You're too kind! Please keep in mind that, since the focus of this series is learning Classical Chinese, not character etymology, some character explanations are not 100% accurate because going in too deep would deviate too much from the topic. The ones that deviate significantly from the actual etymology will on the other hand get their own videos made about them! Off the top of my head 性、善、習、不、教、乃、遷、道 would all benefit from this treatment lol.
You're too kind, I'm really just one guy making these things in my spare time on a shoestring budget, nothing fancy or professional about it, but I'm happy you like the video!
Great video. I'm Vietnamese and, although Classical Chinese isn't popular among the newer generations today, it is still important to cultural preservation. I started learning CC by memorizing some lines of this very poem. It's very considerate of you to have added Vietnamese readings of the characters. Keep up the great work!
感謝先生: Amazing just what I was looking for as someone with Chinese as my second language (Mandarin/Cantonese) and wanting to study Classical Chinese without necessarily going the traditional round about way. I like how you provided multiple sinoxenic readings which was helpful and the background and commentary of characters.
Wow, what a fortuitous find! I'm in the middle of reading Bryan Van Norden's "Classical Chinese for Everyone", and this looks like it will be a great series of videos to go along with it. I'm looking forward to future videos in the series!
I borrowed a book from the library to start learning Classical Chinese but never really got around to it. I’m so grateful and thrilled that you decided to make these videos. Thank you so much for your dedication and hard work!
@@vincentd.7473 I couldn’t do it without the support from everyone watching, and I’m happy that I can motivate others to want to learn CC! Btw, Van Norden’s Classical Chinese for Everyone is pretty good if you want an easy entry-level textbook!
hello, wonderful and informative video for beginners such like myself（I've been studying Chinese for years, but not the classical one)! Even tho it's 30 minutes long it doesn't feel overwhelming. I can't imagine how much time and effort must've been used to make it. Anyway, there goes my part: 人之初 性本善 A man by his nature was good since the very beginning. 性相近 習相遠 Everyone's nature is similar, but the things each individual learns differ. 苟不教 性乃遷 Without teaching, own's character will remain unchanged. 教之道 貴以專 The key to proper teaching lies in concentration.
Thank you! And great job with the homework! This episode took me about a year lol, but I was working on the script for more than half of that time, and then my big boy job was very busy for a while so I couldn't work on the video that much. Next one will (hopefully) be much faster!
@ A YEAR?! a hero we don't deserve 😩 I hope it will get enough recognition or at least that you enjoyed the process. Nerds are truly humans on a completely different level :D I'll be waiting for future videos, my passion for Chinese is not going anywhere so no rush haha
@@jakublukas4994 Not a hero by any stretch of the word, just an simple sinology nerd left to his own devices without adult supervision. I am quite enjoying the process, it forces me to relearn a lot I thought I knew ("you can't claim you understand something untill you have succesfully explained it to someone else"), and is also helping me along with Vietnamese and Japanese.
I wish your channel existed when I first tried to tackle Classical Chinese. My Modern Mandarin is pretty bad now, and with this video (plus my understanding of the written word through Japanese), I feel like I understand basic Classical Chinese better than I ever understood Modern Mandarin.
Lovely! I'm currently in university studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Chinese Language. I loved the video and I am looking forward to more! I offer my own translation of the text: "In man's beginning, his nature was good. They were close with their nature, and their (earthly?) habits far. Without teaching, their nature would change. The Way of Teaching relies on concentration."
Oh that's awesome! There are many classical Chinese texts on engineering, and Master Mo, founder of the Mohist school (main rival to Confucianism) was himself an engineer. It was said if you had one of his students behind your walls an enemy would turn back rather than try to besiege you.
In Taiwan, the 不 in 苟不教 is usually read with a second tone, like how you would say 不要. In fact the Zhuyin provided next to the line has it in second tone, but Pinyin has it in both tone.
It seems when 不 is followed by another 4th tone, a tonal sandhi happens and turns it into second tone. This sandhi only applies to 不 for whatever reason.
@@BBarNavi Most characters with shifting Mandarin tones or pronunciations used to have a stop at the end, aka checked tones or entering tones. When the -t, -h, -p, -k. and other stop finals were lost, Mandarin also went all over the place.
I love your videos so much, and had previously looked for classical chinese lessons on youtube, so you have no idea how happy this makes me I put the japanese reading order (書き下し文) for this section here for anyone who wants to know as well 人之初 人の初め 性本善 性本（もと）善 性相近 性相（あい）近し 習相遠 習い相遠し 苟不教 苟くも教えずんば 性乃遷 性乃ち遷る 教之道 教えの道は 貴以専 専（もっぱ）を以て貴ぶ
视频善，人甚喜！ Thank you a lot for this video, I can't wait for the next one. As a speaker of modern Chinese, I can read most of the characters of the ancient classics, but, their meaning has changed so much through the centuries, it is always so hard to figure out their meaning each sentence. Thank you so much!
Here's my homework: 人之初 (Beginning of human) 性本善 (Nature is good at the beginning) Originally (by default) human nature is good/kind 性相近 (Nature mutually close?) 习相远 (Studying mutually far?) Human nature(s) are close (similar?), and practices are far (dissimilar?). (Complete freestyle of an interpretation, I give up with this) 苟不教 (If no education) 性乃迁 (Nature then changes) If there is no education, human nature will change 教之道 (The way of education/teaching) 贵以专 (Puts value in focus/concentration) The way of teaching values (puts emphasis) in concentration In a way, I feel like if you hadn't given out most of the translation throughout the video, the translation would've been much more like the second part, which I still can't find any understandable meaning in. Thank you for making the video! I will definitely get back to studying some 文言文 after this.
