A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

I'm laughing at myself for assuming this has simplified characters. Imagine my surprise when I first opened this book and my brain tried to catch up going 'wait... how come some of these words don't look right?' LOLIn my defense, nowhere in the descriptions OR the title of the book gave any indication that it was only in traditional. Plus there were no previews for the inside of the book. Please Amazon, you are worth billions, make it happen, I know you can do it, I believe in you.Now I'm just sitting here not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the irony of debating whether the more significant hurtle to understanding this book is first 'translating' into simplified or 'translating' classical Chinese to modern. Truthfully, it probably wouldn't be extremely difficult to figure out what the simplified equivalents are. But if I'm going to be totally honest with myself here, I'm just too lazy to try to learn another set of characters and I don't want to memorize more stuff.Otherwise, this actually looks to be a fairly informative book... but I can't really say for sure because I can't read half of the sample text so I didn't finish before my brain turned off! Maybe I'll reattempt later when it reboots.If you know traditional or are a new learner of Chinese this may work better for you as it does seem to build slowly. It also provides interesting context and cultural notes. For example there was a blurb on traditional calendar dating system which was neat. I'll probably keep the book just for these.If you already have a half-decent foundation in modern Mandarin and a simplified bias, I find Classical Chinese A Functional Approach by Kai Li and James Erwin Dew to be a more direct approach. It gets straight to the point by providing lots of examples/explanations in order to build a more intuitive understanding. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/088727630X/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So I purchased this book based on the 100% 5-stars ratings from the past 8 customers. I feel a little tricked. Nothing is perfect and I should of known. There are definitely more cons than pros, but overall a good buy. It may not be a good book for someone learning on their own. Definitely a good classroom discussion based product.Pro: 1) I liked how the primer has great choices on ancient texts. The variety of texts in which the author picked was well suited for beginners learning literacy chinese. 2) Glad it has the plus 1400 vocab that a beginner can learn. The back of the book is a great reference tool with the radicals/strokes/dictionary.Cons: 1) All these little numbers in parenthesis after the vocabs can get confusing after awhile. Also, references back to certain pages or chapters can be confusing. what does this mean? See 2.7 for more information. what is 2.7 again? 2) Practice Exercises are great, but where are the solutions. I would like to know the answers to see if what I wrote was correct or not. 3) What are the original meanings of the ancient text/proverbs/stories? I find myself guessing what the sentence/paragraph means. 4) Maybe should of included an analects or text from Confucius. Kinda bummed there wasn't one. 5) Didn't like flipping back and forth to check on the ancient text and vocabulary, especially if the new vocab is towards the end of the lesson. Just seems tedious to do so. Example: first chapter. 3 proverbs could have been separated on its own pages with the new vocab underneath it with modern translations. Then lessons and explanations can follow. 5) Needs more visuals - like more bolded headlines or a better way to section off lessons. It just looks very dry to read.

I own the Pulleyblank in addition to this Rouzer edition. The Pulleyblank, has for many years, been at the forefront for learning grammar in classical literature. That said, it pales in comparison to the Rouzer book.Why get the Rouzer book? Unlike prior attempts, this book is designed to slowly build skills with each successive chapter. In other words, this book is really designed to teach.The Rouzer also come with difficult but intuitive practice problems (classical-english, english to classical)! There are also many reference sections for using it as a translation book.Highly recommend

Excellent textbook for self-study of Classical Chinese, especially for those who know a little formal grammar or have experience with classical languages. Couldn't be happier with my purchase. The book also has the advantage of not presupposing that the reader knows modern Mandarin Chinese. A tip for others who want to undertake the crazy project of teaching themselves to read Classical Chinese: get the Pleco app and download the stroke order packet (it's like $5) to learn how to write the characters.

I've been studying modern Chinese for last few years, and have always been interested in the origins of this fascinating language. My first book in classical/literary chinese was Michael a Fuller's  An Introduction to Literary Chinese: Revised Edition (Harvard East Asian Monographs)  . It's thorough and linguistically exact but can be difficult for beginner. Another good choice is Yuan, Tang & Geiss's  Classical Chinese: A Basic Reader in Three Volumes .Paul Rouzer's Practical Primer of Literary Chinese is definitely the most user-friendly, down-to-earth approach to classical Chinese. Starting with simple proverbs Rouzer explains vocabulary, grammar and sentence structures clearly and concisely. I can recommend this book as first purchase to everybody interested in literary Chinese.

With 540 large-format pages this book undoubtedly covers a vast amount of information about Literary/Classical Chinese. The 40 lessons contain a range of reading material, and each new character met with in a lesson is described in some detail. The grammar and the historical context of each passage is also dealt with clearly and thoroughly. Especially useful are the list of 'Common and Significant Words', the 'Comprehensive Glossary' and the Mandarin Pronunciation Index at the end of the book. I personally have no interest in the Japanese and Korean sections at the end of the book, but for those who do these sections appear to be clearly set out. A problem for me as a home-based student is that only the first 10 passages are translated . From lesson 11 one is quickly faced with difficulties that may well be resolved in a seminar group with a teacher, but I have to say that I would have found translations of the remaining 30 lessons at the back of the book extremely useful.

Over the years I collected a wide range of books on Classical and Literary Chinese. I can therefore appreciate the different approaches to this study adopted by the various authors. Generally speaking, German and Italian scholars appear to focus on the detailed structure of the language, sometimes with excellent results, whilst French scolars seem in some cases more interested in giving an overview of the language not too distant from the linguistic experiences of a standard Western reader. English and American scholars have on the contrary a very practical approach with an aim to enable the reader to understand texts at a very early stage of knowledge.This book is an excellent example of this approach. Graded texts are completed with lists of new words and very clear and exhaustive grammatical notes. The evolution of Classical Chinese into Literary Chinese is also well-documented. A book which cannot be dispensed with.

The other reviewer explained it better than I could, so I won't enter into details, but having used several textbooks to study Classical Chinese and browsed through even more to choose the ones I would want to study, this one has by far been the best constructed, most enjoyable and leading to the most significant progress for me.After using it, I felt quite confident that the language was actually in reach, and getting to Wagner's reader I got confirmation of it. I really recommend it.

Das Buch ist sehr gut aufgebaut, die Kapitel werden nach und nach länger und schwerer. Es gibt hinten ein komplettes Vokabelverzeichnis das sehr hilfreich ist. Die grammatikalischen Besonderheiten werden sehr einfach erklärt.Dieses Buch nutze ich und meine Kommilitonen als Lehrbuch im Unterricht.Zum alleine lernen ist es vielleicht etwas zu schwer, aber mit einem Lehrer ist es kein Problem.Etwas schade ist es das gar kein Pinyin angegeben wird, dies würde helfen um die Texte laut lesen zu können.

Design un po' scarno, ma gli esempi sono ottimi e in poco tempo potrete leggere e decifrare i testi che trovate in questo grosso manuale. Fa quello che deve fare, ma preparatevi ad uno studio intenso.