User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese

I appreciate the time you spent putting together a response - but there seems to be a deep epistemological confusion here.

A post on an internet message board describing the opinions of random middle school and high school teachers, and finding that they too are under this misunderstanding, is not scholarly debate. Random commentators on the internet saying "but that's what we were taught in school" is also not scholarly debate. And the observation that there are many open debates on issues of pronunciation within 古文 does not mean there is an open debate on this particular issue.

There is NO reputable dictionary that lists this as the pronunciation. Because there is NO reasonable argument on this issue. There is just a large group of confused grade-school teachers, and the confused students that they taught (none of whom count as "学者" from cpods original reply) working together to make this one of the most common mistakes.

I have listed 6 respected published dictinaries that show the pronunciation as le4, including the most authoritative, well respected one, 汉语大词典- find me one respected title (that isn't an online, editable format), just one, that shows yue4. Random posts on the internet listing the opinions of confused grade-school teachers are not evidence of anything, except that this is a overwhelmingly COMMON mistake, which I noted in my initial post.

As for the final comment, of course the meaning is the most important thing, pronunciation is secondary. But given Cpod's role, they have a responsibility to get things right on all accounts when they create a lesson like this, and not perpetuate a common mistake under the cover that a bunch of random dudes on the internet are just as confused.

Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese

Bohan,

Though sadly the result of your help is I'm once again ranting on and on...;)

I do hope Cpod fixes this - it would be a shame to teach users an error in order to save face and avoid admitting a mistake, especially in many users first exposure to 古文.

Though my girlfriend (native chinese) told me the favorite tactic of grade-school teachers in china confronted with an error is to assert that there is undefined "scholarly debate", so this is interesting cultural exposure if nothing else!

(And seriously, we scholars of ancient China debate much more interesting things than this...well, at least things we perceive as more interesting, and naturally things where there is actually room for reasonable disagreement.) ;)

Anli1520,

Glad to see you too!

Really, they made a course available online? I love this open direction education is going...

Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese

That would be news to me. Please direct me to any scholar who argues it should be read yue4. There is no dispute on this issue on an academic level (only dispute among modern speakers who are confused as to the proper pronunciation).

I just ran a search of Pleco's library of C-C dictionaries - 汉语大词典, the Taiwan ministry of education dictionary, 现代汉语规范词典, a prominent Chengyu dictionary, the Longman advanced chinese dictionary, 古汉语词典, all agree that it is le4. 汉语大词典 is the most authoritative dictionary, but ANY reputable dictionary has the exact same answer (there might be some poorly implemented online dictionary that has such a mistake, but even there it would only be because some random person edited it following their own mistaken understanding)

In fact, the error in reading it yue4 won the title of the most common language error of 2008 - quote from 咬文嚼字:

"“有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎”，北京奥运会开幕式用《论语》中的这句话欢迎全球来宾。然而，电视节目主持人却将ｌè误读成了ｙｕè。２００８年，这是国人在引用名言时经常读错的字。 "

When you make a mistake as clear as this, it is best to admit it, not make up a mythical scholarly debate. ;)

Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese

Thanks Bohan!

Critique to Cpod - you've managed to make a very basic error in the showcase example of ancient chinese in the dialogue, repeated twice in the opening.

In 有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？, the character 乐 is pronounced le4, NOT yue4. This is very common error among Chinese speakers with a poor classical education - I think they vaguely remember from high school that 说 is, in ancient chinese, often pronounced yue4 when meaning happiness (because it is standing in for the modern character 悦), but then associate this with the character 乐 (since it naturally has this pronunciation in its other meaning of music). This association seems driven by the companion sentence from the same text - "学而时习之, 不亦说乎" where we have 不亦说乎 instead of 不亦乐乎 yet in the same meaning and functional role - however, they should not be conflated, 不亦乐乎 is le4, 不亦说乎 is yue4.

In meaning happiness, 乐 is ALWAYS le4, exactly the same whether ancient Chinese or modern. I'd suggest Cpod correct the dialogue - best not to have Cpod learners memorizing an error as their first exposure to classical Chinese.

