This is the first version of a Classical Chinese deck that I hope will eventually cover at the very least a large portion of Confucius' Analects, providing a solid foundation in the very much living millennia-old literary tradition as well as a gateway into Chinese culture.
Far from being just an academic curiosity, Classical Chinese is essential and in fact sooner or later inevitable to anyone learning a language from the Sinosphere. Its role in everyday life is tremendous: idioms are overwhelmingly composed in it, newspapers, novels, prepared speeches, formal writing, and even semi-formal writing habitually slip into it, all schoolchildren learn it, and all educated people have at least some knowledge of it. Thus, anyone who has memorized a four-character Chinese idiom or read a stilted-sounding restaurant sign has already internalized some of it. The reasons to approach it on its own are myriad. It will make pesky 成語 not just learnable but comprehensible; it will elucidate a good lead of the twists and turns of modern Chinese grammar;it will provide the raw materials for becoming truly deeply familiar with Chinese culture; it will make you infinitely more respectable as someone who has the same education as any Chinese person; it will take you from being merely able to read Chinese to being truly literate in it. Foremost, it will make you a more acclimated, more adept, and altogether better guest in the house of Chinese culture.
By starting with the fairly transparent yet resolutely classical, much referencing and much referenced Confucius, this deck should provide a good foundation for continued exploration of any period of Classical Chinese. A good step after this deck for general interests would be 古文觀止 (gǔwén guānzhǐ,) used extensively for this subject in Chinese schools around the Sinosphere. Those wishing to further explore Confucianism can continue to Mencius, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning, already heavily used in this deck. Those interested in Chinese history should find the Zuo Zhuan and Sima Qian fairly accessible, though I would recommend going through 古文觀止 first. Alternatively, the Art of War, the Dao De Jing and other foundational texts should now be fairly accessible.
As it is, this deck does presume some Mandarin Chinese background. About 500-600 characters and a few months of Modern Standard Mandarin study should be enough to get started; about 1000 characters and a good year of study should make using this deck very comfortable. Unfortunately, I know no Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hakka, Hokkien, Jin, or so forth: however, this deck could very easily be retrofitted to any of those languages by anyone with a command of them, and I would be happy to share the raw materials of this deck with anyone who would like to do so.
To add:
- Audio
- Analects Chapters 2-10; 11-20 in a future timeframe
- Comprehensive character glosses
- Better system for pinyin display
- Zhuyin/Bopomofo
- Modern Standard Mandarin translations of included texts
- Comprehensive coverage of 使動 and 為動 verbs
- More comprehensive treatment of the characters 為, 與, and 謂
- More comprehensive treatment of negations and question words
- More cultural notes
- A larger variety of genres
- Potentially: an absolute beginners' version for those with no background in any Sinosphere language
Sample (from 140 notes)
text
仁
header
詞彙
text-pinyin
仁[rén]
moderntrans
englishtrans
Ren; Chinese ideal of humane behavior; may be compared and contrasted with Western humanitas
notes
From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The concept of ren is a unifying theme in the Analects. Before Confucius’s time, the concept of ren referred to the aristocracy of bloodlines, meaning something like the strong and handsome appearance of an aristocrat. But in the Analects the concept is of a moral excellence that anyone has the potential to achieve. Many translations attempt to convey the idea of complete ethical virtue, connoting a comprehensive state of ethical excellence.
src
frontnotes
audio
hanzi
Tags
text
君子泰而不驕,小人驕而不泰
header
詞彙
text-pinyin
君子泰而不驕[jūn zǐ tài ér bù jiāo], 小人驕而不泰[xiǎo rén jiāo ér bú tài]
moderntrans
englishtrans
The superior man has a dignified ease without pride. The mean man has pride without a dignified ease.
notes
src
Analects 13.26
frontnotes
audio
hanzi
Tags
text
樂子之無知
header
句子
text-pinyin
樂子之無知[yào zǐ zhī wú zhī]
moderntrans
englishtrans
I should rejoice to be like you, without consciousness. (Literally: rejoice in master's no-knowledge)
notes
Pattern: A之B = A的B; the A's B
src
Classic of Poetry, 隰有萇楚
frontnotes
樂[yào] - to rejoice
audio
hanzi
Tags
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Reviews
on
2019-12-12
Great deck, keep up the good work.
on
2019-09-27
Great and comprehensive guide on learning and understanding Classical Chinese.