Great job! I purposefully try to avoid translating the text as much as possible because it's very easy to get "stuck" on one interpretation/translation (got that idea from Van Norden), but since it's the first episode I had to be pretty on the nose because being too vague isn't good either lol. The second half is honestly quite complex, and I struggled a lot to make it intelligible w/o bringing in a bunch of extra particles and stuff. If you're familiar with the 以……為…… construction it's much easier 以專為貴 "take - concentration - as - (most) valuable". But 為 won't appear till episode 3 so I had to make due without it. I'm glad you liked the video all the same and good luck studying!
Glad for the recommendation. I just came back from Kazakh interpretations of retorts in pseudo Russian, so I should change my focus from phonetic flouting to the avoidance of hyphening through logogram based priorities, which is supposed to be neat and simple.
8:55 the verb 教 is read with the first tone in modern mandarin, so not teach would be bu4jiao1. It is only read with the fourth tone in compounds 教育，教練, 教師, etc.
12:26 Ooh. Long s's. If I recall correctly, back when the long s was in use, the long s was not used at the end of words and as the second s in double s's.
空固之 không có gì! =) Some day in the far future I want to do a similar series on the 三千字 Tam Thiên Tự to make more people want to learn Viet Chu Nom. But my Viet pronunciation needs to improve first xD
please continue this series! i'm hoping to learn more classical chinese since i am heavily interested in buddhism. i'm also an overseas chinese hoping to learn more about my own culture
As a japanese student (12 years of experience), it's crazy how I find classical chinese easier to understand than modern chinese, probably because of grammar structure, 繁体字, and especially monosyllabic words
Thanks for putting this together; its great to have an approachable resource for learning some wenyan. A little quibble for the commentary at the end: Han Feizi, who was a major influence on the establishment of Legalism, was a student of Xunzi. Rather than Legalism influencing the debate on human nature in Confucianism, you might argue that Xunzi's Confucian take on human nature influenced Legalism through Han Fei.
@@mcmaho17 oh man, I didn’t know that! I knew that Han Fei was a big fan of Taoism though, so I guess he was just your average edgy young political theory post-grad (I jest). Was Xunzi influenced by Shang Yang perhaps? One thing that is super cool about the late-Zhou is how all these schools emerged and how they interacted with each other. Might make a video about that in the future, hint hint xD
@@SwedishSinologyNerd Ha, the edgy post-grad might not be a bad characterization actually. He was known to have a speech impediment at a time when eloquence was highly valued, perhaps influencing the intensity of his writing toward edginess. Yeah, Shang Yang was the main force behind Legalism, I think he directly had the ear of the King of Qin and was known to be brutal, but I've studied him far less (I am actually dissertating about Confucianism of Spring/Autumn and Warring States right now ). Mostly the scholarship I've read points to Xunzi influencing Legalism, but you could argue that the topics Xunzi addressed were in response to the more militaristic and governmental concerns that strains of thought like legalism brought to the forefront . In Kongzi's and Mengzi's associated works there is little mention of the nuts and bolts of state craft or warfare, but Xunzi has several chapters written on the topics. But I am rambling! Quite a fascinating time period. And I look forward to what you put together on it.
@@mcmaho17 Honestly I love Han Fei, though more as a person than as a philosopher, he's just so endearingly dorky. Come to think of it I have come to appreciate all the Hundred Schools philosophers as human beings rather than as philosophers. From humble Mozi screaming out for the workers to rise and Build Better Walls, to Zhuang Zhou and Huizi's friendly, almost Cross-talkesque banter, to Confucius hypocritically breaking down in tears because his favorite student died. They're all quite endearing characters! I'd love to read your paper when it gets published, because I haven't really devoted myself to charting the intelectual geneologies of Chinese philosophy (I'm still working through my Huang-Lao pseudo-legalist homies Huananzi and Guanzi). Always fun to learn of new connections though, since the Hundred schools are often presented as rival "sects" who vied to make their "ism" the main one. Sorry I'm nerding out a bit as well, lol, I maintain that the spring-and-autumn is only rivaled by the turbulent late Qing and Republican era in just how much intelectual stuff was going on in China. I'm planning a sorta biography/introduction/thing to the main guys and their philosophies (something like the Overly Sarcastic Productions channel's History Makers series, but China focused), but I don't want to start a billion series and then get no-where with any of them, so I'm trying to stick with CC and Etymologies for now at least. Would be happy to pick your brain about the various philosophers some day when I get to that series, I'll be sure to add you in the Special Thanks credits =)
@@SwedishSinologyNerd It is great to see others so interested. The Huainanzi and Guanzi are both worthwhile texts, especially as you've got the Classical abilities to dig into them. I rely on translations a bit too much (being in philosophy I've just not focused enough on sinology). I totally agree with the allure of the narratives of these individuals, Zhuang Zhou has a special place for me. The section of the Zhuangzi were he discusses the death of Huizi and his alienation in lacking a friend to bring his intellect to life is moving. The whole of the Zhuangzi is a treasure of world literature. I'll keep coming back for your videos and in the future if you get to a series about some of the philosophical schools, I am happy to talk anything over!
Looking forward to the next episode! Fingers crossed you get to the four books and five classics one day. Amazing content! Also, would be interesting to see the reconstructed ancient pronunciation included as well, but I understand your point about the mess it would create to include too many of them. Wish you all the best, 志同道合的朋友!
