06 Ancient Chinese／Literary Chinese／Modern Chinese

Ancient Chinese／Literary Chinese／Modern Chinese

Students in countries which use Chinese still learn ancient Chinese in schools.
So most of people are easy to use / accept ancient Chinese in daily.

Therefore ,all Chinese learners have to pay attention about these 3 different kind of Chinese which are still used in different situations.

Once you use for wrong situations, it would make people embarrassed.

Meanwhile, Chinese learners have to check what the kind of Chinese you are learning, in order to avoid mistakes.

Ancient Chinese
1. Ancient Chinese is used in proverbs ,idioms ,ancient  poems ,and ancient articles, 

2. Some TV series about ancient theme also use ancient Chinese.

    But in order to let all people understand it ,they only add some simple ancient word for creating the vibes.

e.g. Who are you?
       爾[尔]乃何人?
       ěr nǎi hé rén?

＊「爾 ěr 」is ancient Chinese, same with「你 nǐ 」
    「乃 nǎi 」is ancient Chinese, same with「是 shì」
    「何 hé 」is ancient Chinese, same with「什麼 shén me」

Literary Chinese
People may use literary Chinese in below situations

a. In literature.
b. To make sentence looks more formal.
c.  For quiz , test , or exam questions.
d. People accustom to used with this way
e. In laws.

Feature of Literary Chinese (1)
Literary Chinese would omit some Chinese characters in sentence.
However, the monosyllable vocabularies are seldom to be spoken in daily for modern Chinese.
Therefore, some literary sentences are only suitable for reading instead of speaking.

e.g. already know

For literary：

已知
yǐ zhī

For speaking ：
已經知道
yǐ jīng zhī dào 

Feature of Literary Chinese (2)

Literary Chinese also use some simple ancient Chinese words.

The purpose is to make sentence hears/ looks be more formal and literary.

e.g. No matter where you are, I will always love you.

For literary ：

無論你在何處，我都會一直愛你。

无论           处            会        爱 

wúlùn nǐ zài hé chù，wǒ dūhuì yīzhí ài nǐ

For speaking：

無論你在哪裡[里]，我都會一直愛你。

wúlùn nǐ zài nǎlǐ，wǒ dūhuì yīzhí ài nǐ

＊「何處 hé chù」is ancient Chinese.

    「哪裡 zài nǎlǐ」is modern Chinese.

Modern Chinese
Ancient Chinese still exists in Modern Chinese
Ancient Chinese work ,like 「爾 ěr、乃 nǎi  、何 hé 」
「爾 ěr、乃 nǎi 」don't be used anymore in modern Chinese.
「何 hé 」is still used in modern Chinese. 
Because people still accustom to use this.

e.g. When are you coming?
       你何時[时]要來?
       nǐ hé shí yào lái?

＊ Both「以 yǐ、之 zhī」are also ancient Chinese, but they still are used in modern Chinese