I want to read the four great classical novels of Chinese literature.
For anyone who doesn't know, those would be
>Water Margin
>Romance of the Three Kingdoms
>Journey to the West
and
>Dream of the Red Chamber
I have no desire to ever learn Chinese.
What are the best English translations of these works?
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How long would it take to learn Chinese to purely read literature and not speak it? Is it the best Asian sort of language to learn for literature ?
Japanese is better tbqh
The Chinese classics are overrated and there aren't enough to warrant learning Chinese for it. There aren't any notable contemporary Chinese authors either, whereas there've been plenty of celebrated Japanese authors and works of literature over the past two centuries.
It is a whole different interpretation from the Chinese to English translation. It would take u to be a very well versed Chinese reader to fully understand these books and read them how they r suppose to be read and appreciated. There will be a lot of cultural and linguistical references to premodern chinese language that without proper beforehand knowledge, will seem very dense. For example 成语, it is a 4 character proverb in a sort that u first need basic understanding of the characters then how they connect together to form the 成语 and what it means.
If u have no desire to learn chinese there are dramas for each story and im sure u can find an english sub or dub version
If u want to be Chinese learning penpals i can post my contact and we can learn together as i am doing it rn.
Japanese is not better, even they looked up to the Chinese. Despite the bad times china went through in the past 2 centuries, there is still valuable artistic achievement from china. For example 三毛's works. There is also chinese tang poetry which imo surpasses all other poetry i have encountered so far.
There should be a chart for chinese lit.
I'd say at the very least three years of dedicated study to be able to read the easiest modern stuff with little dictionary usage (things like the Four Great Novels would take longer).
How good are you at Chinese and Japanese, user? Fluent in both?
As far as I know there isn't a good translation for Three Kingdoms.
That's why the OP says "best" and not "good" :^)
As far as I'm informed parts of it are poetry so the chances of having anything approaching a quality translation that can substitute reading the original in some way are full on down the shitter
>The Chinese classics are overrated
Disagree, lots of good stuff on or before Song.
>There aren't any notable contemporary Chinese authors
This I can agree with.
>Japanese is not better, even they looked up to the Chinese.
What did you intend to achieve with that statement?
Fugg, I kind of wanted to read that.
Worth mentioning that people always seem to ask about RotTK, but standard Chinese wisdom is that DotRM is the greatest. Also I get the impression that Romance is actually the least 'novel-like' of the four- it's more like a historical chronicle, and consequently more dry.
Disclaimer: I haven't read any of them.
Lets not argue and diverge the thread as i have seen happen before.
>it's more like a historical chronicle
Haven't read it either but I think the common number is 70% history 30% fiction, history as in it's like what's in the Chinese historical chronicles written at the emperors court hundreds of years after the actual events
>How long would it take to learn Chinese to purely read literature and not speak it?
About 5 years if you're dedicated in a serious way.
>Is it the best Asian sort of language to learn for literature ?
Yes. Japanese culture is primitive as fuck. I realize that that's part of the appeal for westerners, but primitiveness is not fun in literature.
Japanese Kanji was taken from Chinese. If you know chinese you already know 50% of the japanese language
I meant more the writing style- the contents are heavily fictionalised, but AFAIK the style partly echoes 'real' histories so it's less 'novelistic' (eg it jumps from character to character and event to event with little detail). I think the other three novels are more focused on specific characters and narrower in focus.
Could be wrong though.
I have really enjoyed the Foreign Language Press editions out of Beijing a great deal.
Avoid Brewitt-Taylor for RottK translations
That's misleading though. You know half of the writing system. Similar to saying if you know English you know 50 percent of German.
You can play the video games or watch the movies (Red cliff)
It's like the Iliad but with more women and strategy.
Yes
>Japanese is not better, even they looked up to the Chinese
Only during the Tang Dynasty. And it doesn't change the fact that there is more Japanese literature worth reading than Chinese literature. This isn't about which country you like more, this is about objective standards of artistic merit.
It's true that Japanese is derived from Chinese but it has evolved into something of its own, and the modern Japanese have done far more with their language than the Chinese with theirs. I can name 20 influential and acclaimed Japanese works translated into other languages and read worldwide which were written in the past 200 years, can you?
>Tang poetry
I'll give you that, the Tang Dynasty allowed culture and literature to flourish but is that really all you can come up with? Has Chinese literature contributed as much as its Japanese ones? How do you expect a Chinese author to contribute anything meaningful in a censored society where books are being censored?
Look, there's a reason why Japanese literature is so widely translated and Chinese 'literature' isn't. Do you ever see anyone on the internet recommending a Chinese work outside of Dao De Jing, the Art of War and the 4 OP listed?
polite sage for offtopic
>Look, there's a reason why Japanese literature is so widely translated and Chinese 'literature' isn't.
Yes, and that reason is weebs and anime.
Wrong. Jap lit has been translated before anime was even invented.
you havent read any chinese lit
Are we talking only ancient chinese Veeky Forums, because shit like Mo Yan seems pretty well written and translated to me.
>Wrong. Jap lit has been translated before anime was even invented.
Only true in the literal sense. It wasn't popular or mainstream or interesting to anyone except select Asian Studies academics before anime.
Do you honestly think that anime made people want to read Mishima and Dazai?
>objective
Ha!
