Language Resources

Paul F. Rouzer, A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese, Harvard East Asian Monographs 276 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center : Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2007).

Morgan Rouzer's textbook is serving me well. as she explains, classical chinese—Warring States period writing—is upstream of all later forms of literary chinese. but those other forms often consist of specialized genre codes (buddhist, medical, etc.) which must be studied separately.

i have created an anki deck of vocab flashcards for this book. there already existed a deck of hanzi-to-english vocab cards for Morgan Rouzer's Primer, but it didn't cover all the lessons. i followed that model and recreated this more complete set from scratch, though it's regex work and not without errors. these are less than ideal, because they contain multiple senses per card—best practices dictate that information should be broken down into its smallest possible components for studying.

Paul W. Kroll, A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese: Revised Edition, Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 4 China 30 (Leiden ; Boston, MA: Brill, 2017).

Kroll's dictionary has made working with literary chinese massively easier. you can buy it in pleco, and there also exists a pdf version. after getting it in pleco, i discovered that for licensing reasons, paid dictionaries don't work with pleco's card export system. again using regex, i made my own deck, which in this case does separate and number different senses of words. i haven't uploaded this anywhere, but if you need a copy, do reach out. because it contains the entire dictionary in order, the best way to use it is to first suspend all cards, then manually search for and unsuspend the ones you want to learn.

other canonical dictionaries i've found useful

• the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism run by Charles Muller
• Hucker's A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China: a little old (uses Wade-Giles), but as i understand it, the english translations provided here are standard.
• Le Grand Ricci: chinese to french, the ultimate fallback. especially notable for its coverage of medical/botanical terms.

John Kieschnick and Simon Wiles, A Primer in Chinese Buddhist Writings, 3 vols., accessed January 3, 2025, https://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/primer-chinese-buddhist-writings.

i have not used this, but a friend has, and it seems to be the best introduction to reading buddhist texts.

CUP How to Read Chinese Literature series

this series consists firstly of anthologies of translations and essays covering different genres of writing (poetry, prose, drama). i've learned a great deal from the poetry one in particular. each is accompanied also by a literary chinese course text; i haven't worked through any in detail yet, but hope to do the prose one at some point.

1. Zong-Qi Cai and Cui Jie, How to Read Chinese Poetry: Workbook (Columbia University Press, 2012).

2. Jie Cui, Yu cai Liu, and Zongqi Cai, How to Read Chinese Prose in Chinese: A Course in Classical Chinese, How to Read Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022).

3. Yingde Guo, How to Read Chinese Drama in Chinese: A Language Companion, How to Read Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023).

Celia Brickman, A Short Course in Reading French (Columbia University Press, 2012).

i used this for a semester on reading french in undergrad and liked it. my french skills have totally rusted, but i might try it again.