A shortcut to learning Chinese well: reciting ancient poems

There is a saying: if you learn Chinese, you will win the world. So, how to learn Chinese quickly, easily and cost-effectively? The study of classic literature is the simplest way to achieve a high degree of Chinese language attainment, and it is also the only way to deepen cultural intelligence. There is only one learning method, which is to follow the rules of all Chinese learning, repeatedly and skillfully. Repeatedly and skillfully, simply put, it is memorization. Taking \”classical literature\” and \”memorizing\” it is what the ancients called reading scriptures. Although it seems difficult at first because it is unfamiliar, the more times it is repeated and the more familiar the content is, just like a baby learning a language, it will naturally gain understanding and gradually become better. The main method for ancient people to learn Chinese was actually recitation. Scholars in ancient times mainly studied for the imperial examination. How many books did the scholar have to read and how many words did he have to memorize? There was a Jinshi in the Southern Song Dynasty who made statistics and found that he had to recite a total of about 720,000 words. The core of the imperial examination is the Four Books and Five Classics, and each book must be memorized. Four books: \”Great Learning\” with 1,700 words, \”The Doctrine of the Mean\” with 3,500 words, \”The Analects of Confucius\” with 13,700 words, and \”Mencius\” with 34,600 words, a total of about 53,500 words; Five Classics: \”The Book of Songs\” with 39,200 words, \”Shangshu\” with 25,700 words, and \”Book of Rites\” 99,000 words, \”Book of Changes\” 24,200 words, \”Spring and Autumn\” 196,800 words, a total of about 384,900 words. The Four Books and Five Classics alone have 438,400 words! If it was during the Ming and Qing dynasties, one would have to memorize Zhu Xi\’s \”Collected Commentary on Chapters and Sentences of the Four Books\”, which contains 280,000 words. In other words, the students who wrote eight-legged essays in the Ming and Qing Dynasties had to memorize 718,400 words. The latest and most complete 2023 [Kindergarten, Junior High and High School] premium VIP course catalogs from famous teachers in various disciplines on the entire network, click to view now! From primary school to high school, there are many ancient poems and essays, which contain a lot of Chinese knowledge. From words and sentences to paragraphs and chapters, from writing techniques to literary common sense, it covers everything. The full score for the Chinese Language College Entrance Examination is 150 points. The reading of ancient poetry is about 34 points (biography reading is 19 points, appreciation of ancient poetry is 9 points, and silent writing of ancient poetry is 6 points), language application is 20 points, and composition is 60 points. The total of these three types of questions is 114 points. If you memorize all the ancient poems and essays in primary school, junior high school, and high school by heart, you will know the words, mind map (structure), writing techniques, central idea, etc. of each ancient poem. So, these 114 points are easy to get. The remaining 36 points are for modern text reading: expository text reading, literary reading and expository text (applied) reading. In fact, they are also closely related to ancient poetry and prose, because in the process of learning and reciting ancient poetry and prose, they need to be translated into modern texts, in other words , in the process of learning and reciting ancient poetry, I am also learning modern literature. The main methods of reading ancient poems and reading modern texts are actually the same, including analyzing the theme, content, techniques, etc. There are many ways to recite ancient poetry, such as drawing a mind map (structure) of ancient poetry, breaking the whole into parts, and the \”four-step method.\” The so-called \”four-step method\” is: the first step is to find the feeling: read it aloud three times; the second step is to translate word by word: read the translation and annotations in detail; the third step is to straighten out the story: tell the story plot in vernacular; The fourth step, review: recite the original text with emotion and memorize it.