Pronunciation: ㄗˋㄍㄨˇ ㄧˇㄌㄞˊ || Zìgǔ yǐlái
Background:
So today I watched a video on "How to learn any language in six months" which is basically what I am attempting with Chinese right now (especially on the reading side). The talk is by Chris Lonsdale and what I loved about it was his suggestion to NOT BE AFRAID OF AMBIGUITY. I am!
With this in mind I decided to buy a Chinese Book (not a language learning text book) and try to read it with all the characters I know (right now about 600 which is clearly not enough). But I chose a book and started to read it.
The book I chose is: 中國古史故事
Broken down the title can be separated into three words:
(1) 中國 - P: ㄓㄨㄥ ㄍㄨㄛˊ || Zhōngguó - China
(2) 古史 - P: ㄍㄨˇ ㄕˇ || gǔ shǐ - Ancient History
(3) 故事 - P: ㄍㄨˋ ㄕˋ || gùshì - Stories
Therefore the book title 中國古史故事 literally means "Chinese Ancient Stories" or a better translation would probably be rendered "Ancient Stories from China."
Anyway, the phrase...
自古以來
...is the very first phrase in the book. I could read the phrase as I knew all the characters but needed some help on the translation and now I love the phrase....since ancient times.
Here is getting lost in the ambiguity of a book I can barely understand. Something good of it will come I am sure.
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