Guided Reading of Classical Chinese: Grammar and Context

Like English and Latin, modern Chinese and classical Chinese (文言文) are closely related. Modern Chinese still retains a large number of classical Chinese elements such as grammar, vocabulary, etc., as well as a large number of idiom allusions. To master and teach modern Chinese well, one has to understand the grammar, vocabulary and idiom allusions of classical Chinese, and one has to learn related ancient Chinese culture.

This advanced course is designed for students who are willing to master and teach modern Chinese well with the concepts and related knowledge from classical Chinese. The purpose of the course is to enable the students (1) to master the concepts and related knowledge of classical Chinese (text, phonology, vocabulary, grammar), (2) to master ancient cultural concepts and common sense related to classical Chinese, (3) to obtain basic reading ability in selected classical Chinese (with the help of dictionaries), (4) to grasp the differences and commonalities between classical Chinese and modern Chinese in terms of characters, phonology, vocabulary, and grammar, and (5) to improve students' modern Chinese proficiency by achieving the above teaching objectives, especially modern Chinese reading and writing skills.

The contents of the course include three aspects:
(1) Function words, content words, and grammatical analysis of classical Chinese
(2) Introduction to related ancient Chinese culture
(3) Guided reading of Pre-Qin model proses