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Beginning Mandarin with the Tao Te Ching | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 7132 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 17 of 24 14 December 2011 at 4:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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It is very clever. Just another note for anyone teaching themselves to read it, be
careful that about the 非常. In modern Chinese it means "very" or "extraordinary" and is a binome. In classical it is two words: "not" and "normal" or "conventional." Every time we've read this in a classical Chinese class there's always a handful of students who either just assume its the same as the modern Chinese or rely on their dictionaries (which amounts to the same thing). edited: because I should have checked Wang Li first regarding 常.
Edited by seldnar on 14 December 2011 at 5:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4865 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 24 14 December 2011 at 5:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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About 30 years ago, or maybe it was 35, I collected about 10 or 12 different translations of the Tao because I had a really nice edition with the Chinese printed on pages facing each page of English and I thought it would be fun to figure out which Chinese characters meant what.
It was a youthful folly, and a complete waste of time. Of the 10 or 12 translations, no two agreed on what the thing said. A few had a sort of rough agreement about the general idea, but the only conclusion I could draw from all that was that nobody knew what the devil the original text was supposed to mean. My guess was that the original manuscript might even have been a discarded crossword puzzle from some ancient Chinese newspaper for the meaning it seemed to hold. If you are interested, here is a website where 29 translations are compared side by side. All 29 translations are available on the site. http://wayist.org/ttc%20compared/index.htm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 19 of 24 14 December 2011 at 5:40am | IP Logged | |||||
The Tao that can be Taoed, is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named, is not the eternal name. I found that translation most interesting. I am in a way a Taoist. Here's a link to a website that explains what Taoism is in a bit different way than how it's mostly found elsewhere. In short, Taoism is a form of Political Mysticism, a precursor to modern Libertarianism or Classical Liberalism. http://www.friesian.com/taote.htm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4772 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 20 of 24 14 December 2011 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
As a fellow libertarian, albeit one not very well-versed in Ancient Chinese thought, I would like to hear your opinion on this (kinda-sorta) rebuttal to that interpretation of Taoism by Roderick Long. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 21 of 24 14 December 2011 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Both Taoists and Confucianists can learn a lot from each other. But here is a rebuttal to
the article you provided, although its scope encompasses other philosophies and not just Taoism. http://www.friesian.com/donner.htm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 22 of 24 14 December 2011 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you for that link, it is very interesting to compare the different versions :). I'm no expert, but I think scholars agree on some principal ideas ( like trying to keep in harmony the male and female element; "acting by not acting"; knowledge as an obstacle to freedom and harmony, etc. ) even if there is no agreement on the translation. Taoism is not just about this text, it is still a living tradition. It also exists as part of other "philosophies" ( or religions ). My understanding is that Chinese Buddhism intermingled with Taoist ideas, which resulted in the Chan school, and later that became the source of Japanese Zen. The meaning of the texts still lives on in these traditions. Edited by Sennin on 14 December 2011 at 6:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| moonjun Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4804 days ago 8 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* Studies: Korean | Message 23 of 24 15 December 2011 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are different levels of ancient Chinese. Dao De Jing is the probably one of the
most abstruse of any classical Chinese texts. The Dao De Jing is written around 2000 years ago, but until 100 years ago Classical Chinese has always been in common use. As a native Chinese speaker with some attempts to read ancient Chinese, I've found out for example, the Analects by Confucius's students, and later commentaries by classical Chinese scholars in the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, would all be considered to be written in "Classical Chinese." But in reality they each use different vocabularies and even grammar because since classical Chinese was used for all formal writing, the languages, even though a non-spoken one, inevitably drifts along with the spoken vernacular. A common impression I have is that a lot of classical Chinese texts around the era of Dao De Jing are actually colloquial texts, poems or folk songs, but because the language changed so much, in later dynasties people study them as though they are refined high arts with mastery in literary uses, even though they're not, they are just very different. But in the case of Dao De Jing, the writer's first intentions was probably to write elaborately and to make it hard to understand, as said:"if the way can be told, then it is not a eternal way." After all this is a philosophical text of a philosophy close to nihilism in a sense, so it doesn't really have that much clear, logical material in the text all together. So those reasons combined makes a text like Dao De Jing very, very hard even for classical Chinese texts. Edited by moonjun on 15 December 2011 at 2:37pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lindseylbb Bilingual Triglot Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4932 days ago 92 posts - 126 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, Cantonese*, English Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 24 of 24 16 December 2011 at 6:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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In the case of daodejing the writer, if not writers, simply didn't write it clearly. But the philosophy itself does not die or stay unchanged. w We dont just jump through more than 2000 years and come to 21st century. taoism have been understanded, inherited and developed in over 2000 years, communicated with other philosophies, such as confucianism and buddhism, and certainly still living in china. And I always think those who cant understand classical chinese must have been terrible when they are in schools. No offence. Kids are sometimes required to recite daodejing, without true understanding for now,as part of education. And everyone who ever attend highschool and listen should have the ability to understand. I don't know if those uneducated can understand or not, but I don't think it can be considered difficult if you are not raising a philosophical battle. Chinese people don't simply learn chinese language, it has a whole cultural background and daily lives where we learn our culture. An uneducated man may not understand every word properly, if have a standard answer, he can make some sense and understanding out of it. I just hate people saying how difficult classical and simplified chinese are, without seeing the bonds behind them. They are not separated by any means. Learn it if you find it interesting, sometimes learning a language is more. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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