Book on formal written Chinese

[Zeppa]

 In an evening class I am just at the end of the SOAS book Chinese in Steps 4, and there has been quite a bit of formal language introduced. I understand that most of the time we have been learning colloquial Chinese. Can anyone recommend a book or even website where there is more information on written formal Chinese? I understand that a lot of classical Chinese is relevant, but present-day written Chinese does not go so far. (I've dabbled a bit in classical Chinese and have some books.)

 

I even have difficulty listing the formal Chinese we have met, because it isn't treated separately and I don't remember it separately). The chapters have dialogues, which are more colloquial, and texts, which are more formal. Here's the latest text (I didn't enter it by hand, I had scanned and OCR'd the book):

故宫
故宫博物馆位于北京市中心，是明、清两代的皇宫，先后居住 过24位皇帝。明清时称为紫禁城，1925年开始称为故宫。故宫博物 馆占地七十二万多平方米，有房屋九千多间，是当今世界上现存规 模最大、保存最完好的古代皇宫建筑群。
这座故宫为什么称为紫禁城呢？原来，中国古代天文学认为紫 微星居于中天，是天帝所在。因而，把天帝所居住的天宫叫做紫 宫。皇帝自称是天帝的儿子，是真龙天子，因而他们所居住的皇宫 也被称为紫宫。皇宫是禁地，是不能随便出入的，所以又被称为紫 禁城。

 

So what I'm looking for is an introduction to written Chinese. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Guest realmayo]

"A Learners' Handbook of Modern Chinese Written Expressions" by Yu Feng

.... isn't an introduction but provides a useful selection of words and phrases that are relevant for written Chinese but not necessarily common in speech.

 

See this topic for another suggestion too:

 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/11393-%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E4%B9%A6%E9%9D%A2%E7%94%A8%E8%AF%AD%E5%88%9D%E7%BC%96-expressions-of-written-chinese/

[Zeppa]

Excellent, thanks very much. Unfortunately it seems to be sold out everywhere in the UK, but I will try to get it.

[geraldc]

For the section you posted, isn't it just new vocab that's the problem? As there's not that much difference between spoken and written.

[TheBigZaboon]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned "Developing Writing skills In Chinese," by Boping Yuan and Kan Qian, published by Routledge. The ISBN of the first edition is  0415215846. However, there is also a second edition floating around. Although I don't see any problem using either one, people seem to prefer the newest version available, and they may have added to the book, but have probably taken nothing away.

 

The book provides a number of useful models for writing, starting from postcards and thank you notes up to formal letters and business correspondence. It provides good explanations, and then a lot of alternative expressions that can be used in different situations. For expository writing it has separate chapters for describing emotions, disposition and moral attributes, as well as chapters on reporting speech, describing people's physical attributes, giving examples and summarizing, comparison and contrast, simile and metaphors, describing the weather, and reporting physical movements (walking running, seeing, listening, speaking). It has a number of the usual exercises, along with an answer key.

 

I have only a copy of the first edition, so I don't know what may have been added or taken away in the second, but I would assume e-mail and social media would be a subject begging for inclusion.

 

In addition to the "Learner's Handbook" mentioned above, which also provides a lot of rules and conventions for Chinese written and printed materials, there is also a book to be considered written by Jiaying Howard (庄稼婴 Zhuang Jiaying) entitled A student Handbook for Chinese Function Words (ISBN 9789622019843 (maybe the last 10 digits would be the shorter version)). This book is a gem. It contains listings of more than 500 adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, etc., listed with both simplified and traditional examples, pinyin, and English explanations and translations of the example sentences. This book is, as I said, a gem, and this woman (the author) is a national treasure. She is, or was, Program head of Chinese Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

 

These are examples of books in English on written Chinese that should be in every student's library. There are others, like those of Stanley Mickel, that should also be in the libraries of the professionals among us.

 

Enough to keep you busy for now.

[roddy]

I was just about to mention it, Mr Zaboon. Now you've saved me the bother...

[Zeppa]

Thank you very much. Those both sound excellent. I do have a couple of grammar books but I couldn't find anything specifically about written style in them. There are some fantastic books around nowadays, though. Just need to find time to use them!

[Zeppa]

@geraldc: I just posted the section for information on my level and to show that some is formal. I don't have problems with it. I just want to focus a bit more on formal language.

[Zeppa]

The two books suggested by TheBigZaboon, on developing writing skills and on function words, are great.

 

The Yu Feng book is seriously out of print - second-hand copies cost the earth. Fortunately the Kindle version is now available on the amazon.co.uk website - it was apparently available sooner on amazon.com, but that doesn't help me. Looks really useful.

 

Thanks again for all suggestions.