>there's a reason why Japanese literature is so widely translated and Chinese 'literature' isn't
There are multiple reasons. You'd have to be pretty naive (putting it nicely) to attribute it entirely to a non-existent 'objective' standard of literary merit and ignore things like Japan's much more successful modernisation and its much greater links with the west in the modern era.
How did you learn fluent Chinese, Japanese and English, by the way?
>Do you honestly think that anime made people want to read Mishima and Dazai?
Not quite, the popularity of california rolls (a.k.a. "sushi") also played a part.
Still doesn't change the fact that Japanese literature is more unique and varied than Chinese literature.
>How did you learn fluent Chinese, Japanese and English, by the way?
Consistent and diligent learning, along with extensive use of Krashen's input hypothesis.
yes lol
mishima isnt that popular in japan. he's treated with a combination of fascination and suspicion because of the general movement away from reactionary nationalism and traditionalism
whereas in the west, or at least on Veeky Forums, he's regarded as one of the most influential japanese writers (along with murakami), or is at least the most read of the major ones.
and why? cause Veeky Forums is an anime site desu
>RotK
Moss Roberts' is the standard here. Make sure to get the complete one that includes supplementary material and not his earlier abridged version.
There's a new one published by Tuttle that has favorable reviews, but it's very recent (2014) so there's not much of a scholarly consensus on it.
>Water Margin
Sidney Shapiro is the standard.
Avoid Pearl S. Buck's at all cost.
>Journey to the West
You want either Anthony Yu (again, the complete one and not the abridged one) or the Jenner one. Anthony Yu is preferable but he's extreme literal and autistic about tiny mythological/cultural/historical details, and the translation can read stiff when he's going for accuracy. Some people might dislike this.
Avoid Waley.
>Dream of the Red Chamber
Either Hawkes/Minford or Yang/Yang is fine.
In general any of the complete versions published by the Beijing Foreign Language Press (typically 3- 4 volumes) for all 4 of the classics tend to be the accepted standard for English language versions, with the exception of Dream of the Red Chamber. In any case the Beijing FLP version (Yang/Yang) is still adequate, it's just not as established as the Hawkes/Minford.
>varied and unique
Interesting... I laughed at the 'objective' thing, but that seems a decent way of making some meaningful comparisons. How do you think Japanese modern lit is more varied and unique? Subject matter, style, genre?
Of course, at the same time variety isn't everything. How do you determine that, say, Fortress Besieged is worse than the best Japanese works of the same period?
>Krashen
Ah, nice. Looks a bit like an excuse for learning a language without having to speak to people, but actually I probably learnt most of my Chinese this way so it might well work.
Is there a good place to get native Japanese literature in .txt? It makes vocab lookup so much easier.
>>RotK
>Moss Roberts' is the standard here. Make sure to get the complete one that includes supplementary material and not his earlier abridged version.
>There's a new one published by Tuttle that has favorable reviews, but it's very recent (2014) so there's not much of a scholarly consensus on it.
Get the 2014 Yu Sumei translation. It's much more readable than the Roberts's translation.
Oh I didn't realize how the text feature worked. Thanks user
Do you speak enough Jap to navigate the site? Can you post a text that's like grade 1 or kindergarten?
Cheap books printed on shitty paper, tbqhwy family. I wouldn't expect much more from a Chinese publisher.
If you specifically want child level lit then go for graded readers, but personally I go for harder material. Then again I'm not fluent so YMMV
>he's treated with a combination of fascination and suspicion because of the general movement away from reactionary nationalism and traditionalism
Uncuck Japan
You should learn an Asian language, but which one? China is going to bust within the next 50 years; it's looking bad. Japan is going to be able to compete with the US within the next 50 years. The Korean writing system can be learned in a day, while Chinese and Japanese will take almost a year. Chinese has the 4 classics and Tang poetry, Japanese has anime and good contemporary authors, Korean has K-pop. China was ruined by communism. There's nothing worth reading or watching in contemporary China. Japan has good contemporary and ancient media worth consuming, it even has what's considered the oldest novel. If you watch anime at all, just pick Japanese. South Korea is a nice place to live; the internet is faster in South Korea. You have better chance of finding a hot Asian wife in South Korea.
t. doesn't know any asian languages, also doesn't read
go back to /a/
I've studied all 3 languages. DJT doesn't exist on /a/ anymore, and I don't watch anime. I prefer Japanese novels and music.
OK, I do read manga.
>China is going to bust within the next 50 years; it's looking bad.
insecure whitey detected
The inequality is going to produce massive civil unrest. My prediction.
inequality doesnt produce civil unrest when the poorest people are still richer than they were 10/20/30 years ago
both the average and median wealth/quality of life of chinese citizens have improved tremendously. not at the pace ofthe ultra rich, but that's hardly relevant
if inequality is a factor the US might as wel lnot exist considering it's comparable levels of inequality (it kinda stops matter if the richest person is 1000000x or 10000000x richer than you) without the same level of progress for the middle/lower class
the "china is gonna collapse" narrative is one of the laziest, worst thought out theses ever, popularized by yellow peril and insecurity over china's global economic/political power. it's usually parroted by armchair economists and the media for views
>Journey to the West
pic related, not sure about the others.
I'll be honest and say that I have 0 clue. I'm basing my ideas off the creator of Stratfor.
>He isn't learning Arabic
How blind are you?