Self introduction

[tbearzhang]

Hello, I'm a classical language enthusiast and am currently in the process of self learning Latin.

I went to school in China and majored in Biology in college. It is uncommon for schools in China to offer Latin courses, but by a strange stroke of luck my school hired an instructor from the Netherlands in my senior year in college and he taught two classes: Ancient Greek and Classical Latin. I took both courses in the fall semester, unfortunately Ancient Greek was discontinued in the Spring semester due to unpopularity, but Latin was offered for a second semester.

The textbook we used for Latin was Wheelock's Latin (6th Ed.) (The instructor borrowed a copy from the university library and made photocopies for the whole class, ~30RMB per person)

We weren't able to finish all the chapters (we got to chapter 30). A few months ago I decided to pick up Latin, and maybe one day self learn Ancient Greek as well.

I have a general interest in history and the humanities, although I majored in science in college and am currently working in a research lab. I am learning Latin purely out of personal interest (I just find the language very aesthetically pleasing), with no expectations that this will bring any career benefits or personal profit.

Currently I am trying to finish all the chapters in Wheelock's Latin, just to complete something I began. My long term goal is to be able to read Latin prose or verse composed by the greats, such as the works of Cicero and the Aeneid. I feel that it might still take me quite a while. As I mentioned before I do hope that one day I will be able to get to Greek (at least I recognize all the letters).

Having been educated in China I can read Classical Chinese, which I also find very aesthetically pleasing, and it has been a very interesting and fun experience comparing Classical Chinese to Classical Latin - both languages are very efficient in their use of words but achieve efficiency using almost completely opposite strategies. (With Latin it is their highly inflective word structure and strict grammar, with Classical Chinese it is their strong reliance on context and literary references [no tenses, conjugations, or declensions] coupled with very loose and flexible grammar [to the extent that grammar exists in Classical Chinese].)

Anyway, it's great to find this community, and I have much to learn from you guys. The reason I'm here is because I'm running into some difficulty in my studies and hope I can find help here. But first I must prove that I am indeed human - which I hope I have accomplished with this post.

I hope I haven't wandered too far off topic...

Salvete amici! Et valete!

[bedwere]

Welcome on Textkit!

[Hylander]

Welcome to this site!

I can't figure out whether your first language is English or Chinese. If you don't mind, let us know because it might make a small difference in how we explain grammatical points to you (as in your post yesterday on Wheelock). If your first language is in fact Chinese, I would have to say that your English is so fluent as to be indistinguishable from a native speaker! Did my post on the Wheelock forum help at all?

[tbearzhang]

I'm bilingual - I can speak English without an accent (with an American Midwest accent, to be exact) and I speak Mandarin Chinese like a native (I'm told I have a "southerner accent" in Chinese). I'm fully proficient (reading, speaking, writing, listening) in both languages.

Hylander, your post was extremely helpful, thank you very much!

[brainout]

Actually, you'd be better off just grabbing Cicero or other Latin writing and try reading it directly. Don't worry about case and syntax; you didn't initially learn your first language with tables, so you learn faster now if you just READ.

You'll find that there is a fluidity of Latin structure much like Mandarin (so far as I remember Mandarin from learning it in Hong Kong, over 40 years ago).

Cadence is everything. I'd start with Cicero, but maybe you prefer someone else.

I'm bilingual - I can speak English without an accent (with an American Midwest accent, to be exact) and I speak Mandarin Chinese like a native (I'm told I have a "southerner accent" in Chinese). I'm fully proficient (reading, speaking, writing, listening) in both languages.

Hylander, your post was extremely helpful, thank you very much!

[seneca2008]

Actually, you'd be better off just grabbing Cicero or other Latin writing and try reading it directly. Don't worry about case and syntax; you didn't initially learn your first language with tables, so you learn faster now if you just READ.

I am replying to this because someone might happen on it via a google search. I dont think this is good advice. Trying to read Latin without paying attention to "case and syntax" is a recipe for disaster.

[Victor]

Actually, you'd be better off just grabbing Cicero or other Latin writing and try reading it directly. Don't worry about case and syntax; you didn't initially learn your first language with tables, so you learn faster now if you just READ.

