Classical/Literary Chinese through SanBaiQian | 漢文三百千

This is a Classical/Literary Chinese deck that uses only vocabulary from the Three Character Classic, Thousand Character Classic, and Hundred Family Surnames, primers developed around the time of the Song dynasty a millenia ago! It aims to serve as a corpus of foundational vocabulary for a learner to sentence mine for. How far can you go with just these 1,500 words? Interestingly enough, very!

It provides three tasks:

• Translating a sentence
• Listening to the sentence verbally and attempting diction
• Recognising a given character and recalling its meaning.

Content includes:

• All vocabulary featured in 三百千, with reading variants (particularly with 率...)
• Pinyin and Zhuyin transcriptions of sentences
• Traditional and Simplified Chinese
• English and Chinese Kangxi Dictionary entries
• English translations of sentences
• Grammar and syntactic breakdowns
• AwesomeTTS vocalisations of characters and sentences

For sinophones or those with some Chinese literacy, a Kangxi Dictionary entry is available. Because they are the complete entry, all uses from Classical Chinese eras are shown, but it may be overwhelming for a new learner. Take care in using these!

The provided sentences aim at being culturally rich. Many individuals and mythical creatures mentioned are attested, and so attempts are made to relate different things to Chinese culture. There is a balance of Confucianism and Daoism here. However, I will note that most sentences are invented: They are written and verified by myself and friends, though some are taken from classical sources if they are within constraints and do not require context. This deck is likely not perfect and I would encourage verifying things you're unsure about with sources such as Pulleyblank's Outline of Chinese Grammar. Some sentences may not be full-blown Pre-Qin prose, some are more Song or Ming dynasty-esque; this is to build flexibility and promote transferrable skills. Please use this deck while reading real texts - the materials here are designed for pedagogical use and must thus be complemented with authentic materials. I personally recommend Donald Sturgeon's Chinese Text Project for this, as oftentimes there are Public Domain translations you can use. This is a foundational deck.

Attempts are made to showcase grammatical fidelity; many characters, especially grammar ones, are used in a variety of ways. Parataxis is employed and dialogue formats are included. I specifically paid attention to traditional timekeeping with the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, which no other deck seemed to do despite it being a cornerstone of classics such as the 春秋 Spring and Autumn Annals. Coupled with grammatical breakdowns, this should help a learner acquire the structural aspects of Literary Chinese quite quickly.

Update 14th Dec 2025 - Added Cangjie 3 and 5 combinations for individual characters, as well as Pinyin/Zhuyin for them.

Acknowledgements: DeepSeek API was used to develop an initial substrate of sentences, especially structures, before moving into self-created work.

References: Barnes, A.C., Starr, D. and Ormerod, G. (2009) Du’s handbook of classical Chinese grammar: an introduction to classical Chinese grammar. York: Alcuin Academics. Cheng, D. and Wang, Y. (2023) 幼学琼林·三百千 [Yòu xué qióng lín·sānbǎi qiān]. Revised ed. Edited by Z. Du. Shenyang: 万卷出版有限责任公司 [Wanjuan Publishing Co., Ltd.] (万卷楼国学经典 [Wanjuanlou Chinese Classics]). Evans, L. (2025) ‘ShiraTheMogul/SanBaiQian-Coverage-Checker’. Staffordshire, United Kingdom. Available at: https://github.com/ShiraTheMogul/SanBaiQian-Coverage-Checker (Accessed: 20 September 2025). Jiang, L. and Ren, M. (2023) A general theory of ancient Chinese. Translated by Y. Zhu and W. Gao. Zhejiang: Zhejiang University Press (Qizhen humanities and social sciences library). Pulleyblank, E.G. (2000) Outline of classical Chinese grammar. Repr. Vancouver: UBC Press. Schafer, E.H. (1948) ‘Noun Classifiers in Classical Chinese’, Language, 24(4), p. 408. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/410357. Van Norden, B.W. (2019) Classical Chinese for everyone: a guide for absolute beginners. Indianapolis Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Wang, J. (ed.) (2021) 爾雅新注 [Ěryǎ Xīnzhù]. 1st hardcover ed. Beijing: 中华书局 [Zhonghua Book Company]. Wu, Z. and Wu, K.T. (2016) Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches: TianGan DiZhi, The Heart of Chinese Wisdom Traditions. 1st ed. London and Philadelphia: Singing Dragon. Zhang, Y. (2024) ‘Slangs in Dunhuang Manuscript Literatures’, in Manuscript Philology of Dunhuang. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, pp. 97–125. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8331-5_5.