1, first find some ancient vernacular literature, such as "Four Great Classical Novels". Because the words in ancient vernacular Chinese retain many original meanings of classical Chinese, I am used to reading them, laying the foundation for self-study of classical Chinese in the next step.
2. It is good to read some simple classical Chinese works, such as classical Chinese novels, notes and essays, such as Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio. At the same time, prepare a dictionary and scrutinize it repeatedly to make every word in the text accurate. Not fast, but accurate.
3. On this basis, find some books with common sense in classical Chinese and find out the function words (words like "no matter") and sentence patterns in classical Chinese. For example, the modern saying "Don't listen to him", written directly in classical Chinese, may be "Don't listen to him". But this is wrong, it should be said that it is "not listening." Why put "knowing" before "listening"?
This is a unique grammatical phenomenon in classical Chinese. This contrary situation is reserved in idioms. For example, "convince people with reason" means "convince people with reason". Everything in classical Chinese, such as "where to use it" and "where to use it", is put behind. This is called "guest-object structure". There are many pamphlets and books to buy about this knowledge.
After this comparative study, you can read the general classical Chinese soon. The difficulties encountered in the next step mainly focus on words, so we need a professional dictionary, such as Ancient Chinese Dictionary.
5. If you can basically understand classical Chinese, you can choose books such as View of Ancient Chinese and Historical Records to read and continue to improve.
6. Turn hard study into enjoyment. Always pay attention to the beauty of ancient Chinese. The beauty of ancient Chinese prose begins with the combination of words and sentences, such as "morning and evening", which is itself a flat and even-pronounced couplet. Then it is embodied in sentences, sentence groups, paragraphs and chapters.
Key points of learning classical Chinese:
1. Have relevant historical knowledge. As the saying goes, literature and history are not separated. Everyone lives in an era, and the politics, economy and culture of this era will certainly have an impact on him. Therefore, only by understanding the era of this person's life can we understand the connotation of his works.
For example, Qu Yuan advocated reform and hoped that Chu would be strong, but the king of Chu was "confused by Zheng Xiu at home and bullied by Zhang Yi abroad", alienated Qu Yuan first, and then exiled him to the Miluo River, which made his reform ambition impossible and buried him in the river. Knowing this history, it is much easier for us to understand Li Sao.
2. Have relevant cultural knowledge. China's ancient culture is profound and rich in connotation, and many contents are constantly evolving with the development of history. Such as name and title, official position and imperial examination, geographical knowledge, patriarchal manners and customs, clothing and utensils, calendar criminal law, ancient book annotation style, etc., are greatly different from ancient times to modern times.
Although students don't need to master all these contents, they should also accumulate what they encounter in their studies as their own knowledge reserves, so that they can call them at any time in classical Chinese learning and exams.