It's about 2 am and I'm taking a break from some reading I need to get done for university. Stuff I need to get done before the first lecture begins. Not light reading, I'm afraid; more like, the hardest reading I've ever put myself through. I'm only doing one Chinese course this semester but I think it's more than enough: Reading the Three Kingdoms. You may know this as a really long historical novel, and the basis for many martial arts films, including that one recently with Andy Lau and Sammo Hung. And you'd be right. Other than that I've got some philosophy of science courses, but that's another flavour of quark.
It's hard reading for a few reasons, the first being the language used. Sure, I've read (and I'm reading) sections from The Art of War, The Dao De Jing, and the Zhuangzi, which show Classical Chinese in varying difficulties. But they all come with a modern Chinese translation, so an English example would be that it's kind of like reading Shakespeare with each paragraph paraphrased by Hemingway. Because of that modern translation, I'm able to get through relatively painlessly in those otherwise difficult works.
However, whilst the language in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is more...colloquial?... (people with proper knowledge of Chinese linguistics will hate me for my ignorance!)..the problem is the version I'm reading has no modern translation. Oh sure, it has an English translation, but it sucks. There's been a few times when I've gone to the English to try and check my understanding, only to find that very section hasn't even found its way into the translation. Nice. I put the lack of a modern translation down to the fact that it almost is modern in some ways, it just uses a totally different set of words (no doubt I'll sound like a twit when I start using these archaic words in conversation). I'm reading it online -for free, at the recommendation of our lecturer- so I can use Wenlin to help me read it.
This is a double edged sword. There are times when Wenlin (or the ABC dictionary, I guess) will recognize as a phrase something which isn't supposed to be a phrase, or will try to translate something which would be better given as a Chinese synonym (like 就是 for 乃). It can be quite confusing, though it's not really the fault of the software, just a limitation. The result is I sort of alternate between reading on my laptop and checking the English definitions for the unknown words, then consulting my portable electronic Chinese-Chinese dictionary for stuff that makes no sense in Wenlin.
So my request is thus: Some smart software engineer should design an addon for Wenlin which adds in a Chinese-Chinese dictionary (but keeping the pinyin). Or, if anyone knows of software like that, let me know.
I've calculated I'll have to read something like 2 chapters a day if I'm to finish on time. The novel is very enjoyable and I'd be lying to say I'm not drawn in, which is quite a feat given the amount of frigging about I have to do with said dictionaries.
The other life-jacket in this deep end is that we're allowed to do the assessment for the subject in English. The lectures though, I'm told, are in Chinese. I'm not sure if it's irony, but I'm sure there's something odd about taking on harder Chinese courses in Australia than in China.
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Not sure if you use Pleco - like Wenlin, but for the Palm or Windows Mobile - but there's a custom dictionary file floating around out there that brings the 现代汉语大词典 to your mobile device. It's absolutely fantastic, and has increased the usefulness of Pleco approximately a millionfold.
Wenlin really needs a better system for custom dictionaries. I keep waiting, but the author's attentions are divided, and seem to be devoted mainly to (a) the ABC Dictionary and (b) work that will actually result in money. Or such is the impression that I get, at least.
Re: Three Kingdoms: Probably way, way too late with this, but the Moss Roberts translation is good, and there's a nice en face edition out there that's worth a look if you're serious about getting through it with the original text and an English reference. Failing that, there's always the various manga out there.
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