"Confucius's Analects is an excellent textbook that fills a critical gap that is culturally rich, and provides a useful approach to teaching Chinese with the combination of modern and classical Chinese. The book also provides a creative stance at utilizing classical Chinese, historical idioms, and ways to expand vocabulary."-Kai Li, East Asian Studies Program, Oberlin College "As students start ... Read moreChinese learning earlier than in previous decades, many of them reach the advanced level half way through their college years if not sooner. An efficient textbook is needed for them to not only enhance their linguistic competence but also to probe into the Chinese intellectual tradition and cultural values to prepare them to be sophisticated communicators in the language. Prof. Zu-yan Chen's Confucius' Analects is tailor made to meet this need. Adopting entries from the influential classic, 論語 (Lunyǔ), as its main text, this book is also supplemented by essays written in modern Chinese language on relevant topics to further elucidate the significance of the main text. Furthermore, the author use both sets of texts to systematically introduce Chinese idioms, which were derived from traditional Chinese wisdom but widely used in modern Chinese language. The materials are well organized and precisely glossed. Most remarkable are the clearly guided exercises-including making use of the learned words and idioms, answer questions, writing compositions of expository and narrative essays, debate, web research and storytelling-that are astutely arranged to challenge students' active mental participation and cogent articulation. For an advanced Chinese language class, this is the textbook of my choice."-Madeline Chu, professor of Chinese language & literature, Kalamazoo College Show Less