Fwiph. Back to normal.

[icarus]

Sanskritsanskritsanskrit hasn't gotten to the hard part yet. I haven't forgotten the script from last year, fortunately.

I think redoing Sanskrit has been a good idea (so far, knock wood). I would have struggled if I'd tried to pick up where I quit last year when WG's mom passed away. If I'd plunked myself into second quarter this winter... *whistles*. I'm easing in -- there's no way I still have those paradigms still memorized.

But there is quite a lot of reading to do for the Ancient Chinese History class. Oh-! enname? I asked the professor -- the reason why most of our source texts are by western scholars is twofold:

1) Very few Chinese scholarly texts are translated into English, and
2) Chinese scholars aren't writing for a western audience. They make assumptions that the audience has a general sense of Chinese history.

Now I'm waiting for my Ancient Indian History book so I can grill my Sanskrit professor. It's only available as a reference book at UW -- in the Architectural library of all things. See, unlike China, not much has survived from Ancient India. Okay, okay, we have religious texts, but little history. For India you have to piece together potshards and play Daniel Jackson to get the story.

Now to work on the SGA 2005 Flavor of the year essay a little more. Write a few more sentences to Out Of Bounds. *chip, chip, chip* Fanfiction feels like marble sculpture right now.


ETA: My solution to cramps and lower back pain? Beer.

I'm sure both John Sheppard and Dean Winchester would approve.

*sips*

Comments

[crownglass39.livejournal.com]

I prefer blackberry brandy to beer; however my mom swears that her father used to give her bourbon with pepper to help with cramps when she was a teen. At least after you were through with that you didn't care about the cramps.

Looking forward to more OOB!

[enname.livejournal.com]

Hmm, it doesn't really suprise me all that much. A lot of not as large countries have a very vibrant press, whether it is historical or fictional, and being that they are writing for themselves they don't bother to translate it. North Africa especially. Still, considering very few scholarly texts for Western history are translated out of English (even into French of Italian) and assume some level of background history... fair is fair I suppose. I suspect though if you were going to work in Chinese history for any length of time both a general sense of it and functional Chinese would be required.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I once flirted with the idea of learning Chinese. Then a friend of mine, a linguistics major who was learning Chinese and Russian the same quarter, clued me in to how long it takes to master Chinese. I decided I had quite enough on my plate, thank you.

The Chinese history is intended to cover one of my "cross-regional" requirements for the degree. I've just opted for a 400-level class instead of the usual 200-level class they require. And, hey, Tibet stradles China and India, historically and culturally. *beams*

Icarus

[enname.livejournal.com]

I was talking to one of my students about learning Chinese. The thing is she is a native speaker, born in China and having grown up speaking it all her life. Yet she was struggling dreadfully with the high level 'traditional' Chinese that she was being taught. About then I sort of went 'argh, perhaps another day'. I would, sadly, find it easier to read and be too scared to try speaking.

Pfft, I love the past. Borders? Hah! Not remotely resembling now and as fluid as all hell. This stupid idea of the nation state *goes off elsewhere into five hour long rant* .... yeh. Long may the past live.

*grin*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I would, sadly, find it easier to read and be too scared to try speaking.

It takes most people about seven years of study to really learn how to read, largely because you have to memorize each written word of your vocabulary separately. It's a tonal language so hard to speak but even native speakers struggle to learn to read.

I was talking to one of my students about learning Chinese. The thing is she is a native speaker, born in China and having grown up speaking it all her life. Yet she was struggling dreadfully with the high level 'traditional' Chinese that she was being taught.

Yes. There is no connection between the sound of the words in spoken Mandarin or Cantonese and the letter. So speaking Chinese would not have helped her in learning to read it.

I read a story (in English) about a China scholar at a conference in Beijing. He was a Ph.d, surrounding by native Chinese-speaking-and-reading Ph.ds. He needed the character for the word "sneeze" and couldn't remember it. He asked one of the Chinese there. The man couldn't remember it. They passed the question along. Not a single person -- out of all these Ph.ds -- could remember the character for "sneeze."

If you can't remember it in the abstract there's no way to access it.

This stupid idea of the nation state *goes off elsewhere into five hour long rant* .... yeh. Long may the past live.

Amen, sistah.

[enname.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know the writing system and how it works in relation to the words and grammer. There is a similar problem with Japanese, when it is operating at a high level and using mostly Chinese characters. Actually, you generally have to memorise four or five words to one character form as well, depending on situational variations and context .. so even harder. However, I do know that I have a strange instinctual grasp of Chinese writing systems and remembering the infinite variations - it is a lot like drawing for me and I have a very strong visual memory. You have to learn to feel the shape of the word in the character and not just a meaning. At my very worst I could sit down and write out 200-300 chinese characters without looking them up. I am just bad at tonality :P

So speaking Chinese would not have helped her in learning to read it.

It is even worse than that, they have to learn a lot of the traditional stuff orally as well as in the written form. Pushed to do on the spot translation and analysis with comparison back and forth from standard.

Hehe, it isn't Chinese, but I have a dear Japanese friend who had been over here for a year. She was getting mail from home and came round to my place really upset because she was unable to read a letter her mother had written her - she couldn't remember the Chinese characters properly as she hadn't been using them every single day. So yes, no one being able to recall the character for 'sneeze' is rather par for the course really. Although there are some patterns in the ideograms - recognition is easier than remembering from a void.

Mmm.

[sarka.livejournal.com]

Beer is the solution to almost everything, around here...

[ladyflowdi.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I'm taking a Russian history class (up to Peter the Great) and it's the same issue. Few Russian historians are 1, writing in English, 2, writing for a western audience, and 3, writing on this time period. There's no textbook for the class, but a series of articles he puts on reserve in the library so as to supplement lectures so boring they make me want to pull my teeth out. Needless to say, I'm struggling in his class.

[lunamazes.livejournal.com]

I always thought the reasons that there were few translated chinese texts is because nobody really interest in it and very difficult to translate.

Even I am a chinese, when I read ancient chines text, I don't understand what I read, I need someone to translate it to modern chinese.