Volume II of Classical Chinese for Modern Usage has altogether 16 lessons. In addition to texts telling stories about Chinese idioms and fables, there are argumentative essays with the length of about 200 words.
Classical Chinese for Modern Usage is a series of basic classical Chinese textbooks to help foreign students achieve better mastery of modern Chinese. With interesting stories and argumentative essays, and a variety of exercises, it helps to cultivate students’ sense of classical Chinese comprehensively. In each lesson, there are 3 to 4 items of “Classical Chinese for Modern Use” through which the value of classical language is demonstrated; 2 to 4 grammar points to compare the classical and modern Chinese; two Chinese character radicals to help improve students’ skills of reading characters as well as passages; and one short article on Chinese culture or language to lead students into a broad world of learning.
Li Luxing is an associate professor in the School of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, Renmin University of China. He graduated from the Department of Chinese, Nankai University in 1986, and got his MA from the Institute of Language and Philology, Renmin University of China in 1991. From 1999 to 2000, he was a Chinese teacher in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Durham; from 2006 till present, he taught Chinese in the Confucius Institute, University College Dublin. His main interests lie in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, modern Chinese character study, etc. He has compiled several Chinese textbooks including Chinese Fast Reading: A Step-by-step Approach, Fazhan Hanyu, Intensive Training for HSK, etc., and has published a number of papers and academic works including Brief Introduction to Modern Chinese Character Study, History of Teaching Chinese as A Foreign Language in New China, Research on the Quality of Teachers Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and Training of TCFL Teachers, etc.