@@aurelfarkasovsky Thank you! The main issue with including reconstructed pronunciation is you have to also take into account when the text was written. A rhyme that existed in Middle Chinese may not have done so in either Old Chinese or many if not all modern Chinese languages. The TCC was specifically written by a speaker of Middle Chinese, so using OC readings would be anachronistic while the MC readings would only cause confusion when we eventually get to the Four and Five (hopefully sooner rather than later!). Many reconstructions of in particular Old Chinese are tenuous at best and most exist as a way to trace assumed sound changes, not as actual representations of the way the words would have sounded at the time. As such, any inclusion of reconstructed pronunciations would necessitate a discussion of the reconstruction, derailing the entire video. In the end, because Literary/Classical Chinese is a text only language, I simply went with including the modern (-ish) readings as a pedagogical tool to help learners remember the characters better, in line with traditional CC education within the Sinosphere. The use of multi-lingual readings is meant to make the lessons feel more inclusive to non-Chinese speakers for whose languages and cultures CC still may have had a profound impact (I actually wanted to include Zhuang readings (”Thai with Chinese Characteristics” lol) too, but I had trouble finding adequate resources and in the end its inclusion felt too niche, even for a niche series like this). The idea is that just like Latin is the shared heritage of Europe, not just Italy, so Classical Chinese is now the shared heritage of southeast Asia, not just (Mainland) China. Hope this clears things up, and thanks again for your support! =)
Thanks for the excellent video, I love the concept, so full of interesting information! As a nitpick I would point out that the japanese onyomi for the character 教 is きょう, not こう, but might just be a typo.
@@tomasbulko9418 oh I love picking nits! What I think happened is this: since Japanese has a billion (that is the scientific definition) ways a Chinese character can be read, I have a Japanese TCC on hand for reference, problem is it uses old kana orthography, and occasionally I might forget to double check and just copy-paste the kana into the video lol
The 漢音 of 教 is indeed こう. If I'm not mistaken, he's using 漢音 for all characters, I suppose for consistency (note how he gives ふう as the reading for 不 as well).
@@saarl99 Indeed! I'm not good enough at Japanese to know which readings count as the "common" sound-readings, but hopefully my good intentions outweigh my lack of understanding ^^
@@saarl99 Yeah that makes sense. I had no idea that reading existed as I never saw it in a dictionary or know a word that uses it. My bad, thanks for the correction.
This reminds me of those Chinese evening classes I used to attend all those years ago. Also took a class in Classical Chinese. Those were the days. I think for Japanese, the on-yomi would be enough. I assume that's how the Japanese would have used. Fun fact (or should I say 'nerd note'?): 之 is sometimes used in male names and is pronounced yuki, which sounds the same as 行き which means to go. 次のレッスンをお待ちしております。
This is awesome!!! I wanted to study classical chinese since a while ago, and this video is super helpful!! You made it very entertaining and educational!. I can't wait for the next video to release. Would you also show us the right translation of the text?; Mine was: "When a man is born? ( I'm not quite sure is the right translation) his nature is originally good, our nature is similar (I translated the word "close" as similar) but our habits are different. If we're not taught then our nature changes. The way of teaching requires the utmost concentration"
Thank you! If you wanna study by yourself, I highly recommend Van Norden's book. Unfortunately I won't be giving out any answer sheets. This is because it is almost impossible to get a 100% "accurate" translation of Classical Chinese into, well, any language because so much of it is up for interpretation andcontext-dependant. There are however a few English translations that you can peek at right at the start, but the sooner you start to learn CC on its own terms as it were the easier it will get (though you'll find yourself frustrated that you can accurately explain a thing in CC but not in any other language xD). Your translation is pretty good! Only thing I would ask you to consider if, perhaps, our habits "make us different"? Good luck!
@@SwedishSinologyNerd Thank you so much for answering my comment (and for your recommendation) I downloaded Van Norden's book and I'll use it as a complement to your future CC videos!. And also thanks for correcting my translation "our habits make us different" sounds much better! ^^.
@@histoguy6025 You're welcome! Van Norden is much better at sticking to his "no translations" policy I think, he also explains it much better why focusing on translation sells CC short on many levels. I will gradually phase out translations all together and attempt to encourage the viwer to come to their own conclusions with the tools given to them. Of course I will also discuss possible interpretations to "tricky" passages, but my goal is to stay away from direct translations as far as possible. Apart from Van Norden, you may want to DL Kroll's Dictionary of Classical Chinese and Pulleyblank's grammar as well. Pulleyblank is not always the most pedagogical in his approach but it is probably still the best CC grammar in English out there.
You're welcome! Like with the Japanese and Viet readings, since I'm not very proficient in Korean Viet or Japanese, please feel free to correct any mistakes, or if possible direct me toward a good Korean version of the San Zi Jing. 감사합니다! ^_^
Here is my attempt at a translation: Concerning human beginnings: Our nature is fundamentally good. We are similar in nature, But our customs are different. If we are not taught, Our nature will change. The proper way of teaching Is to emphasize concentration.
Talking of Classical Chinese typically reminds me of my secondary Chinese education and exams. Classical Chinese is easy to get the gist of until it easily isn't. Although having a typical SVO sentence structure, once the passage begins to omit bits and pieces (anyone of the S, V, and O, or even entire contexts) of the sentences and move the word order around, and mixing in place/people names as well as figures pf speech (借代 synecdoche seems to be quite popular)... It's easy to mix up the parts of speech of words, (at least it was for me): Is this part of a place name or is this a verb? Was anything omitted or am I reading it the wrong way? It's talking about some students? I thought it was a passage about peaches and pears! Put them all together and the exam author decides to pick a passage with some sprinkles of words I've never seen in my life and asks you to explain what the words mean. Safe to say, Classical Chinese was one of the hardest subjects to ace for the typical student, (so is the Chinese paper in general for me, XD).
3:50 Finally another video for so long. Seems like you are still struggling with the tone sandhi here with the 一不變調 rule. The Bopomofo seems correct here, but you voiced the 不 in the 4th tone. In 不教, since these 2 characters form a group, jiao is in the 4th tone, the bu prior to it should be in the 2nd tone instead of the regular 4th.
@SwedishSinologyNerd I do see you explaining the tone change later in the video, I should have watched the entire video before commenting, but still, I wonder why you made the decision to voice the bu in the passage reading in the 4th tone 🤔.
My attempt (i realise it sounds bad) . . . In the beginning, man’s nature was good. Their nature is the same, their habits differ. If one isn’t taught, then one’s nature will change. The way to teach, is, importantly, to focus.
@@martinfalkjohansson5204 UU? Unseen University? XD Skojar, skojar. Jag ä en liten gåsapåg från Skåne, så jag läste i Lund för många Herrans år sen. Har även läst på 北外 och på 北語, men hoppjerka som en e har jag inte examen från något av dem, bara bachelor och masters i akupunktur från Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine ^^
There is no such thing as a Traditional Chinese language, what you probably meant was Traditional Chinese Characters, or the standard characters used in HK, Macao and the ROC. Traditional characters are however not the same as CC (though Taiwan uses more CC in their official writings than the PRC). CC can be written in both simplified and traditional characters (it just looks butt-ugly in simplified lol), but just because you learned traditional characters doesn't mean you can understand a CC text, if that makes sense?
Unfortunately the Japanese readings aren't quite accurate, as a mix of kun'yomi and different categories of on'yomi are being used at once. Traditionally a single on'yomi category is used for pronouncing Chinese texts with which one varying by time period and/or group. Mixing on'yomi pronunciations isn't the worst, but Kun'yomi should not be used for exclusively Chinese text.
I noticed you used the reading bổn instead of the standard reading bản. Bổn reading is dervived from the southern Vietnamese dialect. The readings should be standard since you use nhân and tính instead of nhơn and tánh.
I see! I used the 1917 edition TAM-TỰ-KINH to decide whether to use bổn or bản link: vi.wikisource.org/wiki/Tam_T%E1%BB%B1_Kinh_di%E1%BB%85n_ngh%C4%A9a This edition uses the reading bổn and so I followed its example. You are correct I did not apply this consistently so I will henceforth follow the 1917 TAM-TỰ-KINH when providing Viet readings. Thanks for pointing that out!
@SwedishSinologyNerd Note, Vietnamese 三字經 has a few slight differences than the Chinese edition, the differences can be found in the English Wikipedia page of Three Character Classic
@ I mean I’d love to, but currently I’m only working on adding Canto and maybe Min. I also wanna learn Viet and Japanese so unless it’s a colab I’m afraid I won’t be able to do the other chinese languages justice
Just a few comments. For at least one word, your cartoon character was obscuring the Han character. Also, it'd be really helpful if you showed the strokes to write the character.
A glorious return
This guy always talks about everything I want to know when finding a new character (origins, historical forms, sino xenic readings) it's amazing
You're too kind! Please keep in mind that, since the focus of this series is learning Classical Chinese, not character etymology, some character explanations are not 100% accurate because going in too deep would deviate too much from the topic. The ones that deviate significantly from the actual etymology will on the other hand get their own videos made about them! Off the top of my head 性、善、習、不、教、乃、遷、道 would all benefit from this treatment lol.
THIS IS SUCH A HIGH QUALITY PIECE OF MEDIA KEEP GOINGGGGG
You're too kind, I'm really just one guy making these things in my spare time on a shoestring budget, nothing fancy or professional about it, but I'm happy you like the video!
Great video. I'm Vietnamese and, although Classical Chinese isn't popular among the newer generations today, it is still important to cultural preservation. I started learning CC by memorizing some lines of this very poem. It's very considerate of you to have added Vietnamese readings of the characters. Keep up the great work!
It's great to have Sino-Vietnamese words. Thanks bro.
感謝先生: Amazing just what I was looking for as someone with Chinese as my second language (Mandarin/Cantonese) and wanting to study Classical Chinese without necessarily going the traditional round about way. I like how you provided multiple sinoxenic readings which was helpful and the background and commentary of characters.
A great service for all Chinese admirers
Wow, what a fortuitous find! I'm in the middle of reading Bryan Van Norden's "Classical Chinese for Everyone", and this looks like it will be a great series of videos to go along with it. I'm looking forward to future videos in the series!
Van Norden is pretty great, I read his book twice in preparation for this series lol. It's whence I got the "nerdnotes" concept xD
I borrowed a book from the library to start learning Classical Chinese but never really got around to it. I’m so grateful and thrilled that you decided to make these videos. Thank you so much for your dedication and hard work!
@@vincentd.7473 I couldn’t do it without the support from everyone watching, and I’m happy that I can motivate others to want to learn CC! Btw, Van Norden’s Classical Chinese for Everyone is pretty good if you want an easy entry-level textbook!
hello, wonderful and informative video for beginners such like myself（I've been studying Chinese for years, but not the classical one)! Even tho it's 30 minutes long it doesn't feel overwhelming. I can't imagine how much time and effort must've been used to make it.
Anyway, there goes my part:
人之初
性本善
A man by his nature was good since the very beginning.
性相近
習相遠
Everyone's nature is similar, but the things each individual learns differ.
苟不教
性乃遷
Without teaching, own's character will remain unchanged.
教之道
貴以專
The key to proper teaching lies in concentration.
Thank you! And great job with the homework! This episode took me about a year lol, but I was working on the script for more than half of that time, and then my big boy job was very busy for a while so I couldn't work on the video that much. Next one will (hopefully) be much faster!
