Many people are very confused about these problems when reading ancient Chinese. In fact, you may encounter the following problems when reading ancient Chinese:
1, illiterate
Some people will probably find this question funny: If you don't know a word, what book are you reading? In fact, it is normal not to know some uncommon words during reading. Many people may not know that Kangxi Dictionary, compiled in the fifty-fifth year of Kangxi (A.D. 17 16), contains 47,035 Chinese characters (47,035). However, the number of commonly used Chinese characters in modern Chinese generally does not exceed 10000, and it is good for ordinary people to know 4000-7000 Chinese characters. Moreover, although many of these words can read and write, they don't know their exact meaning.
In addition, many words in Kangxi Dictionary are no longer used in modern Chinese, and most of them only appear in classical literature. Moreover, in order to keep the original appearance, many classical documents are still published in the form of traditional Chinese characters and vertical layout, which is even worse for readers who are used to reading horizontal and simplified Chinese characters. Therefore, when reading ancient books, it is normal to often encounter unfamiliar words.
I know little about the common sense of classical culture necessary for reading ancient Chinese.
These necessary knowledge roughly include six aspects:
The above is the most basic knowledge of barrier-free reading of ancient Chinese, and we must be familiar with these contents through deliberate study and a lot of ancient Chinese reading practice.
In view of the above two basic problems, how should we improve our ancient China culture? There are two levels to answer this question:
The first level is beginners of classical Chinese.
These beginners will find it difficult to understand the ancient prose since the Tang and Song Dynasties, and even regard The Journey to the West, The Water Margin and other classical novels as ancient prose. This kind of people are mainly trained to read general articles since the Tang and Song Dynasties. Most of these articles are "ancient vernacular" mainly based on northern dialects since the Tang and Song Dynasties, which are close to modern Chinese and relatively simple, and are very suitable for beginners to read ancient Chinese.
1. Cultivate their interest in reading ancient Chinese.
? As the saying goes, interest is the best teacher. Only by cultivating a strong interest in reading ancient Chinese can we turn this matter into our own hobby, overcome all kinds of difficulties in future reading, persevere and finally achieve something. Things that cultivate interest vary from person to person and need to be explored by yourself.
2. Take the initiative to learn all aspects of ancient Chinese to clear the way for reading ancient Chinese.
? Learning ancient Chinese is actually a very hard thing. To systematically learn the knowledge of ancient Chinese, I suggest reading the book "Ancient Chinese" edited by teacher Wang Li, which is a national planning textbook. It is also a necessary teaching material for Chinese majors in major universities in China to teach ancient Chinese. This book is not only suitable for systematically learning the basic knowledge of ancient Chinese, but also can be kept as a reference book for future reference. However, to read this set of books, you have to know a certain number of traditional Chinese characters, which is also a big challenge for beginners who are used to using simplified Chinese characters.
? 3. Read the history of China literature.
A systematic reading of The History of China Literature can help us to quickly understand the development of China's ancient literature, the historical evolution of various schools and a large number of literary anecdotes and comments, which is of great help to us to clearly understand the author and China's ancient literature.
The History of China Literature compiled by modern people has many versions, including general history and dating literature history. If you want to accurately understand and correctly judge the mainstream direction of China's literary history, you can choose several kinds of comparative reading (or you can read around the theme of China's literary history, and the effect will be better). You can also search for book reviews online and choose the authoritative History of China Literature to focus on reading.
4. Read the classics of Chinese studies since the Tang and Song Dynasties.
No matter how many methods we learn and how many shortcuts we find, we can't avoid reading classics.
For beginners, due to the lack of a deep foundation of China ancient literature, it is a compulsory course to focus on reading the classics of Chinese studies since the Tang and Song Dynasties. These classics can include most classical novels, Tang poems, Song Ci, Yuanqu, essays of past dynasties since Tang and Song Dynasties, parts after Tang and Song Dynasties, three amethysts, hundreds of surnames, traveling in Qionglin and so on. Reading methods will be different, but for some classic works, if you have the ability, you must be familiar with them. When you recite a certain amount of things, your literacy of ancient Chinese will naturally be greatly improved.
? The second level is aimed at people who have a certain foundation in ancient Chinese.
These people can focus their reading on classical Chinese. These classical Chinese are based on the spoken language in the pre-Qin period, the written language of ancient Chinese and the language in the ancient works of later writers. At this stage, the study and reading of ancient Chinese will involve professional knowledge such as exegesis, collation, vacation, phonology and so on. The difficulty is greatly improved.
1, we should go beyond the three levels of ancient Chinese reading and achieve "three-dimensional understanding"
(1) Understand and remember the original meanings of words and phrases, solve the obstacles in reading ancient Chinese, and achieve "understanding point by point and line".
(2) When a word is used as a term, understand the theoretical meaning of the term, that is, the different meanings of a word or a word in different contexts, so as to achieve "flat understanding".
(3) Understand the meaning of the article. In other words, the article is not just a simple pile of vocabulary terms, but should read the connotation of the article as a whole to achieve a "three-dimensional understanding."
2. From rote memorization to "seeking anger with sound"
The most direct and effective way to learn ancient prose is to read ancient prose, but it is best to memorize it. Ancient Chinese has always been pronounced in two ways:
? (1) mechanical learning
The purpose of rote learning is to remember ancient Chinese and memorize them. This method is naturally terrible to apply. Even if the learners of ancient Chinese are very interested, it is difficult to have perseverance.
? (2) Seeking Qi by Sound
? Reading ancient Chinese with the method of "seeking spirit by sound" can fully appreciate the rhythmic beauty of ancient Chinese rhetoric, understand the ideological realm and feelings expressed in the text, and thus be happy in your heart and become familiar with it unconsciously.
The theory of "seeking God by sound" formally originated from Tongcheng School, and "sound" is the phonological beauty of ancient Chinese. "Qi" is the momentum and connotation of the article. As Liu Xie said in Wen Xin Diao Long: "People who write essays are sentimental words, while those who read essays are interested and seek the source with the waves. Although seclusion will be obvious, the world can't see his face far away. He needs to see his heart. How deep and conscious the article is. "
? 3. Deeply understand the artistic value of ancient prose.
The ancients said: the way to write is that God is the main thing and Qi is the auxiliary thing. Among them, righteousness, calligraphy and classics are the materials for writing, while people full of syllables are capable of writing. Therefore, in order to study the skills of writing ancient prose, we must constantly understand and explore the artistry of ancient prose.
4. Learn to use the method of "six views" to deeply analyze ancient prose.
"Six Views" are six methods to further analyze ancient Chinese prose. Liu Xie said in Wen Xin Diao Long: "Therefore, we should mark six views first: one view, two views of ci, three views of change, four wonders, five views of righteousness and six views of palace merchants." This is Liu Xie's six methods of ancient Chinese prose.
When learning ancient Chinese, we can deal with it flexibly:
5. Learn to compare the similarities and differences of ancient Chinese prose. China's ancient prose is extremely changeable.
Articles of different dynasties, schools and periods will present different styles and changes. These changes include the same meaning but complicated words, the same meaning but different words and so on.
Six, in-depth study of the style of ancient Chinese, we need to read a school of specialized collections, and further, we need to study the genre produced by this school and become an exploration and research on this genre.
After this process is completed, you will basically become an expert in this genre. With time and perseverance, it is easy to make achievements.