Cobie

P.S. there was an admod warning not to post in characters without an English translation.

This quote (from ch. 40) is different in the oldest script (Guodian): 天下之勿（物）生於又（有）， 生於亡。 The things of the world arise from being, And being comes from non-being. https://terebess.hu/english/tao/henricks2.html#Kap40

A note by the bit quoted. The ‘Classical’ as used by the Chinese after the Han dynasty, is different from the Classical Laozi used. The Chinese kept using Classical next to the Chinese current in their own times. But over time elements of the current Chinese crept into their ‘Classical’. Post Han dynasty, the ‘Classical’ has become so different that it has been given a separate name, ‘Literal’.

Reminiscent of my Chinese teacher - her motto is, ‘Chinese is very easy’. I’d ask, what tone is that? And she’d say, the one you hear. Lol, so annoying. Problem is, some actually don't hear it. There is a mechanism in the brain that can reduce language-input to the nearest sounds in your own language (needed to understand accents) and my language has no tones. I hear the tones now, but it took me years. This too, who's got the time!

These three are not the same: 古文 (gu3 wen2) Classical Chinese ; 文言文 (wen2 yan2 wen2) Literary Chinese ; 普通话 (pu3 tong1 hua4) Mandarin. Most sinologists use the words Classical and Literary for different periods (pre/post Han).

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility". I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way. However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, [make that 8 in my case] I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal, but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.” [so true, 10 cry emojis here]. (https://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html) I posted this before, lots of times actually.

@Nungali "Don't spend too much time thinking about stupid shit." (DDJ ch. 20 à la Ron Hogan https://terebess.hu/english/tao/ron.html#Kap20 ) "Chinese … I can't read or speak it myself”. (Ron Hogan, Terebess DDJ intro)

I removed the irrelevant bits.

@ChiDragon me thinks you forgot to factor in Dutch culture and idioms here.

ze noemden je zelfs een idioot en zeiden dat je berichten een complete puinhoop waren. Gewoon een paard in een jas

Simone de Beauvoir saw immortality as a curse; and meaning and humanity as coming from finite existence (in her book ‘All Men Are Mortal’)

you need glasses

Yesterday it was extremely slow, it's fine now.

I agree.