Took Chinese 110A and 110B with Chen. He is a very articulate professor and keeps the topics fairly interesting. His quizzes and exams are pretty straight forward and he tests exactly whats from the text. Go to class, listen to the translations and take notes, study them, and you will get a pretty decent grade. He also drops your lowest quiz grade so pretty cool. I ended with B+ and A- respectively.

To any Japanese majors looking to complete their classical Japanese requirements, do not shy away from this class just because you don't know Chinese. For financial reasons I had to take classical Chinese and classical Japanese in the fall to meet my requirements. Chinese 110A is no harder than Japanese 110A.

Much of the grammar is intuitive if you're a native English speaker, and other parts have Japanese analogs. Even so, you will learn it all in class. You do not need to know a single word of Chinese. Every character in the text is the book, and Japanese readings are even provided for you. You will not need to know the Chinese pronunciations except when you're reading a name. Professor Chen will go over the entire text in class, and if you study the vocabulary in the book, correct your translations and take notes in class, you will have everything needed to get an A on the quizzes, midterm and final.

In comparison, the classical Japanese texts are longer, the grammar is far more complex, and not all the words are in the glossary. A Japanese major will probably gain more from taking 110B, but sometimes that is a difficult option. Don't be afraid of taking Chinese 110A.