Dear Teng Kee,

> We already have so many,many books on learning old
> chinese grammar in chinese and english.

But I have never seen one for Buddhist style texts. The problem is that
Buddhist Chinese is quite different to the Classical Chinese that became
standardized for the literati. Buddhist texts use a lot of elements, both
vocabulary and grammar, from the early medieval colloqual language and this
is almost never covered in books dealing with Classical Chinese. For
non-Chinese speakers /readers, it would be best to get an overview of
Classical / Literary Chinese and then try working directly with the easier
Buddhist material. Modern Chinese would not be any help but a definite
hindrance as the language is so different.

> It is easier for anyone to learn any kind of modern chinese
> languages without having to suffer much in basic
> level.

It depends where one starts from. Personally, I have always found Classical
Chinese or even Buddhist Chinese, much simpler that modern Chinese --
especially if the ugly simplified characters are not used.

> However,old chinese is just too hard to learn to
> write or read them.I can't write old chinese but I can
> only read them slowly with dictionary behind me.

Given that the grammar of pre-modern classical / literary Chinese is musch
simpler that modern Chinese, the main difficulty for anybody would be the
vocabulary. In my view, it should be possible for somebody starting from
scratch to learn the basics of classical / Buddhist Chinese grammar in 3 - 6
months or even less if they have a good memory. Indeed, the absolute
minimum could be summarized on a postcard -- the volume of grammar for Pali,
let alone Sanskrit, is enormous in comparison. Chuck Muller's on-line
dictionary of Buddhist and Literary Chinese is a vital resource for anybody
trying to read Buddhist Chinese texts.

> Chinese translation of pali tipitaka done a few years
> ago in 70 volumes are in old chinese which is a big
> trouble for common layman to read them.They need to
> have good chinese language level first

Yes, I can understand this. The situation in Japan used to be similar with
"translations " from Chinese but now things have changed. For modern
non-specialist readers, it is important to have proper modern translations.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge