What reference books do you need to learn classical Chinese?

1. What books should I study first and what reference books are there? How many books should I recommend? In the study of classical Chinese, it is often difficult to get high marks, and some beginners feel confused and don't know where to start. Based on my own learning experience, this paper makes a general review of the study of ancient Chinese.

First of all, we need to realize that what we say in classical Chinese is just words in ancient people's daily conversations, just like our current Mandarin. Therefore, it is not difficult to learn classical Chinese well, but it is difficult to have literary talent. Combined with my own learning experience, if the foundation of ancient Chinese is weak, I suggest learning in the following order:

1, read Li Weng's San Zi Jing, Qian Zi Wen, Melody Revelation, Duiyun and The Book of Songs (Excerpts) and be able to recite them fluently (the above three-character and four-character short sentences are melodious and catchy, which can be combined with historical stories).

2. "100 pieces of primary school students' ancient prose" (a very classic collection of short essays, which can be translated by yourself before reading and imitating).

3. Sanyan Erpai, Historical Records, Warring States Policy and Zi Tongzhi Jian have better written versions. The above series are mainly historical books and literary novels, which are easy to understand and interesting, but also have high literariness and readability. You can read it as an extracurricular book, as long as you understand it, and you don't need to recite it (primary school students don't recommend three words and two beats, and children don't).

4. The above nine books, Shi Shuo Xin Yu, Yan Jia Xun, Caigen Tan, Dongpo Laughing Forest, Laughing Forest Guang Ji, Small Window You Ji, Six Chapters of a Floating Life, Nightmare Shadow and Zeng Guofan's Letters, mainly involve the self-cultivation of the ancients, with short and easy-to-understand length and rich philosophy. You can extract classic paragraphs and recite them.

5. Introduction to China Ancient Literature, Miscellaneous Notes on Classics and History, Ancient Literary Words, Collected Works of Tongcheng School, Notes on Water Classics, A Journey to Galand in Luoyang, Xunzi, Mencius, Zhuangzi and Han Feizi.

Generally speaking, the development of prose has gone through five important stages: pre-Qin, Han, Wei and Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Tang and Song Dynasties, and the turn of Ming and Qing Dynasties. The above ten books occupy a very important position in these five stages, which can be said to have their own advantages:

Guanzi in China's ancient literature, Miscellaneous Notes on Classics and History, and Lei Ban in China's ancient literature are all masterpieces in ancient and modern times, but each has its own merits, while Guanzi in China's ancient literature is relatively basic and less difficult. The latter two are more difficult and suitable for learners with certain accumulation. Most of the masterpieces of Han Dynasty, Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty are included in these three books, so they are not listed separately.

Mencius has incisive reasoning, fluent writing and vivid language; "Zhuangzi" uses fables to describe Wang Yang's arbitrariness and vividness; Xunzi is good at reasoning, full of arguments, profound thoughts and meticulous logic. Han Feizi used fables and historical materials to demonstrate in a simple way, and saw the same philosophy. These four books are the pinnacle of the pre-Qin period.

Galand in Luoyang and Notes on Water Mirror are representative works of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Selected Works of Tongcheng School and China Ancient Literature come down in one continuous line, which can be regarded as its continuation. Tongcheng school plays an important role in the retro school in Ming and Qing dynasties, Tang and Song school, public security school and other schools. Influenced by stereotyped writing, most articles in Ming and Qing Dynasties lacked momentum and aura, but there were also some great men such as Yao Nai and Gui Youguang. We might as well learn from many aspects and confirm each other, so as to form a global view.

You can read the above articles about the theme and choose some of them to copy and recite.

In addition, when learning ancient Chinese, you need to prepare a reference book, just one. This is the Dictionary of Ancient Chinese edited by Wang Li.

Precautions:

A, it should be noted that "Ancient prose Guanzhi" is the most famous and widely circulated. Students who want to learn ancient prose often want to take shortcuts, thinking that they can learn ancient prose by reciting the articles in "Ancient prose Guanzhi". View of China's Ancient Literature is just one of Selected Works of China's Ancient Literature. Although it is representative to some extent, the original intention of writing this book is to be used as a strategy in the imperial examination, so some articles with strong stereotyped writing atmosphere are selected. What's more, China's traditional culture is extensive and profound, and we need to dabble in it more to broaden our horizons and reach the realm of "not afraid of floating clouds covering our eyes, but afraid of the highest realm".

B as far as learning methods are concerned, learning a language is four magic weapons: listening, speaking, reading and writing. For ancient Chinese, the most important thing is reading and reciting. It is suggested to recite more classic works of ancient Chinese, and then read the theme, so that we can gradually find the laws and feelings of ancient people using language, or rather, the sense of language. After finding a sense of language, it is not difficult to learn to do problems every day.

C finally, if you are not interested in classical Chinese, but only focus on doing the questions, then my suggestion is to clarify the meaning and usage of some common words in the textbook, such as real function words and generic words, as well as some special sentence patterns, such as top truth and predicate prepositions, and be able to recite some classic paragraphs skillfully.

If you want to get a higher score in the ancient part of the exam, you must read the ancient and vernacular versions of Historical Records and Zi Tongzhijian, so that you can translate them yourself.

In the daily examination, the topic is often to choose someone's deeds, and then contact the knowledge of ancient Chinese to investigate. The so-called ever-changing cannot be separated from it. These two books are biographical and chronological, which are very representative. Most of the essays in the exam choose similar articles for investigation. It is very necessary to read through these two books.

2. What is the best reference book to help you learn ancient Chinese characters? The answer is in two steps, as follows.

Introduction of auxiliary materials for learning ancient Chinese;

Compared with vernacular Chinese, classical Chinese is nothing more than awkward and obscure. If you want to devote yourself to learning ancient Chinese, you can't limit your horizons.

In the Chinese book. Recommended auxiliary materials: An Introduction to China's Ancient Literature, Lessons Learned from Mutual Learning, Historical Records, The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Han Feizi, etc.

Introduction of auxiliary materials for learning ancient Chinese characters;

The term "ancient Chinese characters" is incorrect, but it should be called "Chinese characters". The reform after 1952 is called "simplified Chinese characters". Recommended auxiliary materials: Copybook for calligraphy, Traditional Chinese Dictionary, Taiwan Province News Today website, Simplified and Complicated Characters, etc.