Classical Chinese learning resources?

Language Learning Chinese
21

Lighten up, Buttercup. I’m just practicing my 倉頡 and trying not to go porn surfing. I like your site by the way. Your Mandarin is way better than mine. I gotta go back to school before my next mid-life crisis.
Here’s number two from Chapter 5: It’s about a guy who got fat.

先王之義勝: The Enlightened Kings Made Me Fat.

子夏見曾子。－ Zixia ran into Zeng.

曾子曰:＂何肥也？＂－Zeng said: “Why you so fat?”

對曰：戰勝，故肥也。－Zixia replied: “The battle’s been won, so I’m fat.”
曾子曰：＂何謂也？＂－ Zeng said: “Say what?”

子夏曰：＂吾入見先王之義則榮之，－ Zixia said: “I was thinking about the wise sage kings of old… It would be so cool to be all enlightened and wise like them…”

出見富貴之樂又榮之。－ “…but then I thought, it would also be cool to just be a big rich mac daddy…”

兩者戰于胸中，未知勝負－"…There was this battle in my mind. I was tormented by these two conflicting values…"

故臞－ “… I got all emaciated…”

今先王之義勝－ “…But then I decided that the way of the enlightened sage kings is the way to go…”

故肥。 － Then I got fat."

This one’s hard to understand for us modern folks. I would think if he opted to be a rich mac daddy, he would have gotten fat; and if he opted to be a wiseman, he would have gotten all skinny like a starving poet.

22

OK, so here’s lesson 13:

郢書燕說 What a Dork

郢人 Among the people from Ying
有遺燕相國書者 There was a guy who wrote a letter to the prime
minister of Yan.
夜書 He was writing at night
火不明 And the light wasn’t bright enough
因謂持燭者曰: So he told the guy who was holding the candle:
＂舉燭。＂ ‘Can you raise the candle?’
云而過書：＂舉燭＂ and then he accidentally wrote ‘raise the candle’ in
the middle of his letter,
＂舉燭＂非書意也。 which had nothing to do with what he was writing
about.
燕相受書而說之，曰：So the prime minister of Yan read the letter and he got to ‘raise the candle’ and he stopped and thought:
＂舉燭＂者， Yes! ‘Raise the Candle!’
尚明也者 We must… ‘RAISE THE CANDLE’! Yes…
舉賢而任之。＂ We must… promote… bright people… to high places!
and… RAISE THE CANDLE… Yes! YES!!!
燕相白王，大說 He told this to the king, who was pleased
國以治， And everything in the kingdom was great and all…
治則治矣， But, whatever…
非書意也 The candle had nothing to do with the rest of the letter.
今世學者多似此類 That’s intellectuals for ya…

So, I guess we’ll never know what the guy was writing about. But we now have this famous 成語：郢書燕說, which I guess could be used when you’re talking about… When… can’t think of any examples. Anybody ever have an episode where you could use this 成語？

23

OK, kiddies. It’s time for Chapter 17. Don’t confuse it with the last one, because the English title is a little different.

刻舟求劍 What a Retard
楚人 Among the people of the Chu Kingdom
有涉江者 There was this guy sailing down a river.
其劍自舟中墜於水。 His sword fell off the boat and into the river.
遽契其舟曰：He immediately carved a little mark in
the side of his boat:
＂是吾劍之所從墜＂ “Here’s where my sword dropped”
舟止 The boat stopped.
從其所契者入水求之 And he started to look for his sword under the little mark he made.
舟已行矣 The boat had gone way upstream.
而劍不行。 But the sword didn’t follow it upstream…
求劍若此，不亦惑乎。 What a retard.

Check it out: ‘是’ in Classical Chinese means ‘here’.

24

:laughing: :laughing: ROTFL…

I’m certainly enjoying Classical Chinese much more your way than the way I had to do it in college!!

25

Hey, kids. It’s time for Lesson 20 from this here book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0691118310/ref=dp_primary-product-display_0/002-6607318-6788843?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155
It’s about a crazy old man and his ho.

結草報恩 － Returning the Favor

初 A long time ago…
魏武子有嬖妾 Wuzi Wei had a favorite ho.
無子。 She never bore him any kids.
武子疾 Wuzi was an older guy… He got sick…
命顆曰： And he told his son, Ke:
＂必嫁是。＂ “Marry that ho off to somebody else for me…”
疾病則日： Then Wuzi got even sicker and said:
＂必以為殉。＂“No, I changed my mind. Bury that ho with me!”
及卒， Then he croaked.
顆嫁之，曰： Anyway, Ke married her off to somebody else. He said:
：＂疾病則亂， “My old man lost his mind.
吾從其治也。＂ I’m just doing what he told me to do when he was sane.”

