This is a follow-up to Manyul’s recent post about the TLS.

I’m wondering whether professors of Chinese philosophy at English-speaking universities encourage their students to begin to access terms in the original Chinese.  Perhaps it would be as simple as referring them to the glossary in the back of Ivanhoe and Van Norden’s Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy and then prompting them to be aware of those key terms in their reading, or it could be as complex as asking them to research a particular term across various texts.

There are a couple of reasons for asking.  The first is that I have a belief that beginning to entertain the notion that there is more to a Chinese term’s semantic field than is represented in any particular translation yields a more profitable understanding for the student, and (assuming others hold the same belief) I’m curious about how others go about encouraging that.  The second is that the potential of computing power to help in this regard is now quite high, and so I am wondering how electronic resources may be playing a role.  The perspective I’m looking for is that of the professor who is teaching the student who is not competent in Chinese.

There are also other perspectives that will be different but just as illuminating for me:  Continue reading →