post signs there, you may have some luck. I may be able to participate from time to time as well, depending on my work load.

[clucero75]

Yeah, I have been so busy with applying to grad school that I, unfortunately, wasn't able to make it here for the first quarter at MTC. I just got into to town a few days ago. Anyways, hopefully I scored high enough on the placement test to be put into the Classical Chinese courses. If not, do you have any suggestions as to how to transfer courses? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Charles

[OneEye]

Anyways, hopefully I scored high enough on the placement test to be put into the Classical Chinese courses.

The last time I checked, they weren't offering any classical Chinese courses this term. In the five terms I've been at MTC so far, I believe there have only been 2 that had classical Chinese courses on offer. There just aren't enough interested students. If you can find enough other students who want to take classical Chinese, then you can ask the office to open a class for you (a few people did that during the summer term), but otherwise you'll have to either self-study (which is what I'd recommend) or hire a tutor. With a tutor you probably won't actually learn much classical Chinese, but rather mostly rely on translations into modern Chinese. They won't be able to explain the grammar very well, there's a lot of "well that character doesn't mean anything" (of course it does), etc.

What's your experience in classical Chinese? If you've never studied it, I'd recommend picking up Michael Fuller's An Introduction to Literary Chinese. After I finished the first 24 lessons in that book, I used Shadick's 文言文入門 A First Course in Literary Chinese as a reader, though I haven't quite finished it either. Around the same time, this study group started up, so I read the selections you see listed in the Grand 文言文 Reading Project, along with other selections from a high school reader I have called 《文言文40篇大探索》. This progression has worked very well for me. If you've already learned some, you'll just have to figure out where your level is. If you're at a higher level than that (if, for example, things like high school 國文 readers and 古文觀止 aren't too challenging), you could go for something like 王力's 《古代漢語》, which is available at many of the mainland import stores around town, like 萬卷樓 or 若水堂.

As far as switching classes, you just have to get a form from the 6th floor office and get your teacher to sign it, then you can shop around for teachers at the level you tested into and lower. I don't know if you can change into a higher class, but maybe if both teachers signed off on it, it would be OK. The people in the main office could tell you.

[clucero75]

My experience is scattered and lacking any coherence. I've read a bit of 王力's first volume. I'm fiddling with 實用古漢語虛詞, of which I picked up from the library. So I guess my level is: if I have pleco I can get the jist of it.

Yeah I remember the counsellor said there has to be at least six people interested. Guess no luck this semester.

Thanks for the advice on the tutor. I know exactly what you mean about Chinese people saying a character doesn't mean something. That is one of my pet peeves. I wonder why they think that way. Perhaps it's because they read much quicker and thus don't pick at sentences like I do?

I got placed into level 5 by the way.

Thanks for the advice!

[OneEye]

Toward the end of the spring semester, Humblegeoff (who posted earlier in this thread) put up an advertisement on the 7th floor bulletin board, and it seemed to work well enough. There wasn't a full class, but they met a few days per week. You could PM him for more details on how he went about that.

Congratulations on your placement.

[Humblegeoff]

Indeed I did - there were two of us, and if I remember rightly I had six hours with a classmate and four hours on my own. This cost me the rather large amount of NT$60,000 or so, but that was because I wanted to do ten hours per week of Classical regardless of cost. It is possible to arrange fewer hours on top of your regular classes, and as they charge by the hour it can be rather cheaper. One of the real benefits of a small private class is that you get to decide what to read, so I was able to go through some of the Yuanshi biographies that I need for my research now, and that has been really useful. Feel free to get in touch if i can be any help.

Geoff

[clucero75]

Hey Geoff,

Are you still in Taipei? If so, and if you don't mind, I'd be nice to go for some coffee and discuss the various options and methods for studying Classical Chinese. I would private message you, but for some reason that function is still unavailable.

Charles

[Humblegeoff]

Sorry Charles (and apologies for the long delay in replying). No, I am now back in the UK, trying to use my Chinese to get my head around the Yuanshi. I'm happy to discuss things here for the time being. OneEye, although very busy, is probably the most useful expert on the spot (and he's very wise and a really nice chap to boot).

[OneEye]

He's only able to say that because all the who really know what they're doing already went back to their respective universities.

I'd be up for a chat sometime though. Maybe an admin can unblock your PM privileges soon.

[imron]

Done.