I personally find that Classical Chinese has been easier to get into than modern Mandarin. The characters and terms are simple and elegant with clear etymologies, so they're faster to learn and remember than modern words. It feels more like a direct transmission of ideas, rather than voiced speech that is transformed into thoughts only when it makes sense on a verbal and auditory level.
Not in any Cantonese dialects and I know two or three at least. Only in writing. I write classical literary Chinese and you have to learn a lot of cliches(成语). It is another style; that is all. Used properly, you can replace punctuation marks: 之、乎、者、也、欤、焉、哉，and maybe 耶、耳。Example: 我谓彼曰，休闹，去矣。There is the literary style saying every day stuff and there is the vernacular style style of saying things and they are not mutually exclusive. You can disperse vernacular Chinese amongst the above-mentioned 'punctuation markers: 你知道乎？ 我固然不想见他也。(知乎？吾固不欲面之也). 是不是？ 然否？是耶？非耶？ etc (云云) The more cliches you know, the more advanced your classical literary Chinese. There is nothing wrong with interspersing vernacular in classical. It is really no rule against this. People nowadays do literary Chinese for showoff purposes: to show that you are above 6th grade level. Classical cliches crop up in every day conversations and in news casts all the time. I learnt it and I did not even finish 3rd grade in HK. Literary Chinese is good for headlines. Grammar of literary Chinese can be the same as vernacular Chinese, with minor usage differences. If you look at poetry from Tang and Soong Dynasties, you will see that the line between vernacular Chinese and classical Chinese is a gray line. Usually it is a hybrid.
If you are a non-native speaker, I suggest learning modern Chinese first and then moving on to Classical Chinese. Fuller's An Introduction to Literary Chinese is an excellent book to start with. However, as a native speaker, I would be looking at high school texts straight away. I hope this helps.
If you're a native vietnamese speaker there's probably already some forums online about learning to read classical chinese with vietnamese pronunciation :) Each country reads it in their official language after all, almost no one tries to learn the reconstructed speech of the time
I think your comparison of Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese to Shakespearean English and Modern English is rather poor. Shakespearean English is only around 400 years old and it marks the birth of Modern English. That's why it's still mostly readable and understandable today. The difference between Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese is about 4 iterations of language changes. A span of over 2,000 years. To make the same comparison to English you would have to compare Latin to Modern English. Which sounds ridiculous because they are not only different languages but English as a language didn't exist 2,000 years ago. But, if you imagine that both languages were written in some form of characters instead of letters, then it would make a lot more sense. Both languages would be using the same basic characters but the way they would be used would be as different as Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese.
@@andreluiz6023 Beowulf is Old English. But it's also Viking in a sense. As far as readability goes, Literary Chinese, with a little training, is quite readable to Modern Chinese readers.
Did you mean to say "ri"日 not "yue" 月 when you compared the two characters at the end? but good job otherwise, it's very interesting to find someone so young looking into something so ancient :). Keep it up.
I personally find that Classical Chinese has been easier to get into than modern Mandarin. The characters and terms are simple and elegant with clear etymologies, so they're faster to learn and remember than modern words. It feels more like a direct transmission of ideas, rather than voiced speech that is transformed into thoughts only when it makes sense on a verbal and auditory level.
你 确 定？😮！
怎么说呢，文言文确实简洁，但不代表简单
Exactly !!
Ur old subscriber came back to see how u were doing... Hope this channel grows very fast🙂
Very nice clear explanation. Thanks!
Awesome video! Very impressive 👍
Love LogicaLing😘😘😘 Keep Going!!
I wonder if 曰 for speak is used in any of the existing Chinese languages/dialects.
应该是有的，曰就是说的意思
Not in any Cantonese dialects and I know two or three at least. Only in writing. I write classical literary Chinese and you have to learn a lot of cliches(成语). It is another style; that is all. Used properly, you can replace punctuation marks: 之、乎、者、也、欤、焉、哉，and maybe 耶、耳。Example: 我谓彼曰，休闹，去矣。There is the literary style saying every day stuff and there is the vernacular style style of saying things and they are not mutually exclusive. You can disperse vernacular Chinese amongst the above-mentioned 'punctuation markers:
你知道乎？ 我固然不想见他也。(知乎？吾固不欲面之也).
是不是？ 然否？是耶？非耶？
etc (云云)
The more cliches you know, the more advanced your classical literary Chinese.
There is nothing wrong with interspersing vernacular in classical. It is really no rule against this. People nowadays do literary Chinese for showoff purposes: to show that you are above 6th grade level. Classical cliches crop up in every day conversations and in news casts all the time. I learnt it and I did not even finish 3rd grade in HK. Literary Chinese is good for headlines. Grammar of literary Chinese can be the same as vernacular Chinese, with minor usage differences. If you look at poetry from Tang and Soong Dynasties, you will see that the line between vernacular Chinese and classical Chinese is a gray line. Usually it is a hybrid.
Thanks. I found Chinese-Vietnamese shares a huge similarity and it’s really interesting. Can you tell me where to learn Classical Chinese?
If you are a non-native speaker, I suggest learning modern Chinese first and then moving on to Classical Chinese. Fuller's An Introduction to Literary Chinese is an excellent book to start with. However, as a native speaker, I would be looking at high school texts straight away. I hope this helps.
If you're a native vietnamese speaker there's probably already some forums online about learning to read classical chinese with vietnamese pronunciation :)
Each country reads it in their official language after all, almost no one tries to learn the reconstructed speech of the time
I heard that vietnamese buddism still use classical chinese sutras
The word is "allusion" not "illusion". Big difference in meaning...
Hi,
An old subscriber just came to check up on you...
You're really busy I get it but do come back with videos soon. I'd wait.
Hi, sorry about it. I'll definitely try to update more regularly.
@@logicaling1823 ☺️☺️
I think your comparison of Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese to Shakespearean English and Modern English is rather poor. Shakespearean English is only around 400 years old and it marks the birth of Modern English. That's why it's still mostly readable and understandable today.
The difference between Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese is about 4 iterations of language changes. A span of over 2,000 years. To make the same comparison to English you would have to compare Latin to Modern English. Which sounds ridiculous because they are not only different languages but English as a language didn't exist 2,000 years ago.
But, if you imagine that both languages were written in some form of characters instead of letters, then it would make a lot more sense. Both languages would be using the same basic characters but the way they would be used would be as different as Classical Chinese and Modern Chinese.
I was thinking something more Beowulf, thinking only about readability. English has been charging very fast after all
@@andreluiz6023 Beowulf is Old English. But it's also Viking in a sense. As far as readability goes, Literary Chinese, with a little training, is quite readable to Modern Chinese readers.
I would compare it to modern italian and classical latin
@@zakuro8532 Yes, that's a much better comparison.
南轅北轍之譯文似有誤也 蓋"大行" 宜解作太行，亦即太行山，而非大路
你寫文言文的時候，你為什麼用簡體字？這個不是時代錯置嗎？
文言文可以有多种表记方式，并不是一定要用繁体字写的。
literary Chinese only teaches in china and it was part of the curriculum of Chinese schools in china.
malaysian chinese schools and taiwanese schools also teaches literary chinese if im not mistaken
taiwan is part china moment
Are you British?
no😂
@@logicaling1823 than ?
@@abhinavchauhan7864 australian 🦘🐨
@@billg3969 ok
Did you mean to say "ri"日 not "yue" 月 when you compared the two characters at the end? but good job otherwise, it's very interesting to find someone so young looking into something so ancient :). Keep it up.
Thanks a lot. I do mean 曰 "yue". The font made it look like 日 "ri". It means say or call in Literary Chinese. 😊