Tag: hanzi

The un­­pre­ce­­dent­ed nature of the corona­­­virus lock­­­down has resulted in new heights of bore­­­dom. I blush to ad­mit it, but lately I’ve even been bored at the ter­rible, aw­ful news we get each day. More deaths? A new category of disaster? Ho-hum. (Yes, I hate myself for the feeling, but it’s there if I’m honest.)

I had congratulated myself on all the library books I scored before the library closed, but I find I’ve become bored of the whole concept of reading a book. In an attempt to revive some literary enthusiasm, I’m trying to resume my study (if you can call it that) of hanzi, the Chinese written language, which I had originally taken up to dispel the almost-as-bad boredom of commuting two hours by bus to work. It was a good time-passer, even if little of what I “studied” actually stuck.

It was so fun because I didn’t use just any old Chinese lesson book: my study was from something I had downloaded from Google books called Progressive Lessons in the Chinese Written Language, written by Oxford Professor T. L. Bullock back in 1902.

This treatise teaches written Traditional Chinese (not that decadent Simplified Chinese introduced by the communists in 1949). At the time the book was written, China was still an empire, and I swear that a good 20% of the vocabulary must be different words for imperial decrees and punishments for disobedience. And it uses sayings of Confucius in its sentence lessons. It’s really quite arcane and neat, and sure to take a lo-o-o-ong time!

Here’s a sample:

I’ve still got that poorly-scanned PDF of Progressive Lessons that I downloaded all those years ago. My only problem is it’s 300 pages long, and I don’t seem to have any e-book reader that handles it very well, so it’s hard to read (even the English parts!). My biggest regret about retiring is that I didn’t print the whole book out at work when I had the chance. I’m sure not going to do that now when I’d have to pay for it.

You should try it. As incentive, here is a Norwegian pig joke that you will be able to enjoy only after you have mastered Chinese hanzi. (Or you could paste it into Google translate, but it won’t seem as funny if you don’t work for it.)

Thanks for indulging me,
Dorn
4/30/2020