及輔氏之役， At the time of the big battle at Fu-Shi
顆見老人結草 Ke saw this old guy knotting the grass on the battlefield
以亢杜回。 to trip up Du-Hui, the big asshole from the Qin army.
杜回躓而顛， Du-Hui tripped and fell
故獲之。 So they captured him
夜夢之曰： That night, Ke saw that old guy in his dream. He said:
：＂佘，而所嫁婦人之父也。 “I’m the father of that ho you married off.
爾用先人之治命， You followed your dad’s sane command.
佘是以報。＂、 I thought I’d return the favor.”

OK… So today the main thing I learned is that ‘治’ in Classical Chinese can mean ‘sane’ or ‘clear-headed’. And I always thought it meant ‘sandwich’, ah well…

And the old man who died uses ‘是’ as a pronoun to mean ‘this’, referring to his concubine. More like ‘Marry this one off…’ So in Classical Chinese, ‘是’ can mean ‘here’ or ‘this’ or, I guess, ‘this here’ or ‘this here thing’…

We have to wonder if she ever had any kids… Was Wuzi impotent? And more importantly, why did he go insane? Did she fvck his brains out? Did she fvck him to death?

And was the old guy returning the favor to Wuzi or Ke? Wuzi saved his daughter before he lost his mind… so the old guy helps Wuzi by saving Wuzi’s son? I think this 成語 is used to return a favor to a dead person, so the old guy was probably repaying Wuzi…

26

是 is the main Classical near demonstrative (“this/these”). It only came to be a copula (“is”) in the Tang dynasty or so.

27

Thanks, RachelK. The Princeton book doesn’t go into the various phases of Classical Chinese. It’s a ‘Basic Reader’… In three volumes… and it is… my precious…

Anyway, RachelK, can you help me out with this next one? It’s really confusing. It’s full of double negatives and all… I had to read it over and over again.

Finally, I decided that the only way it makes sense is as a blues song.

So here’s chapter 22, a blues tune about the negative impact of government interference on sprouting market economies. Not necessarily republican; maybe libertarian. Sung by Adam Smith with Chinese subtitles and featuring a special guest appearance by the great late Roy Buchanan.

揠苗 - Pullin’ Them Sprouts

宋人 They’s a man down in Song…
有閔其苗之不長 Worry his sprouts ain’t gonna grow up… (x2)
而揠之者。 So he reached down and tugged on them sprouts;
Done almost pulled them poor sprouts out of the ground…

芒芒然歸，謂其人曰： And then he went on home… sayin’:

＂今日病矣！ I’m tired…I’m tired…
予助苗長矣！＂ I done already helped them sprouts grow up… (x2)
其子趨而往視之， So his son ran outside to see…
苗則槁矣。 Them sprouts done withered up and died…

(guitar solo in Quicktime format:)
http://www.roybuchanan.com/

天下 Ain’t nobody…
之不助苗長者寡矣。 Can just leave them poor sprouts alone… (x2)
以為無益而舍之者， Some folks don’t give a damn;
不耘苗者也；
助之長者， Some folks kill 'em when they try to help 'em grow…
揠苗者也。

非徒無益， That just ain’t no good;
而又害之。 Do them sprouts harm… (x2)

(guitar solo in Quicktime format:)
http://www.roybuchanan.com/

Hmmm… Today we see a new version of ‘I’: 予
In lesson 20, we saw that ‘I’ was: 余
They’re pronounced the same in Modern Chinese. How were they pronounced in Classical?

So anyway, the moral of the story is: if you’re going to do something half-assed, you might be doing more harm than if you didn’t even do anything at all. Am I right on this?

28

Again, let me repeat my post on page one of this thread: get yourself a copy of the 古汉语常用字字典. You won’t regret it. It’s just about the most useful dictionary I have, and it’s quite cheap.

I’m terrible with Classical double negatives. Those and unmarked conditionals are the bane of my existence. Or something.

I know you’re going for a blues riff here, but remember that that whole sentence is a “There was a person in Song who…” relative clause. “There was a person who worried about his sprouts’ not growing and who tugged on them.”

