文言文

wényánwén

noun

Meanings

1 Classical Chinese (the literary language used in writing from antiquity through the early 20th century)

Characters

literary, writing

speech, language

Examples

高中语文课要背很多文言文。

Gāozhōng yǔwén kè yào bèi hěnduō wényánwén.

You have to memorize a lot of Classical Chinese in high school literature class.

这篇文言文我完全看不懂。

Zhè piān wényánwén wǒ wánquán kàn bu dǒng.

I can't understand this Classical Chinese passage at all.

Tips

culture

Contrasts with 白话文 (vernacular Chinese), which replaced it as the standard written register after the May Fourth Movement (1919). Extremely compressed: a single character often does the work of a modern two-character word. Still tested heavily in the gaokao.

memory

The name is 文言 + 文: 'literary-language writing'. 文言 itself contrasts with 白话 (plain speech).

Stroke Order

文 wén

言 yán