Hey folks, realized I didn't announce directly here that Analects Reader is live on iOS. This must be the most relevant of all subs (lmao), so posting a few notes and a couple of very special requests... especially for anyone on Android.

What is it?

Analects Reader of course contains the full text of The Analects itself plus the Legge translation (damn copyright— and btw if you have any ideas for how I could obtain rights for a more... modern translation, please do give me a shout). But it is much more importantly a learning resource. These are just a few of the included tools:

• Color match mode: Chinese terms and matching English translations are highlighted in matching colors for easy back-and-forth checks of glosses.
• Per-passage definitions: Literally every Chinese glyph in the entire text is tappable, and all are contextualized to the passage they appear in. Eg. 君子 gets "exemplary person" most places, and "Lord's son" in some others. These are compiled by referencing 8 different translations: Ames & Rosemont, Chin, Lau, Legge, Ni, Roberts, Singerland, and Watson.
• Pinyin w/ received pronunciations: 說 will not be marked as shūo, it will always be yùe.
• Three museum-quality historical copies: 1550 Kiyohara house collection manuscript, 1737 National Palace Museum Taiwan Jiang Heng manuscript, and Edo-era National Archive of Japan woodblock
• Notes, Guides, & Discussion: Take notes fully offline, read commentary a growing list of passages, and link out to discussion for any passage you like.

There's much more too. And a fun aside, since I've got this one "feature stable", I'm about to use the same framework to publish a 道德經 reader.

You can help!

This app is far from done, and I would greatly appreciate your help.

Android users (more urgent): Google requires personal developer accounts to have 14 days of sustained usage by beta users, along with developer-collected feedback, to launch in production. If you would be so kind as to become a beta tester, this would make a huge difference. You can do so by:

1. Join the tester group (nothing is posted there, it's just the list, and membership is not public): https://groups.google.com/g/analectsreaderbeta
2. Install from Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.analects.reader

Once that is done, you can submit feedback on ANY part of the app through the "report a problem with this" link in any definition card (screenshot below).

https://preview.redd.it/73cvysh486th1.png?width=496&format=png&auto=webp&s=6632b0ce1e457e3fc16188ef6ed7c11dd673a7a7

iPhone users: The app is live already (see the link above)! But you can join in the fun of improving the massive amount info that has gone into the definition cards. As mentioned in the other section, there is a "report a problem with this" link in every definition card that you can use if you feel a definition or translation has a problem.

Included a few screenshots to give you some ideas of what this all is.

New episode on 7.25: 子以四教：文，行，忠，信, "The Master taught four things: culture, conduct, commitment, and credibility."

Two of these any school could put on a syllabus. The other two, 忠 and 信, no exam can measure. Confucius could only live them in front of his students and watch for them over the years, and the commentators have argued ever since about why the list runs in this order.

I also get into some of the stories about the lives of disciples Zilu and Min Ziqian from later sources (the woodblock is a Japanese depiction of the stepbrothers story).

Guide, notes and audio: https://www.analects.net/episodes/a-pleasure-to-have-in-class/

This isn't a Daoist text, so feel free to scroll on. But I figured some of you read the Analects too, and I've spent the last year building a reader for it.

It's free, no account, no ads: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6801033467

(Android users see below please)

What it does that a printed translation doesn't: the Chinese and the English sit together, and you can tap any character and get the reading for that passage — not a dictionary's first sense. Color match paints each phrase of the Chinese and the phrase of the English that answers to it, so you can see where the translation added words and where it quietly dropped one. There's a 1550 manuscript and an Edo block print you can read the same way, character by character. And a podcast that goes one passage at a time, if you'd rather listen.

Also worth mentioning: the reader is set up as a platform, and the Analects is the book it contains now. The Daodejing is short enough that it could be next in one go. The Zhuangzi is not — it would be a chapter at a time, maybe inner chapters first? If either would be useful to you, say so, and say which translations would be best to put side-by-side (also considering copyrights... shout out to Legge for this version of The Analects)

If you're on Android: the app is done, but Google makes new developers run a closed test before it can go on the store. Joining is two steps: join this Google group (it's just the list of who's allowed to install; nothing is posted there) —

https://groups.google.com/g/analectsreaderbeta

and then install on mobile with Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.analects.reader

or via web:

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/net.analects.reader

Thanks for checking it out, and please let me know what you think!!! I really appreciate any and all feedback, and want to make this an excellent platform for learning and study of ancient Chinese philosophy and language.

A month ago I posted screenshots of an Analects reader and said I probably wouldn't renew my Apple developer license unless people actually wanted it. People here seemed to want it, so I did, renew it, and now I've published the app!

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6801033467

Rather than list what it does, here is one passage — 1.1 — and what happens when you tap it.

說 in 1.1 on the 1550 Kiyohara manuscript: yuè, \"pleased\" — not shuō, \"speak\".