@ A YEAR?! a hero we don't deserve 😩 I hope it will get enough recognition or at least that you enjoyed the process. Nerds are truly humans on a completely different level :D
I'll be waiting for future videos, my passion for Chinese is not going anywhere so no rush haha
@@jakublukas4994 Not a hero by any stretch of the word, just an simple sinology nerd left to his own devices without adult supervision. I am quite enjoying the process, it forces me to relearn a lot I thought I knew ("you can't claim you understand something untill you have succesfully explained it to someone else"), and is also helping me along with Vietnamese and Japanese.
I wish your channel existed when I first tried to tackle Classical Chinese. My Modern Mandarin is pretty bad now, and with this video (plus my understanding of the written word through Japanese), I feel like I understand basic Classical Chinese better than I ever understood Modern Mandarin.
Lovely! I'm currently in university studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Chinese Language. I loved the video and I am looking forward to more! I offer my own translation of the text:
"In man's beginning, his nature was good. They were close with their nature, and their (earthly?) habits far. Without teaching, their nature would change. The Way of Teaching relies on concentration."
Oh that's awesome! There are many classical Chinese texts on engineering, and Master Mo, founder of the Mohist school (main rival to Confucianism) was himself an engineer. It was said if you had one of his students behind your walls an enemy would turn back rather than try to besiege you.
Having the Japanese pronunciation and meaning including the Korean helps so much! Thanks :)
This is a very helpful for even a Chinese native like myself. Thx a lot!!!
So glad I've discovered this channel. I've thoroughly enjoyed this lesson, thank you.
Love this. Highly 順𦧄！
So so pedagogical!!! You are the best doctor !!!
Thank you for this great video.looking forward to the rest of this series.
looking forward to this series!
We are so back! 文言文 let's go!
In Taiwan, the 不 in 苟不教 is usually read with a second tone, like how you would say 不要. In fact the Zhuyin provided next to the line has it in second tone, but Pinyin has it in both tone.
It seems when 不 is followed by another 4th tone, a tonal sandhi happens and turns it into second tone. This sandhi only applies to 不 for whatever reason.
@@paiwanhan I have a font for zhuyin annotations but my editing program has issue displaying the font for alternate readings. 不知道什麼原因，你知道就行。
一 as a counter has the same behavior. @@paiwanhan
@@BBarNavi Most characters with shifting Mandarin tones or pronunciations used to have a stop at the end, aka checked tones or entering tones. When the -t, -h, -p, -k. and other stop finals were lost, Mandarin also went all over the place.
This is a great video, also for native Chinese speakers. Many just recognize it but do not know the meaning word by word.
Excellent, thank you for tackling this topic!
@@Logan7441 thank you for your support!
I love your videos so much, and had previously looked for classical chinese lessons on youtube, so you have no idea how happy this makes me
I put the japanese reading order (書き下し文) for this section here for anyone who wants to know as well
人之初 人の初め
性本善 性本（もと）善
性相近 性相（あい）近し
習相遠 習い相遠し
苟不教 苟くも教えずんば
性乃遷 性乃ち遷る
教之道 教えの道は
貴以専 専（もっぱ）を以て貴ぶ
Awesome, thank you! I'll add links to the Viet and Japanese versions in next episode. You wouldn't happen to have a Korean version on hand as well?
@@SwedishSinologyNerd sorry I'm not familiar with Korean so I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to the next episode!
@@SwedishSinologyNerd Vietnamese version (from Tam tự kinh lục bát diễn âm 三字經六八演音; 1905):
人之初性本善 𠊚𠸗本産性𫅜
性相近習相遠 性𧵆𢵋習𢧚𨉟貝賒
苟不教性乃遷 朋空㖂𣈜朗𦋦
教之道貴以専 㖂時吏沛擬麻針𠡏
视频善，人甚喜！
Thank you a lot for this video, I can't wait for the next one. As a speaker of modern Chinese, I can read most of the characters of the ancient classics, but, their meaning has changed so much through the centuries, it is always so hard to figure out their meaning each sentence. Thank you so much!
多夢點贊，過譽過獎！I'm always happy when native Chinese like my vids, because that mean's I'm doing my job well ^_^
Here's my homework:
人之初 (Beginning of human)
性本善 (Nature is good at the beginning)
Originally (by default) human nature is good/kind
性相近 (Nature mutually close?)
习相远 (Studying mutually far?)
Human nature(s) are close (similar?), and practices are far (dissimilar?).
(Complete freestyle of an interpretation, I give up with this)
苟不教 (If no education)
性乃迁 (Nature then changes)
If there is no education, human nature will change
教之道 (The way of education/teaching)
贵以专 (Puts value in focus/concentration)
The way of teaching values (puts emphasis) in concentration
In a way, I feel like if you hadn't given out most of the translation throughout the video, the translation would've been much more like the second part, which I still can't find any understandable meaning in. Thank you for making the video! I will definitely get back to studying some 文言文 after this.
Great job! I purposefully try to avoid translating the text as much as possible because it's very easy to get "stuck" on one interpretation/translation (got that idea from Van Norden), but since it's the first episode I had to be pretty on the nose because being too vague isn't good either lol.
The second half is honestly quite complex, and I struggled a lot to make it intelligible w/o bringing in a bunch of extra particles and stuff. If you're familiar with the 以……為…… construction it's much easier 以專為貴 "take - concentration - as - (most) valuable". But 為 won't appear till episode 3 so I had to make due without it.
I'm glad you liked the video all the same and good luck studying!
