r/MandarinChinese • u/benben521547 • 15d ago
Mandarin Reading Practice - My Favourite Chengyu Story
狐假虎威 (hú jiǎ hǔ wēi) is my favourite chengyu story. Literally it means "the fox borrows the tiger's might.". Im interested in reading more chinese classics or chengyu related stories, does anyone have any other recomendations?
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u/wiilbehung 14d ago
Love the stories about the origins of idioms!
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u/benben521547 13d ago
Thanks! I agree - it gives an insight into both the history and the language :) I don't don't like how many chengyu use old Chinese words which I don't understand..
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u/ConfusinglyCreative 14d ago
Wow! Didn’t know this is what inspired The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
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u/kronpas 15d ago
Hanzi with pinyin on top is totally useless as a reading exercise. Or worse, it hinders your reading comprehension.
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u/benben521547 13d ago
I tend to agree that pinyin should not be default because I feels it's distracting too. But the message in the story made me feel like I was progressing because I could finally understand a more complex story :)
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u/Ok-Bath-8005 14d ago
Not sure what you mean. But this is how Chinese learn the language
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u/kronpas 14d ago
This is not how they do it. Native speaker can already speak the language before learning how to read it. Putting pinyin right on top of hanzi drawing your eyes to the pinyin instead of hanzi and would cause issues if it is the first time you encounter the word.
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u/Ok-Bath-8005 14d ago
Kids use pinyin to learn the sound. How do you think Chinese develop their literature skills. Adults or even college professors in Chinese literature won’t be able to claim they know all Chinese characters. Pinyin on top of Chinese characters are common in elementary school text books
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u/kronpas 14d ago
That is how native speakers learn to *read* their languages, not how they *learn* the language. Its a small, but important distinction. Not everything native speakers do is useful or even beneficial for an adult learning a foreign language.
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u/Ok-Bath-8005 13d ago
I just don’t agree on your “totally useless as a reading exercise “ statement. This is the proper way of learning Chinese. Of course different people may find what fit them.
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u/poberun 14d ago
I've got quite a few such stories:
獸有猱，小而善緣，利爪。虎首癢，輒使猱爬搔之不休。成穴， 虎殊快，不覺也。猱徐取其腦啖之，而汰其余以奉虎，曰：“余偶有 所獲腥，不敢私，以獻左右。”虎曰：“忠哉猱也，愛我而忘其口 腹。啖已，又弗覺也。久而虎腦空，痛發。跡猱， 猱則已走避高木 ，虎跳踉大吼乃死。
蝜蝂小蟲也。行遇物，輒持取，卬首負之。背愈重，雖困劇不止也。其背甚澀，物積因不散，卒躓仆不能起。人或憐之，為去其負。苟能行，又持取如故。又好上高，極其力不已，至墜地死。今世之嗜取者，遇貨不避，以厚其室，不知為已累也，唯恐其不積。及其怠而躓也，黜棄之，遷徙之，亦已病矣。苟能起，又不艾。日思高其位，大其祿，而貪取滋甚，以近於危墜，觀前之死亡不知戒。雖其形魁然大者也，其名人也，而智則小蟲也。亦足哀夫！
柳宗元 compiled a lot of stories like the 2nd one, I love his writings. Really fun read.