1. 學而時習之，不亦說乎. Third character from the end: 說. Every dictionary's first sense is shuō, "to speak", and that reading wrecks the line. Tap it and the card gives the reading for this passage — yuè, "pleased, delighted", loangraph for 悅, and it says in so many words: not "to speak, say" here. The page you're tapping is the 1550 清原枝賢 manuscript in the 清家文庫 at Kyoto, kunten and vermilion punctuation and all. Every character on the photograph is mapped, so the same gloss opens on a 475-year-old hand as on typeset text.

Color match: 不亦⋯乎 takes one color each of three times, and Legge's \"Is it not\" takes it too.

2. The same passage in the study view with the "color match" feature turned on. 不亦⋯乎 is one construction wrapped around a different predicate three times, and each time it takes its own color — and Legge's corresponding "Is it not" takes that color with it. What stays grey in the English is what Legge added but doesn't map closely to the Chinese: 時習 is two characters, and his "with a constant perseverance and application" colors only "constant" and "application". The rest is Legge.

Tap 說, and \"pleasant\" lights up in the English.

3. Even without color mapping on, just tap a character in the study view and its English lights up: 說 ↔ "pleasant".

為政 as one word, then its two characters, then how the book uses it: six of six usages are the same.

4. It also can tell you what characters constitute a "word". Tap 為政 in 2.1 and the card treats it as the unit it is — "to govern, conduct the government" — then gives 為 and 政 separately, then the general sense, the part of speech, and how many of the book's uses of 為政 have this sense: six of six. None of that is a dictionary entry. Every character in all 512 passages has a gloss written for the passage it sits in, and every multi-character term is glossed as one.

Housekeeping: it's free — no accounts, no ads, no analytics, nothing locked. Notes are Markdown files in a folder you choose, so they outlive the app. Traditional or simplified, vertical or horizontal.

Android users — a favor. The signed build is ready; Google now makes a new personal developer account run a closed test with at least twelve people opted in continuously for fourteen days before it will even take an application for production. If you're on Android and would use this, join the tester group and you'll get it as an ordinary Play install; drop out the moment it's properly on the store. I need a dozen, and I'd rather they were people who'd read the thing.

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/net.analects.reader

(if that doesn't work, please join this Google group: https://groups.google.com/g/analectsreaderbeta )

Thanks for checking this out. Please please please, let me know what you think!!!

Most learners meet this early with 好: hǎo is the state (good), hào is the attitude toward that state (to like, to be fond of). It's why 愛好 àihào, 好奇 hàoqí and 好客 hàokè all take the fourth tone — none of them mean "good", they mean regarding something as good.

惡 does exactly the same thing. I don't think it gets pointed out often enough:

• è — the state: bad, evil. 惡人 èrén, 惡意 èyì, 罪惡 zuì'è
• wù — the attitude: to hate, to find bad. 厭惡 yànwù, 可惡 kěwù, 憎惡 zēngwù

It's the same relationship and works in the same direction. Once you see 好 and 惡 as a matched pair (state vs. attitude-toward-state) a lot of compounds stop needing to be memorised individually. When you hit either character in a new word, the question is just: is this describing the thing, or someone's stance on the thing?

There's even 好惡, read hàowù — "likes and dislikes, preferences." One word, both derived readings, sitting next to each other. It's a neat illustration of the whole pattern, and the pairing is ancient: you can even find these two sitting close to one another in The Analects (passage 4.3) deliberately paired together 2500 years ago:

>唯仁者，能好人，能惡人 wéi rén zhě, néng hào rén, néng wù rén

"Only the humane are capable of hào-ing people and wù-ing people", of properly liking and properly disliking them. Both characters in their fourth-tone verb reading, clearly paired opposites in a single line.

Two things to watch out for:

惡 has a third modern reading, ě, and it's the one you'll actually hit in conversation: 惡心 ěxīn, nauseating/disgusting. Not è, not wù. Worth learning separately because it doesn't fit the pattern above at all.

And a fourth in Classical Chinese, wū, an interrogative "how? wherein?", as in 惡乎 wūhū (no Homer). So the same graph in a classical text can be three different words (plus one more in modern Chinese), and the tone is the only thing distinguishing three of them. Classical texts don't mark tone, which is why some passages are still argued over: Analects 4.4 has 無惡也, and whether that's "no hatred" (wù) or "no wrongdoing" (è) has been disputed for two thousand years, with the passage meaning noticeably different things either way.

Anyway, if 好 hǎo/hào has already clicked for you, 惡 is the same shape, and 好惡 is worth adding as a vocabulary item purely because it demonstrates the pattern.

Any other 多音字 pairs where the tone shift is doing this same state-vs-attitude job? 樂 lè/yuè and 說 shuō/shuì are the ones I know, but they're not as cleanly parallel.