The truth is the lesson probably gives a much more favorable impression of the prevailing state of knowledge of 古文 among modern chinese speakers than is warranted. Except for those who choose to specifically study Chinese literature or history in college, or those who engage in extensive independent reading as a hobby, most educated people of recent times are essentially illiterate when it comes to classical texts (though they seem largely inexplicably unaware of this, as the already limited knowledge from high school fades day by day). Trotting out the occasional ancient expression (and generally using it incorrectly) represents the prevailing state of classical knowledge for the average speaker.

And, sadly, also represents the prevailing state of knowledge for scriptwriters of tv shows set in ancient China (for example, the very famous, successful, and 'uses at least one chengyu or classical expression incorrectly every scene' writer of Qing palace dramas, 于正)

Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese

Now I wish I could hear the dialogue...I'm rather curious how Cpod treats the subject!

If anyone is interested in learning classical Chinese, Rouzer's “A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese" is very accessible for beginners, does not really assume any knowledge of modern Chinese, and yet still maintains a very high level of quality (25 dollars or so on amazon). It is the text used for the first year ancient Chinese course here at Harvard, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in exploring the subject and gaining a basic knowledge.

Posted on: Classical Chinese vs. Modern Chinese

Describing Wu Zetian as a 'pioneer in women's liberation' is a reflection of modern people's tendency to read into history modern values and concepts - not any kind of an accurate description of history. It's like when the Song general Yue Fei is taught as a hero of the Han ethnicity (when there was no concept of Han as an ethnic group at the time), or Ghenghis Khan is described as a Chinese hero who unified the country (he would have been quite surprised by such a description). Wu Zetian was a power hungry, bloodthirsty tyrant, much like most emperors who seized control rather than inheriting it - not a feminist.

To doodle16 - there is already a 红楼梦 lesson in the advanced archives (I still remember listening to it many years ago - at the time, it was my first exposure). Also a lesson on 西游记, titled monkey king or some such...might be a 水浒传 one too, not sure.

But if you are interested in historical lessons, I'd highly recommend audiobooks of the series 上下五千年 - about 350 excellent lessons, each 5 or so minutes long, on Chinese history, complete with transcripts. I know Mark has also started using it, so I am likely not the only person who would recommend it. A second ago I went to look for a purchasing link on chinese amazon - but it seems someone decided to make it into a free app for ios. I'm going to download and ensure this is the same version. At any rate, I encourage you to search it out as a source.

Posted on: CCP Political Slogans

Hi Bohan,

Understood - and I got into one of my immature "being a jerk is fun" moods. I apologize for that, and am glad there are no hard feelings. :)

I appreciate your kind words, and I look forward to talking more in the future!

Posted on: CCP Political Slogans

Dude, not at all - you inspire humor, not anger. But I suppose 天下没有不散的筵席, I'll return to more serious pursuits now...

Posted on: CCP Political Slogans

I'm selling evil crap? Yay! Wait, am I making a profit??? Since I am apparently a Maoist-Marxist-SovietCommunist-Leninist, I thought I should ask...

But yes, clearly 'definitions' and 'logic' are the tools of the devil. Best to keep ignoring them and simply repeat 'straight up communist country, straight up communist country' over and over with no attempt to provide supporting analysis or even ascertain what those terms mean. And of course point out how delusional or in denial anyone is who fails to see the obvious wisdom of your words. Those who lack faith in the divine truth of Bohan political theory will never understand those who do.

Or is this something more simple? Embarrassed to find you didn't understand any of the terms you were discussing, and decided that 'belligerently ignorant, and proud of that ignorance' was the most face-saving response?

And yes, the above is intended to demonstrate the practical application of Bohan's definition of 'civil discourse' as 'no profanity or hate speech'. I think I'm seeing a pattern - is there a disease defined by proposing vastly overbroad definitions? ;)

Posted on: CCP Political Slogans

Hi Mark,

Good to see you again! Yep, actually I find that we in the west are not alone in forgetting that a communism is the ideal, future goal of communist parties, not the form of government they adopt - my experience is that even in China it is mostly the older generation that still understands the distinctions in play.

Actually, if interested in Chinese political history, there are a number of really great books out there that are written in relativly straight-forward, everyday language and yet really offer profound insight, often written by the secretaries and such of the principle power players of the Mao period. It is really amazing to read the day to day accounts of how various policies were adopted and political events played out - 李锐 庐山会议实录 is a good example, and available with a quick search.