You'll find that there is a fluidity of Latin structure much like Mandarin (so far as I remember Mandarin from learning it in Hong Kong, over 40 years ago).

I'd echo Seneca2008's comments on your first paragraph.
As for your second paragraph, in my experience Latin and Chinese are about as similar structurally as an elephant and a glow worm.

[Hylander]

I'd echo Seneca2008's comments on your first paragraph.

Me too.

[tbearzhang]

brainout: I've recently finished all 40 chapters of Wheelock's Latin and am working on Loci Antiqui. Having some basic knowledge of Latin grammar definitely helps - I'd be completely lost if I didn't know about the various grammatical constructs of the ablatives and the gerunds. But I appreciate your point of trying to understand Latin directly as it is, rather than relying on translation into English (which I am currently doing). Alas, I really don't have much chance to use Latin directly in my everyday life, so I think I have to approach it slowly, and gradually cultivate my intuition of the Latin language.

I do find a strange resonance between Latin and (Classical) Chinese - they are both aesthetically pleasing to me. They are both very short, and contain a very high density of information (relative to the amount of space they occupy). But indeed their structure and characteristics are completely different. I don't know where to begin to try to use Chinese, a language without verb tense, to explain all the different tenses of Latin!

[Victor]

bThey are both very short, and contain a very high density of information (relative to the amount of space they occupy).

I think Chinese poetry has the edge on brevity - and obscurity. Don't take that as an insult; I'm sure many poems become clear(er) once you've sifted them, and the rewards make the effort worthwhile.

I'm a complete greenhorn when it comes to Chinese poetry, but I carry little bits of the original Chinese around in my head, such as the haunting end of Meng Haoran's so-called (to English readers) "Seeing off Du Shi Si South of the River":
http://www.chinese-poems.com/m15.html

On a different note, I admire your interest in literature and ancient languages in spite of the fact that you have a science background. I've had several interesting discussions with Chinese people about how the sciences and the humanities are regarded relative to one another in Chinese society, and there seems to be a perception among the Chinese that the "cleverer" students gravitate towards science and the rest are relegated to those subjects with lower intellectual content, namely the humanities. Is this a view that a significant number of Chinese people hold? Is it justified?

The most successful students in the Gao Kao are always strong scientists, at any rate, and most of China's current political elite seem to have a science, not a humanities, background.* Maybe, though, this is more to do with the fact that you have to do science for the Gao Kao (or do you?), whether you want to or not, and the humanities are not approached in anything like the same way in China as they are in the West; I think it's fair to say that literature and literary criticism in China have always been somewhat constrained and conservative, relatively speaking, for reasons that were once mainly sociological and are now both sociological and political, probably in equal measure.

*This is the opposite of the way things have traditionally been and still are in the West, where the majority of senior politicians tend to have a non-scientific background.

[tbearzhang]

bThey are both very short, and contain a very high density of information (relative to the amount of space they occupy).

I think Chinese poetry has the edge on brevity - and obscurity. Don't take that as an insult; I'm sure many poems become clear(er) once you've sifted them, and the rewards make the effort worthwhile.

I'm a complete greenhorn when it comes to Chinese poetry, but I carry little bits of the original Chinese around in my head, such as the haunting end of Meng Haoran's so-called (to English readers) "Seeing off Du Shi Si South of the River":
http://www.chinese-poems.com/m15.html

On a different note, I admire your interest in literature and ancient languages in spite of the fact that you have a science background. I've had several interesting discussions with Chinese people about how the sciences and the humanities are regarded relative to one another in Chinese society, and there seems to be a perception among the Chinese that the "cleverer" students gravitate towards science and the rest are relegated to those subjects with lower intellectual content, namely the humanities. Is this a view that a significant number of Chinese people hold? Is it justified?

The most successful students in the Gao Kao are always strong scientists, at any rate, and most of China's current political elite seem to have a science, not a humanities, background.* Maybe, though, this is more to do with the fact that you have to do science for the Gao Kao (or do you?), whether you want to or not, and the humanities are not approached in anything like the same way in China as they are in the West; I think it's fair to say that literature and literary criticism in China have always been somewhat constrained and conservative, relatively speaking, for reasons that were once mainly sociological and are now both sociological and political, probably in equal measure.