Glad for the recommendation. I just came back from Kazakh interpretations of retorts in pseudo Russian, so I should change my focus from phonetic flouting to the avoidance of hyphening through logogram based priorities, which is supposed to be neat and simple.
8:55 the verb 教 is read with the first tone in modern mandarin, so not teach would be bu4jiao1. It is only read with the fourth tone in compounds 教育，教練, 教師, etc.
Ack, you're right! My bad xD
Was going to say it.
While on the topic of pronunciations, 貝 is pronounced with the fourth tone, beì.
寸, cùn.
12:26 Ooh. Long s's. If I recall correctly, back when the long s was in use, the long s was not used at the end of words and as the second s in double s's.
Thanks a lot for the Vietnamese pronunciation, Vietnam always get ignored when talking about Classical Chinese.
空固之 không có gì! =) Some day in the far future I want to do a similar series on the 三千字 Tam Thiên Tự to make more people want to learn Viet Chu Nom. But my Viet pronunciation needs to improve first xD
please continue this series! i'm hoping to learn more classical chinese since i am heavily interested in buddhism. i'm also an overseas chinese hoping to learn more about my own culture
As a japanese student (12 years of experience), it's crazy how I find classical chinese easier to understand than modern chinese, probably because of grammar structure, 繁体字, and especially monosyllabic words
Modern Chinese is like a shallow marsh a thousand mile wide, Classical Chinese is like a well ten thousand leagues deep.
Thanks for putting this together; its great to have an approachable resource for learning some wenyan. A little quibble for the commentary at the end: Han Feizi, who was a major influence on the establishment of Legalism, was a student of Xunzi. Rather than Legalism influencing the debate on human nature in Confucianism, you might argue that Xunzi's Confucian take on human nature influenced Legalism through Han Fei.
@@mcmaho17 oh man, I didn’t know that! I knew that Han Fei was a big fan of Taoism though, so I guess he was just your average edgy young political theory post-grad (I jest). Was Xunzi influenced by Shang Yang perhaps? One thing that is super cool about the late-Zhou is how all these schools emerged and how they interacted with each other. Might make a video about that in the future, hint hint xD
@@SwedishSinologyNerd Ha, the edgy post-grad might not be a bad characterization actually. He was known to have a speech impediment at a time when eloquence was highly valued, perhaps influencing the intensity of his writing toward edginess. Yeah, Shang Yang was the main force behind Legalism, I think he directly had the ear of the King of Qin and was known to be brutal, but I've studied him far less (I am actually dissertating about Confucianism of Spring/Autumn and Warring States right now ). Mostly the scholarship I've read points to Xunzi influencing Legalism, but you could argue that the topics Xunzi addressed were in response to the more militaristic and governmental concerns that strains of thought like legalism brought to the forefront . In Kongzi's and Mengzi's associated works there is little mention of the nuts and bolts of state craft or warfare, but Xunzi has several chapters written on the topics. But I am rambling! Quite a fascinating time period. And I look forward to what you put together on it.
@@mcmaho17 Honestly I love Han Fei, though more as a person than as a philosopher, he's just so endearingly dorky. Come to think of it I have come to appreciate all the Hundred Schools philosophers as human beings rather than as philosophers. From humble Mozi screaming out for the workers to rise and Build Better Walls, to Zhuang Zhou and Huizi's friendly, almost Cross-talkesque banter, to Confucius hypocritically breaking down in tears because his favorite student died. They're all quite endearing characters! I'd love to read your paper when it gets published, because I haven't really devoted myself to charting the intelectual geneologies of Chinese philosophy (I'm still working through my Huang-Lao pseudo-legalist homies Huananzi and Guanzi). Always fun to learn of new connections though, since the Hundred schools are often presented as rival "sects" who vied to make their "ism" the main one. Sorry I'm nerding out a bit as well, lol, I maintain that the spring-and-autumn is only rivaled by the turbulent late Qing and Republican era in just how much intelectual stuff was going on in China. I'm planning a sorta biography/introduction/thing to the main guys and their philosophies (something like the Overly Sarcastic Productions channel's History Makers series, but China focused), but I don't want to start a billion series and then get no-where with any of them, so I'm trying to stick with CC and Etymologies for now at least. Would be happy to pick your brain about the various philosophers some day when I get to that series, I'll be sure to add you in the Special Thanks credits =)
@@SwedishSinologyNerd It is great to see others so interested. The Huainanzi and Guanzi are both worthwhile texts, especially as you've got the Classical abilities to dig into them. I rely on translations a bit too much (being in philosophy I've just not focused enough on sinology). I totally agree with the allure of the narratives of these individuals, Zhuang Zhou has a special place for me. The section of the Zhuangzi were he discusses the death of Huizi and his alienation in lacking a friend to bring his intellect to life is moving. The whole of the Zhuangzi is a treasure of world literature. I'll keep coming back for your videos and in the future if you get to a series about some of the philosophical schools, I am happy to talk anything over!
Thanks for this hopefully you make more such videos given the scarcity of resources for Classical Chinese we really appreciate your work
Looking forward to the next episode! Fingers crossed you get to the four books and five classics one day. Amazing content! Also, would be interesting to see the reconstructed ancient pronunciation included as well, but I understand your point about the mess it would create to include too many of them. Wish you all the best, 志同道合的朋友!