I got into this working on a podcast episode about those two Analects passages. Write-up is at analects.net/episodes/love-and-hate/ if a deep-dive on the Classical Chinese behind it is of interest to you.

I built this to assist my own study of Classical Chinese through The Analects, but I think this sub can benefit from it a lot as well.

The site contains 15,920 definitions, so each character's gloss is written specifically for the passage it appears in, and weighing 8 different English translations of the text. For example: the definition of 君 will show as "lord" in some passages, "to act like a lord" in other passages, and still others as half of the compound 君子.

I've also included 11,640 glossing units. These are multi-character terms like 君子 or 子曰, as well as sentence patterns like the "不亦...乎" that appears three times in Analects 1.1. If you hover over 君子 you will get not only the specific definition for that passage, but an explain that it can mean either "exemplary person/gentleman" or literally "a noble's son" depending on context.

Another feature: the pinyin is right for the classical readings. No generic converter, which is how some other tools end up with 說 as shuō and the 弟 of 孝弟 with dì. I set these per passage by auditing against a printed pinyin learner's edition of the entire book. And the annotations can be toggled off, so you can read bare and check yourself.

With 彩 Match, every passage has an Off / Match / Tones switch. 彩 Match colors the English and the Chinese it translates in pairs — tap a word on either side and it boxes its partner. Great for seeing how a terse five-character line unfolds into a sentence. Tone coloring applies per-passage tone background or character colors. Characters can display in traditional, simplified, whatever you want.

This is the standard "study" view:

analects.net/analects/1-xue-er?view=study

Some parts I built more for fun than anything else:

The classical editions. One tap sets the whole text as a Ming woodblock leaf — columns right to left, framed and foxed paper, vermillion reading marks, a fishtail on the fold, pages that turn — or as a manuscript in a brush hand where no two 之 on the page are drawn alike. Glosses still work; the big ○ before each passage taps open to its translation. Direct links, if you just want to look:

analects.net/analects/1-xue-er?view=block (woodblock)

analects.net/analects/1-xue-er?view=brush (manuscript)

Caveats, honestly: my own commentary covers 33 passages so far (there's a podcast behind it); the rest just carry Legge's 1861 translation — scrutable, dated, but no copyright. Start with Book 1 or Book 4 if you're trying 文言文 for the first time.

And if a reading looks wrong to you, please say so. I'd much rather be corrected than have someone learn a wrong reading from me!

Been experimenting a bit with a standalone app for The Analects focused on an enjoyable reading experience and functionality for assistance in learning CC. Here are some screenshot of different modes, songti print style, dark print, classic reader, study mode.

If this seems of interest to you, I’d love to hear it. My Apple developer license is expiring and I’m not likely to renew it unless it seems like folks would download and use this. Built on react native so could also release on Android and web but haven’t tried.

Most of what circulates in English as "Confucius says" is just horrible jokes or fortune cookie tripe. Almost none of it is the real thing. The Analects is so much better: the real record of a teacher and his students arguing, joking, running from danger, and sharing grief... plus 2,000 years of commentators who think they know what every line means.

A few entertaining things from the real text you might not know:

He loses his cool over a wine vessel. 觚不觚，觚哉！觚哉！ — "A gu that isn't a gu! What a gu! What a gu!" This guy is staring at a cup he thinks is being called the wrong thing and spawning an entire philosophy about the power of names.

He tells his most loyal disciple — the loud one, the ex-fighter who never learned to sit still — that a man like him won't die a natural death. Years later, Zilu is caught in a succession coup in Wey. He could have gotten out. He goes in instead, and when his cap-strings are cut in the fighting, he stops to retie them: "A gentleman may die, but his cap does not come off." When the news reached Confucius, he had the pickled meat carried out of his kitchen and never ate it again. Yum, pickled meat.

And he kept a list of things he refused to discuss: freak occurrences, feats of strength, rebellion, spirits... the clickbait of his time! His response to the spectacle of his own era was to starve it.

I've been making Exploring the Analects, a video series that goes through the text one passage at a time. Every episode takes a passage from its original Chinese, the traditional characters are on screen with pinyin as they're spoken, so you're never taking a translation's word for it, and then gets into what's actually going on: the history of the states and the people involved, where the major translators diverge in their renderings, and what the commentators have been arguing about since the Han dynasty.

You don't need any Chinese to follow it. If you're learning, it's a bonus. The passages are short and self-contained, which makes the Analects one of the friendlier doors into Classical Chinese, and the episodes dig into why the grammar works the way it does.

It's also on Spotify and Apple if you'd rather listen, and I put up full episode guides with the Chinese text at analects.net. If you want a place to start, the wine-vessel episode is a good one.

Happy to answer anything about the text or the fights people have had over it.