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These students are college aged people in US. They are not what I call "educated Chinese people". The way the classic Chinese was written has always been diffe
by huahaiy 10y ago
These students are college aged people in US. They are not what I call "educated Chinese people".
The way the classic Chinese was written has always been different from everyday vernacular Chinese. This has been true for every generation of Chinese learners since ancient times.
How people spoke Chinese have changed over the years dramatically. I don't think the ancient ways of speaking Chinese is understandable by modern Chinese. However, the way the language is written in formal setting has changed little up to the end of Qing dynasty in 1912.
An education in Chinese means to learn how to read these traditional Chinese writings. This education is still enforced today in modern China, hence my claim that an educated modern Chinese person can still read them and understand them. For example, a part of the Chinese college entrance exam requires the students to read an unseen piece of traditional Chinese text, and answer questions about it. During the exam, some enterprising students could even write their essays entirely in classic Chinese, garnering wide circulations on the internet.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago> An education in Chinese means to learn how to read these traditional Chinese writings. This education is still enforced today in modern China, hence my claim that an educated modern Chinese person can still read them and understand them. For example, a part of the Chinese college entrance exam requires the students to read an unseen piece of traditional Chinese text, and answer questions about it. There's a serious conflict here with your simultaneous claim that college graduates aren't yet "educated".
- huahaiy 10y agoWhat's the conflict? College graduates from where? A college graduate who has gone through the entire Chinese education system would be required to learn reading comprehension of classic Chinese. Granted, there are always students for one reason or another claimed that they have leaned nothing from school. It's either a false claim, or if that's true, calling them educated would be a stretch, isn't it?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoIt's not clear from Mair's post if he's teaching undergraduates, graduate students, or both, and Penn's course catalog isn't much help as it looks to have been cross-listed at a variety of levels: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/ealc/pc/term/2016A https://www.sas.upenn.edu/ealc/pc/term/2016A including CHIN492/EALC222/EALC622 Regardless, please note that of the 9 students, 2 were from China and a third was from Hong Kong.