@@aurelfarkasovsky Thank you! The main issue with including reconstructed pronunciation is you have to also take into account when the text was written. A rhyme that existed in Middle Chinese may not have done so in either Old Chinese or many if not all modern Chinese languages. The TCC was specifically written by a speaker of Middle Chinese, so using OC readings would be anachronistic while the MC readings would only cause confusion when we eventually get to the Four and Five (hopefully sooner rather than later!). Many reconstructions of in particular Old Chinese are tenuous at best and most exist as a way to trace assumed sound changes, not as actual representations of the way the words would have sounded at the time. As such, any inclusion of reconstructed pronunciations would necessitate a discussion of the reconstruction, derailing the entire video. In the end, because Literary/Classical Chinese is a text only language, I simply went with including the modern (-ish) readings as a pedagogical tool to help learners remember the characters better, in line with traditional CC education within the Sinosphere. The use of multi-lingual readings is meant to make the lessons feel more inclusive to non-Chinese speakers for whose languages and cultures CC still may have had a profound impact (I actually wanted to include Zhuang readings (”Thai with Chinese Characteristics” lol) too, but I had trouble finding adequate resources and in the end its inclusion felt too niche, even for a niche series like this). The idea is that just like Latin is the shared heritage of Europe, not just Italy, so Classical Chinese is now the shared heritage of southeast Asia, not just (Mainland) China. Hope this clears things up, and thanks again for your support! =)
Thanks for the excellent video, I love the concept, so full of interesting information! As a nitpick I would point out that the japanese onyomi for the character 教 is きょう, not こう, but might just be a typo.
@@tomasbulko9418 oh I love picking nits! What I think happened is this: since Japanese has a billion (that is the scientific definition) ways a Chinese character can be read, I have a Japanese TCC on hand for reference, problem is it uses old kana orthography, and occasionally I might forget to double check and just copy-paste the kana into the video lol
The 漢音 of 教 is indeed こう. If I'm not mistaken, he's using 漢音 for all characters, I suppose for consistency (note how he gives ふう as the reading for 不 as well).
@@saarl99 Indeed! I'm not good enough at Japanese to know which readings count as the "common" sound-readings, but hopefully my good intentions outweigh my lack of understanding ^^
@@saarl99 Yeah that makes sense. I had no idea that reading existed as I never saw it in a dictionary or know a word that uses it. My bad, thanks for the correction.
Very nicely done! Many thanks for your efforts 🙏
This reminds me of those Chinese evening classes I used to attend all those years ago. Also took a class in Classical Chinese. Those were the days.
I think for Japanese, the on-yomi would be enough. I assume that's how the Japanese would have used. Fun fact (or should I say 'nerd note'?): 之 is sometimes used in male names and is pronounced yuki, which sounds the same as 行き which means to go.
次のレッスンをお待ちしております。
No way he's back
Like a seasonal allergy! xD
This is awesome!!! I wanted to study classical chinese since a while ago, and this video is super helpful!! You made it very entertaining and educational!. I can't wait for the next video to release. Would you also show us the right translation of the text?; Mine was: "When a man is born? ( I'm not quite sure is the right translation) his nature is originally good, our nature is similar (I translated the word "close" as similar) but our habits are different. If we're not taught then our nature changes. The way of teaching requires the utmost concentration"
Thank you! If you wanna study by yourself, I highly recommend Van Norden's book.
Unfortunately I won't be giving out any answer sheets. This is because it is almost impossible to get a 100% "accurate" translation of Classical Chinese into, well, any language because so much of it is up for interpretation andcontext-dependant. There are however a few English translations that you can peek at right at the start, but the sooner you start to learn CC on its own terms as it were the easier it will get (though you'll find yourself frustrated that you can accurately explain a thing in CC but not in any other language xD).
Your translation is pretty good! Only thing I would ask you to consider if, perhaps, our habits "make us different"?
Good luck!
@@SwedishSinologyNerd Thank you so much for answering my comment (and for your recommendation) I downloaded Van Norden's book and I'll use it as a complement to your future CC videos!. And also thanks for correcting my translation "our habits make us different" sounds much better! ^^.
@@histoguy6025 You're welcome! Van Norden is much better at sticking to his "no translations" policy I think, he also explains it much better why focusing on translation sells CC short on many levels. I will gradually phase out translations all together and attempt to encourage the viwer to come to their own conclusions with the tools given to them. Of course I will also discuss possible interpretations to "tricky" passages, but my goal is to stay away from direct translations as far as possible. Apart from Van Norden, you may want to DL Kroll's Dictionary of Classical Chinese and Pulleyblank's grammar as well. Pulleyblank is not always the most pedagogical in his approach but it is probably still the best CC grammar in English out there.
Great, thank you.
Thanks for the Korean readings!!
You're welcome! Like with the Japanese and Viet readings, since I'm not very proficient in Korean Viet or Japanese, please feel free to correct any mistakes, or if possible direct me toward a good Korean version of the San Zi Jing. 감사합니다! ^_^
你太棒了！好就想动笔开始学文言文，你帮我大忙！❤
Great job! New subscriber here.
Glad to have you onboard!
How do you get the origin of the characters in a chart ?
Do you make it yourself or find it on the internet?
@@Aliphwhy I make them myself though with inspiration from a few Chinese illustrated character etymology books.
Here is my attempt at a translation:
Concerning human beginnings:
Our nature is fundamentally good.
We are similar in nature,
But our customs are different.
If we are not taught,
Our nature will change.
The proper way of teaching
Is to emphasize concentration.
Talking of Classical Chinese typically reminds me of my secondary Chinese education and exams. Classical Chinese is easy to get the gist of until it easily isn't. Although having a typical SVO sentence structure, once the passage begins to omit bits and pieces (anyone of the S, V, and O, or even entire contexts) of the sentences and move the word order around, and mixing in place/people names as well as figures pf speech (借代 synecdoche seems to be quite popular)...
It's easy to mix up the parts of speech of words, (at least it was for me): Is this part of a place name or is this a verb? Was anything omitted or am I reading it the wrong way? It's talking about some students? I thought it was a passage about peaches and pears!
