Ancient Chinese Vocabulary In Movies

[iar]

Hi guys,

I'm self-studying mandarin from various books and although they teach me the common spoken language I would like to learn more specialized vocabulary related to movies set in ancient china such as battle of red cliff and crouching tiger hidden dragon. For example having words like sword, urn, ship, armor, emperor and words relating to gongfu like kick, punch, wound, strength, courage. Are there any texts books or vocabulary lists or online resources that help with learning this type of vocabulary?

Thanks

iar

[renzhe]

The best sources are Wuxia novels and adaptations, and costume dramas. Native-level materials, basically.

I encourage you to get comfortable with regular language first. Not only is it more useful, but you also have the problem that each period had a different set of names for things, and there's plenty of very obscure stuff you'll run into.

Once you can understand native-level stuff, you can delve into Jin Yong or "My Own Swordsman" or similar, and you'll pick these things up relatively quickly.

[roddy]

You can get the scripts for three relevant films here

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/6622-chinese-film-transcripts/

And probably more (plus tv shows) on shooter.cn. Use those and a pop-up dictionary as you watch, make flashcard files, etc.

[kdavid]

I encourage you to get comfortable with regular language first. Not only is it more useful, but you also have the problem that each period had a different set of names for things, and there's plenty of very obscure stuff you'll run into.

I agree with renzhe.

I'm currently studying for my MA in Late Imperial Chinese History (Ming and Qing dynasties) here on the mainland. We come across this type of vocabulary all the time, yet 90% of it is essentially useless outside of the classroom in day-to-day conversation.

Sure knowing these terms may impress some people, it may just plain confuse others, but being able to converse about practical topics should be a goal before you start learning low-frequency vocabulary.

[character]

http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php?19209-Wu-Xia-Common-Terms-and-Translation

http://www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php?5490-Help-with-ancient-terms-in-Pinyin

I went through a Shaw Brothers film looking up vocabulary: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/21492-the-swordmates-a-movie-with-vocabulary-list/

I think the ABC dictionary in Pleco tended to have the best definition for words/phrases in the movie.

There is a Chinese Breeze book Green Phoenix: http://www.chinesemall.com/chbrrele2grp.html and Traditional Chinese Tales: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780887102080

[iar]

Thanks guys for all your responses. I agree I should get comfortable with the regular language first before I study this vocab. I will definitely be wanting to learn these terms later on in my Chinese study. Does having a good grasp of regular language help in learning this vocabulary?

Once you can understand native-level stuff, you can delve into Jin Yong or "My Own Swordsman" or similar, and you'll pick these things up relatively quickly.

I'm also reading The Book And The Sword Jin Yong the english translation and hope to be able to read it in the original Chinese.

[renzhe]

Does having a good grasp of regular language help in learning this vocabulary?

Yes, because the best resources for learning this stuff are all in Chinese

It also helps if, while reading a sentence like "he jumped off the roof grasping his halberd", you don't have to look up "jump" and "roof", and only need to look up "halberd".

[iar]

Yes, because the best resources for learning this stuff are all in Chinese

Thanks renzhe. Can you mention some of the sources in Chinese where you can learn about this stuff?

[renzhe]

What I did was read Jin Yong. Watching an wuxia show could also work. For both, you will need to be moderately comfortable with Chinese already, then everything you don't understand is an archaic and/or specialised martial word you can learn

I don't know of any specialised resources precisely for learning this kind of vocabulary, but I think that most native speaker simply learn them through exposure.

[imron]

I agree with the above.