Well, you didn’t say how he went home (nervously, in a rush). And can anyone help with who qi2ren2 is? His wife? Someone in his family?

I would say “Those who take the sprouts as hopeless and give up on them are those who would not weed them”.

“Those who help the sprouts’ growth are the ones who pluck them.”

Wow, didn’t know that meaning of tu2 before.

Dunno… The question of how things were pronounced in Classical Chinese, or rather, different kinds of Classical Chinese – there were regional variants then, too – is a huge field of study that I can’t speak about. There are huge debates about this sort of thing. Look for the work of Bernhard Karlgren, or my old professor (South Coblin) on this.

I don’t know. It’s hard to tell who’s saying the last bit – the farmer, his son, or the omniscient narrator. But your interpretation seems sound, and I think this story gets used as a 成語 for people who do stupid things that they think are helping but are actually hurting.

29

How about “others” or “other people”?

I remember this lesson in my old literary Chinese textbook from undergrad. Fun stuff … :wink:

30

Could also be his retainers or household staff.

31

I just finished chapter 1 of the Princeton Classical Chinese Reader, and I have to say, it seriously kicks ass. I’ve pretty much sworn off of Chinese textbooks, but these books are awesome.

32

According to the book, 其人 means ‘his family’.

The book also says that 芒芒然 means ‘wearily’ or ‘exhaustedly’… so I figured that I didn’t need to mention it because he already said ‘I’m tired’.

But…

the hardest part for me is this part:

Let me try again…

天下之 In all the world…
不助苗長者 those who don’t ‘help’ the sprouts grow… (and I assume he means ‘help’ sarcastically, as in ‘help’ them by tugging on them and thus ripping their roots out of the ground which kills them…)
寡矣。 are few…

以為無益 Those who think that there’s no point
而舍之者， and just leave the sprouts alone
不耘苗者也； are the same ones who don’t care enough to even weed the sprout patch (which would actually help the sprouts, right?)
So I just translated it as ‘Some folks don’t give a damn.’

助之長者，Those who actually try to help them grow
揠苗者也。 are the ones who tug on them (and thus pull them out of the ground and thus kill them)

Did I catch the sarcasm?

I actually have the Bernhard Karlgren Grammatica Serica Recensa… but…uh… I really wish it came with a CD…

I’m reading through the introduction right now. He describes the letters he uses to write the sounds of archaic and ancient Chinese. He uses Wade Giles for modern Mandarin… OK, I really have to learn the WG better…

For Archaic and Ancient Chinese, Karlgren puts a colon after the syllable for rising tone, a hyphen for falling tone and nothing for level tone, so…
古 kuo:
人 nzien
帶 tai-

But there are all these other markings that he uses…

33

Good morning, boys and girls! And congratulations to Mad Scientist for finally getting his brain in that vat! Good job! :bravo:

It’s time for Chapter 23 in the Classical Chinese Reader! It’s about that ‘find your roots’ bullshit. It’s all in your head! Are you ready?

Let’s go!

燕人 The Guy From Yan…

燕人生於燕 This guy was born in Yan
長於楚 But he grew up in Chu
及老而還本國。 When he got old, he set off on a personal journey back to the country of his birth…

過晉國， On his way there, he passed by Jin.
同行者誑之， A fellow traveller played a joke on him,
指城曰： pointed to Jin and said:
＂此燕國之城。＂ “This… is the city wall of Yan…”
其人愀然變容。 The man from Yan stopped and stared solemnly at the great city wall…

指社曰： He pointed to a temple and said:
＂此若里之社。＂“This… is the temple of your native village…”
乃喟然而歎。 The man from Yan took a deep sigh…

指舍曰： He pointed to some thatched huts and said:
＂此若先人之廬。＂ “And these are the homes… of your people…”
乃涓然而泣。 The man from Yan began to shed tears…

指壟曰： He pointed to some graves and said:
＂此若先人之塚。＂ “These are the tombs… of your ancestors…”
其人哭不自禁。 The man from Yan broke down and cried…

同行者啞然大笑曰： Then he laughed and said:
＂予昔紿若，此晉國耳。＂“No, I’m just shittin’ you, man. This is Jin.”
其人大慚. The man from Yan was deeply embarrassed.

及至燕， When he finally did get to Yan,
真見燕國之城社， and saw the true city walls and temples of Yan,
真見先人之廬塚， saw the true homes and tombs of his ancestors,
悲心更微。 he wasn’t as moved.