*This is the opposite of the way things have traditionally been and still are in the West, where the majority of senior politicians tend to have a non-scientific background.

Classical Chinese poetry is very brief, and as you say, due to the grammatical nature (or lack thereof) of the language, sometimes quite obscure - which works for poetry because the reader can fill in the blanks with his/her own imagination. Poetry in the Tang Dynasty is no doubt a high water mark for the Chinese literary tradition.

I consider myself a philosopher in its most original sense: a lover of wisdom. And one can seek wisdom in many places - from the sciences, and from the humanities as well.

As for Chinese attitudes towards the humanities vs. sciences, what you say used to be true. Back in the old Communist days of China, in part due to political oppression (the Western emphasis on "libertas" [especially of individuals] did not sit particularly well with Chairman Mao), and in part due to realistic needs to industrialize.

There used to be a saying in Chinese: 学会数理化，走遍天下都不怕。(Literal translation: [If you] learn math, physics, and chemistry, [you can] travel around the world and have no fear.) And it is generally thought that mastery of the "hard sciences" is a demonstration of superior intellectual ability.

Technically, most high level Chinese officials carry engineering (rather than science) degrees, as many of them were educated during or before the early days of the People's Republic. However, in more distant times, one had to pass the Civil Service Exam (科举考试) to serve in government (the exam exclusively tested one's knowledge of the Confucian canons), and many high level Chinese officials were great Confucian scholars and calligraphers and poets themselves. (Many poets of the Tang Dynasty were themselves government officials)

I think the common thread is the Confucian tradition of "学而优则仕" ([If one] excels in scholarship, [one should] serve in government). Back in the old days, the best and brightest learned the Confucian canons; in the early days of the People's Republic, they gravitated toward science and engineering. Since introducing market economy reforms in the late 1970s, there is a new trend where the best and brightest of China pursue studies in economics or finance. Thus now China has a Prime Minister who has a PhD in Economics - he went to college shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Also, as the country becomes wealthier, and the immediate need for industrialization slightly easing (China's industrial output recently topped even that of America), there has also been a newer "soul searching" movement, where many (young) people start turning back to traditional Chinese philosophy (the "Chinese humanities", in some sense) to find meaning in this modern world.

[ailuros]

thanks for posting this tbearzhang. just fascinating. i will admit that as an american i find china to be largely a mystery to me. russia is sort of the same. there's just so much i don't understand. you are a fine writer.

[tbearzhang]

thanks for posting this tbearzhang. just fascinating. i will admit that as an american i find china to be largely a mystery to me. russia is sort of the same. there's just so much i don't understand. you are a fine writer.

Thank you for your kind words. On the surface China and America are very different, but deep down they are not that different as many assume.

[Victor]

it is generally thought that mastery of the "hard sciences" is a demonstration of superior intellectual ability.

My impression of Chinese attitudes wasn't wrong, it seems.

Technically, most high level Chinese officials carry engineering (rather than science) degrees

That accords with my own findings. Engineering, though, is still a science discipline in the UK; economics is a social science.

Also, as the country becomes wealthier, and the immediate need for industrialization slightly easing (China's industrial output recently topped even that of America), there has also been a newer "soul searching" movement, where many (young) people start turning back to traditional Chinese philosophy (the "Chinese humanities", in some sense) to find meaning in this modern world.

That's reassuring to know. With a bit of luck a parallel movement will begin soon in the West, and societies across the world will come to understand that economic growth and scientific progress are not by themselves the cornerstones of prosperity and happiness that so many people take them to be.

[ailuros]

Thank you for your kind words. On the surface China and America are very different, but deep down they are not that different as many assume.[/quote]

true indeed. i hope i speak for all here by saying how delighted we are to have your perspective!

[ailuros]

[quote]Thank you for your kind words. On the surface China and America are very different, but deep down they are not that different as many assume.[quote]

true indeed. i hope i speak for all here by saying how delighted we are to have your perspective!