Put them all together and the exam author decides to pick a passage with some sprinkles of words I've never seen in my life and asks you to explain what the words mean. Safe to say, Classical Chinese was one of the hardest subjects to ace for the typical student, (so is the Chinese paper in general for me, XD).
Beautiful!!! Simply beautiful!
3:50 Finally another video for so long. Seems like you are still struggling with the tone sandhi here with the 一不變調 rule. The Bopomofo seems correct here, but you voiced the 不 in the 4th tone.
In 不教, since these 2 characters form a group, jiao is in the 4th tone, the bu prior to it should be in the 2nd tone instead of the regular 4th.
@SwedishSinologyNerd I do see you explaining the tone change later in the video, I should have watched the entire video before commenting, but still, I wonder why you made the decision to voice the bu in the passage reading in the 4th tone 🤔.
Excellent course ❤❤
My attempt (i realise it sounds bad)
.
.
.
In the beginning, man’s nature was good.
Their nature is the same, their habits differ.
If one isn’t taught, then one’s nature will change.
The way to teach, is, importantly, to focus.
12:06 meatspin
Blir nyfiken på vart du pluggat kinesiska! Jag pluggade på UU för tio år sedan! Vad har du för alma mater?
@@martinfalkjohansson5204 UU? Unseen University? XD Skojar, skojar. Jag ä en liten gåsapåg från Skåne, så jag läste i Lund för många Herrans år sen. Har även läst på 北外 och på 北語, men hoppjerka som en e har jag inte examen från något av dem, bara bachelor och masters i akupunktur från Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine ^^
Ah yes San Zi Jing, the one that most chinese speaker (probably only in Taiwan) remember it more as a byword for swear words
oughhh,,,,,, rhank you ,,,,,
Will I need to know modern Chinese to understand this lesson?
Not really. I use the Mandarin readings because they come most naturally to me, but you can read a CC text in pretty much any language.
Awesome. Thank you.
Taiwan is considering giving up on Classical Chinese.
Of course, Classical Chinese culture was burnt by the Communists.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Who are you? Alien? How u know about Tam Tự Kinh :))
Is Classical Chinese the same as Traditional Chinese?
There is no such thing as a Traditional Chinese language, what you probably meant was Traditional Chinese Characters, or the standard characters used in HK, Macao and the ROC. Traditional characters are however not the same as CC (though Taiwan uses more CC in their official writings than the PRC). CC can be written in both simplified and traditional characters (it just looks butt-ugly in simplified lol), but just because you learned traditional characters doesn't mean you can understand a CC text, if that makes sense?
@@SwedishSinologyNerd ohh okay ! thank you for explaining! What is PRC ?
@ Peoples Republic of China, aka Mainland China or as the PRC prefer to be called, China xD
三字經 means something else entirely in Taiwan😅
Unfortunately the Japanese readings aren't quite accurate, as a mix of kun'yomi and different categories of on'yomi are being used at once.
Traditionally a single on'yomi category is used for pronouncing Chinese texts with which one varying by time period and/or group.
Mixing on'yomi pronunciations isn't the worst, but Kun'yomi should not be used for exclusively Chinese text.
Minor mistake: 荀子 should be pronounced in the second tone.
4:17 it was not "詞匯", it was "詞彙" or "辭彙"
@@Levi_Highway A very easy mistake to make, as both 匯 and 彙 were simplified to 汇.
can you make a playlist for this series so it's easy to link to and change the 4 to for bc it's confusing with the lesson 1
中国人创经，名三字经，而无只三字。
三字经的第一句是从哪个典故来的呢？看看有多少人被错误的启蒙毒害。又有多少人持续受到父母从小培养的无自主思维能力影响。
I noticed you used the reading bổn instead of the standard reading bản. Bổn reading is dervived from the southern Vietnamese dialect. The readings should be standard since you use nhân and tính instead of nhơn and tánh.
I see! I used the 1917 edition TAM-TỰ-KINH
to decide whether to use bổn or bản link: vi.wikisource.org/wiki/Tam_T%E1%BB%B1_Kinh_di%E1%BB%85n_ngh%C4%A9a
This edition uses the reading bổn and so I followed its example. You are correct I did not apply this consistently so I will henceforth follow the 1917 TAM-TỰ-KINH when providing Viet readings. Thanks for pointing that out!
@SwedishSinologyNerd Note, Vietnamese 三字經 has a few slight differences than the Chinese edition, the differences can be found in the English Wikipedia page of Three Character Classic
@@nomnaday Thanks I'll make sure to consult it!
Bổn is used by Vietnamese people overseas.
Bản is used by Vietnamese people in nowadays Vietnam -> Vietnamese language changed.
@ Either way, I will be using the 1917 tam-tự-kinh as the basis for the Viet readings going forward =)
Based?
"All warfare is based" ~ Sun Tzu
@@nicholasmikulski8998 Do you mean what Xunzi tells Mengzi? Nah, he’s not calling him based, quite the opposite xD
Now teach Mongolian
@@cyancat8633 hah! I’ll likely do Machu first, since I actually know some of that
@SwedishSinologyNerd yay and Manchu is under rated. But what can you do some regional Chinese language
@ I mean I’d love to, but currently I’m only working on adding Canto and maybe Min. I also wanna learn Viet and Japanese so unless it’s a colab I’m afraid I won’t be able to do the other chinese languages justice
Just a few comments. For at least one word, your cartoon character was obscuring the Han character. Also, it'd be really helpful if you showed the strokes to write the character.
Here you go:
zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E5%AD%97%E7%B6%93
chinese2pinyin.com/en/calligraphy/