In this one, I really got down that 若 means ‘you’/‘your’. I knew that before, but now I got it solidified…solidified fluency (oxymoron?)

A lot of people (especially in the US and Canada) are really hooked on this ‘roots’ thing. OK, it’s interesting for party talk or trying to impress people with how ‘ethnic’ you are, but… in the end, the guy from Yan was actually just another guy from Chu.

34

Thank you so much Sinister Tiddlywinks.

I’m really enjoying this. I especially like to see the scholars(RachelK, LittleBuddhaTW and yourself) take apart the language and give me something to confuse my Chinese co-teachers with.

Many Thanks,
Okami

35

Why do you translate 先人 in one place as “people” and in another as “ancestors”? Also, does the text book say that 若 means “you/your” or is this your interpretation? I’ve never seen this usage before, and that’s not how I would translate it.

36

<國語辭典>:
若:
你、你的。莊子˙齊物論：然則我與若與人俱不能相知也。史記˙卷七˙項羽本紀：吾翁即若翁，必欲烹而翁，則幸分我一杯羹。

140.111.1.22/clc/dict/GetContent … tring=%ADY

37

The book says 先人 means ‘ancestors’.

In the previous passage 結草報恩, the author uses 先人 to refer to the guys deceased father. So, unlike English ‘ancestor’, 先人 can also refer to a recently deceased ‘before-person’.

Translations of Classical Chinese are usually very stuffy and alienating. I like to read it, understand it, do some mental mastication, and then see how it looks in English…

I can change my translation to make it more accurately reflect the literal meaning of the Chinese… but you’d have to give me money… :slight_smile:

38

You’re so cute :uhhuh: What’s the name of your book, and why didn’t you just post it in the first place?

Was it written by the controversial Wolfram Eberhard? The Nazi-Sinologist? He’s got some books at Caves…

39

OK, I think this is the RachelK dictionary… Am I right, RachelK?
http://shopping.263.net/eshop/details.asp?gid=41599

Are you sure we can buy this in Taiwan? I went to book street today 重慶南路 today and the only ‘Classical Chinese’ dictionary I could find was this stuffy old French one that was so old that you could tell it was written with a typewriter… They even used a little ankh in the definitions to represent the entry…

40

Haven’t had much time to study recently. The translation probably reflects this. What do you think?

Anyway, this is Chapter 28. After I got my Gmail invites and offered them to people at work, I noticed that all these people were interested but reluctant. So Confucius says something about giving and recieving in this passage. My question is: why is it that if Confucius says it, it’s all sagacious; but if I say it, then it’s like: ‘oh, you think too much.’

曾子辭邑 Zeng refuses Gmail.

曾子弊衣而耕於魯， Zeng was out working in the field with his old worn out hotmail account.
魯君聞之而致邑焉。 The Gmail guy heard about it and gave him a gmail invite.
曾子固辭不受。 Zeng refused.
或曰：Somebody said:
＂非子之求， It’s not like you’re asking him for something…
君自致之， It was his choice to give it to you…
奚固辭也？＂ How come you’re refusing it?

曾子曰： Zeng said:
＂吾聞 I have heard -
‘受人施者常畏人，‘Those who accept gifts often feel like they owe something to the givers’
與人者常驕人。’ ‘And those who give to others often look down on them.’
縱君有賜， Even if this guy gives me a Gmail invite,
不我驕也，and he doesn’t treat me like a dumb piece of shit,
吾豈能勿畏乎？＂I still couldn’t help but feel like I owe him something.
孔子聞之曰： Confucius heard about this and said:
＂參之言足以全其節也。 “By saying this, this man preserves his integrity.”

No… "His words reflect his principles."參之言足以全其節也。
No… "He says this to defend his pride."參之言足以全其節也。
No… "His words are enough to maintain his integrity."參之言足以全其節也。

No, that’s too weird…
Anyway, 參 is Zeng’s other name.

And today, we see again that 或 in Classical Chinese can mean ‘someone’!!
And something really really
neato
: 焉 is the indirect object pronoun (like ‘to him’ or ‘to her’). So 致邑焉 is literally ‘grant land to him’
[b]

BUT…
[/b]

I’m curious…
Why do people change pronouns in the same passage. In one part he uses 我 and in the next 吾. They both mean ‘I’. What’s the deal? Is one subject, one object?