Hello again! This time I'm asking to see what are your favorite books to recommend to someone to learn Chinese. I've had success with the Teach Yourself Series for Hebrew, Koine, and Attic, but I remember when working with the Japanese one, it seemed lacking and missing information. I prefer them to be complete and detailed, instead of elementary and rounded.

Thoughts?

best,

Chris

Hey.. the "Beginners Chinese (Beginner's foreign language)" by Yong ho is pretty good for beginners.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

For reading and writing, I would recommend
"Teach Yourself Beginners Chinese Script : An Introduction to Reading and Writing Chinese" by Liz Scurfield.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

It would always be best if you have a chinese language teacher.

If you want to improve your chinese, it's always best to be in the country where the language is spoken, i.e. China. If you stay in China for 1 year, I'm sure your chinese would become outspoken.

Thank you General Zhaoyun - what about any that are geared for reading the Classics? Just like I wouldn't want to learn Modern Greek for reading Plato, is there a good book geared for learning Classical Chinese?

Chris Weimer, frankly speaking, I haven't found of any 'book' that teaches people on learning classical chinese. I've been trying to look for chinese books on learning classical chinese in China, but to no avail. Perhaps, there is, but I haven't found it. If I found it, I'll recommend it to all of you.

I would say you should 'master' the normal chinese language before proceeding to the classical language, bearing in mind that classical chinese is normally learnt after you have a good command of the chinese language at an advanced level.

Classical chinese is considered a 'dead' language that is no longer spoken today in China. However, all ancient chinese texts are in classical chinese, thus it makes it necessary to learn classical chinese if you're trying to read these texts. Most native chinese can only read fairly simple classical texts. They would very often still require vernacular chinese translation when reading classical chinese text. People who are proficient in classical language are usually the scholars and experts.

I would suggest that you have a good teacher to teach you classical chinese, as it's much easier than learning them on your own.

There is a chinese article on 'how to learn classical chinese' at http://www.motherol.com/info/list.asp?id=2060

Basically, if you want to learn classical chinese, you might have to learn some ancient chinese sayings taken from classical text.

We have a thread here discussing about classical chinese
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2620
Yun has put forth some common words used in classical language. You might want to take a look.

Currently, I'm also learning classical chinese by taking a diploma course on advanced chinese language and cultural study. I can only understand fairly simple classical text and am still not proficient enough in classical chinese.

The only reference book I have on Classical Chinese is a thin little one entitled Wenyan Yufa Changshi 《文言语法常识》, published by the Commercial Press (商务印书馆) in Hong Kong for high school students in 1976. It was given to me by a friend of the family some years ago. I stopped reading it after a while because it was rather dry, and my grasp of Classical Chinese has actually come almost entirely from reading it a lot and figuring it out on my own (except for a few passages that I had to learn in high school).

However, Classical Chinese remains a subject in high schools in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and one can find many student guides for it on the internet. I did a search on the Commercial Press website, and here are a few:

《文言文基礎知識手冊（高中）》 : http://www.cp1897.com.hk/BookInfo?BookId=7...53&SectionId=10

《文言文全解（初中卷）》 : http://www.cp1897.com.hk/BookInfo?BookId=7...83&SectionId=10

《文言文全解（高中卷）》 : http://www.cp1897.com.hk/BookInfo?BookId=7...75&SectionId=10

《文言文全解（修訂版）（初中卷）》 : http://www.cp1897.com.hk/BookInfo?BookId=7...82&SectionId=10

《文言文全解（修訂版）（高中卷）》 : http://www.cp1897.com.hk/BookInfo?BookId=7..._1&SectionId=10

《初中文言文閱讀辭典》 : http://www.cp1897.com.hk/BookInfo?BookId=7...66&SectionId=10

《學生文言文字典》 : http://www.cp1897.com.hk/BookInfo?BookId=7...37&SectionId=10

All can be ordered online from the Commercial Press website. The catch: they're all in Chinese, and you have to be able to read vernacular Chinese first in order to read them. In fact, you probably can't even order them online without being able to read the Chinese on the website...

I doubt there are many English books teaching Classical Chinese, because their practical utility would just be too low for there to be a viable market. The fact that the 25 Histories have not yet been translated into English is not a good enough reason for most English-speaking people interested in Chinese history to learn Classical Chinese. Heck, most Chinese-speaking people wouldn't even learn Classical Chinese in order to read the original Classics.

Classical Chinese is another matter.

Yes, there are few books for learning classical Chinese for those who know English and have never studied modern Chinese. It's my understanding that they are often good but clearly not great.

One book is Dawson, A New Introduction to Literary Chinese. I've worked in it off and on. I think it is pretty good but not great.

An excellent book you will find valuable is Pulleyblank, An Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar. It's a concise summary of classical grammar with lots of examples from classical sources. However, you'll want to know some basic classical Chinese before you buy it. It is semi-advanced.

For more more info and books go to the following page at Amazon:

So You Want to Learn Literary Chinese

Although it is not a textbook you may also wish to look for Legge's translations of the Analects, etc. and Mencius. Both contain the original Chinese, English translation, copious notes, and glossaries.

However, know that without a prior grounding in Chinese, should you study classical Chinese you, may find yourself doing a lot of dictionary work, which will require an understanding of the traditional radicals around which traditional Chinese dictionaries are organized. At least I found this true.

Thank you all again! So far, I've been able to locate only one book - Introduction to Literary Chinese by Brandt - from the library, much to my disappointment, and it seems a little outdated being printed in 1927 (for the first edition). But I'll take you suggestions and run with them. Again, thank you all.

Chris

any recommending book for learning Cantonese? I love Cantonese girls and would like to speak their dialects.

The "Colloquial Cantonese: A Complete Language Course (Colloquial Series)"
by Keith S. T. Tong, Gregory James is a good book on learning cantonese and comes with audio.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...073739?v=glance

I would also like to learn cantonese. Perhaps, I'll go for classes.

I used to have a big radical poster over my working table... Still, some radicals are hard to guess, and it takes a lot of time.

When reading text on a computer (and most of the classics exist as computer files) I now use a small Word macro which looks up the character in the unihan database, and writes its radical/nr of stroke (or other infos, like pinyin, meaning, ...). (something like 邯163.5) I found that it speeds the process a lot (looking up chinese characters takes just as long as looking up a word in a western dictionary).

This is a purely homemade macro, so it is probably a far cry from a serious tool, but if anyone is interested, I can try to post the source here...

Francois

I have bought these books on amazon.com a while back, but I've briefly skimmed through them. So far so good.


Classical Chinese : A Basic Reader in Three Volumes (Paperback)
by Naiying Yuan, Haitao Tang, James Geiss


Product Details

Paperback: 832 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (July 12, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN: 0691118310
Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.1 x 2.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds.

I'll soon be starting to teach a complete beginner some Mandarin from scratch. I'm not Mandarin native speaker, so I'm looking for a good course book, with clear explanations and possibly a lot of listening material. Do you have any suggestion?