Conhecer a Escrita Chinesa
The Contrast between Classical and Modern Chinese
Although both ancient and modern Chinese are written with the same characters, the modern daughter languages have become very different from the ancient one. One of the most conspicious differences is just that the terse, monosyllabic nature of Classical Chinese has given way to many more particles, polysyllabic words, and periphrastic idioms. The following story, given in both Classical Chinese and a translation into modern Mandarin, illustrates the difference. This is also a salutary example for one's view of government, as Confucius indeed makes clear to his students. [I am unaware of the origin of this text.]
The modern Mandarin pronunciation is given for the Classical characters because the ancient pronuncation, indeed the pronunciation before the T'ang Dynasty, is unknown. Even that of the T'ang is reconstructed and uncertain. The extreme simplifiction of Mandarin phonology, which would render the Classical language ambiguous if used as a spoken language today (too many words now being pronounced the same), explains the polysyllablic character of the modern language and the reduction of many characters to morphemes.
The same Classical text that can today be read as Mandarin could as well be read with Korean, Vietnamese, or Japanese versions of the Chinese words, or the Korean, Vietnamese, or Japanese translations of the words. None of those languages is even related to Chinese, but since mediaeval, or even modern, Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese often wrote in Chinese, without, however, really speaking the language, their own renderings of the characters was customary. Since the ancient pronunciation of the Classical language is unknown, Sino-Korean, Sino-Vietnamese, and Sino-Japanese reading are really just as "authentic" for Classical Chinese as a Modern Mandarin reading. Indeed, much of our evidence for the T'ang pronuncation of Chinese is from the Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese readings, which were contemporary borrowings.
For example, the character for "mountain," now read shan in Mandarin, turns up as san in Korean, in Vietnamese as so. n or núi, and in Japanese as san, sen, zan, or yama -- the last versions in Vietnamese and Japanese being the native words. Similarly, we find the name of 
Japan itself, "Sun Source," as Rìben [Wade-Giles Jihpên] in Mandarin, Yatbóon in Cantonese, Ilbon in Korean, Nhâ.t-Bàn in Vietnamese, and Nippon or Nihon in Japanese. The Cantonese word is, of course, cognate to the Mandarin. The Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese are all borrowings from Chinese, pronounced in the local manner. Native words for "sun" are hae in Korean, ma.t giò. i ("face of the sky") in Vietnamese, and hi in Japanese (e.g. hi-no-maru, "circle of the sun," "sundisk"). The Japanese borrowed word for "sun" in isolation is nichi, but this is just the pronunciation of niti, where the final i as been added because Japanese syllables cannot end in t. In compounds, the i can drop out, so nichi-hon (*hi-moto in the unused pure Japanese reading) becomes nit-hon. At that point different things can happen. The t can be lost in assimilation to the h, getting us Nihon, OR the h can revert to its original p, with the t getting assimilated and doubled with it, getting us Nippon.
Another example concerns the present capital of Japan. The Míng capitals of China were Nánjing (Nanking) and then Beijing (Peking), which simply mean, respectively, "Southern Capital" and "Northern Capital." The capital of Japan from 794 to 1868 was Kyôto, which meant "Capital District." Then the capital was moved to Edo, which was renamed the "Eastern Capital." In Chinese that would be Dongjing. In Japanese, however, 
that is pronounced Tôkyô. In Vietnamese it is Ðông-Kinh (or Tonkin). The Vietnamese version preserves more of the Chinese consonants, but both Japanese and Vietnamese versions reveal that "capital" originally started with a k, which has become palatalized (to a j) in Mandarin. The k is also preserved in early modern Western versions of Chinese words, like "Nanking" and "Peking" themselves.
Chinese departments in colleges sometimes expect students to learn Mandarin even though they only want to read Classical Chinese or Sino-Korean, Sino-Vietnamese, or Sino-Japanese. This imposes a vast unnecessary burden on them, but even teachers and scholars of Chinese sometimes have trouble accepting that the ancient language is not the modern one and that the ancient language is part of the civilization of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan as much as of modern China. It is as though students of Latin were told they would have to learn Italian as well.
Once when Confucius was passing near the foot of Mount Tai in a chariot, there was a married woman weeping at a grave mound, and dolorously too. Confucius politely rested his hands on the front rail of the chariot and listened to her weeping. He sent Zilu (Tzu-lu) to inquire of her, saying; "From the sound of your weeping, it seems that you indeed have many troubles."
Then the woman said; "It is true. My father-in-law died in a tiger's jaw; my husband also died there. Now, my son has also died there." Confucius said, "Why do you not leave this place?" The woman said: "Here there is no harsh and oppressive government."
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