Notes From Xi'an 西安随感

There was a very useful development in the Chinese language-learning sphere while I was back in Britain. It was the emergence online of AllSet Learning’s Chinese Grammar Wiki, developed by John Pasden of Sinosplice and ChinesePod fame. John and his team have been developing a comprehensive wiki-styled grammar resource for some time now (it does in fact use the same software that powers Wikipedia), but they had not previously released it onto the world wide web. The project was initially aimed at, and used by the students at AllSet Learning, but has now been wheeled out under a Creative Commons License for us all to benefit from. It is an amazing project just to have contemplated, let alone committed to. And, it is that much more impressive now it has actually been brought to fruition. It is already very useful and it is only going to get better. John and registered editors will continue to tweak and add to the existing information.

The home page is structured to be useful for beginners but it is a site aimed at being an irreplaceable grammar resource for all Chinese language learners, no matter their level. I have already benefited from the ridiculously comprehensive page on explaining the use of 把. Not only does it have clear explanations and a host of relevant examples, but there is also a fantastic linked-in list of related material. This includes internal links, links to websites and page references for the more commonly used textbooks. So, when you are studying, for example, how to use 了 it will point you to the pages in the book that you are probably already studying somewhere, or that you have kicking around at home. I will vouch for anything that can add just a little something to the process of getting this language into my head: this site offers more than a little help. I, for one, am running out of excuses now – these guys are doing too much to help – there really is nothing else for it; I am just going to have to master this language. For now, though, here is a Confucian quote that I included here almost three years ago, but which still adds a good bit of perspective to this process – it is probably even a little more valuable now than it was then:

‘Study it [the way to be sincere] extensively, inquire into it accurately, think over it carefully, sift it clearly, and practice it earnestly. When there is anything not yet studied, or studied but not yet understood, do not give up. When there is any question not yet asked, or asked but its answer not yet known, do not give up. When there is anything not yet thought over, or thought over but not yet apprehended, do not give up. If another [person] succeeds by one effort, I will use a hundred efforts. If another [person] succeeds by ten efforts, I will use a thousand efforts. If one really follows this course, though stupid, he will surely become intelligent, and though weak, will surely become strong’.

[from the Confucian text Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Chung-Yung (the Doctrine of the Mean) XX: 19-21]