doujiao

Thanks everyone. Actually, I spent four years living in China. I can speak modern Chinese fluently. Colloquialisms aren't a problem. I think the difficulty I'm having is at the other end of the spectrum (super formal). What I'm reading has a completely different structure from anything spoken. (I'm reading documents from the early 20th century so the language is a mixture of wenyanwen and baihua.) They also didn't use punctuation so just figuring out where sentences begin and end is an issue. I think the problem probably is that I could use some Classical Chinese instruction. (I'll take a course in that next fall.) I'm hope that I'm picking some up now. I will have my tutor tell me what words and structures are useful to memorize and which aren't--that's good advice. Thanks all.

I'm doing preliminary research for my MA thesis. My MA thesis is going to be based primarily on primary documents written in a foreign language. I've taken many years of this language. (In fact, I've completely exhausted all of my university's course offerings.) However, reading old documents in a foreign language is proving to be extremely challenging and unbelievably slow. I'm hoping it will get easier and faster over time. I'm actually working with a language tutor this summer who is helping me a ton. But it's sort of frustrating because I feel like the speed I'm able to progress at is severely limited by all the assistance I need. I'm trying to memorize new vocabulary and grammar structures as I go with the hope that I will then recognize them next time. I think this is worthwhile, but it also really slows down the process. I don't think that the solution is to wait and try again later. As I said, I'm already a MA student and I've exhausted all the language courses at my university and done well in them. If I want to make a career in this field I really need to learn how to do this. (Maybe some people just hire translators? In any case, I don't want to do that.) My language tutor tells me that the reading I'm doing is tough even for native speakers. I know I have to start somewhere. I just wish there were a book out there or something with advice on how to go about doing extensive research in a foreign language. Anyone have any experience or advice?