Talk:Tàipíng guǎngjì

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A juan isn't necessarily a "volume". In the case of the Taiping guangji, each juan is only a few pages, so it's misleading to call it 500 "volumes". Xihe 01:23, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Juan can be volume or chapters, some juan might had a shorter length but doens't mean anything. A few pages are better than compare to a few sentence of Taodejing which divided into 81 chapters. Eiorgiomugini 02:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

"volume" suggests each juan is a separately bound book, but they are not:

volume: 1 a: a series of printed sheets bound typically in book form : BOOK

volume:1. a. A collection of written or printed sheets bound together; a book. b. One of the books of a work printed and bound in more than one book. c. A series of issues of a periodical, usually covering one calendar year. d. A unit of written material assembled together and cataloged in a library. 2. A roll of parchment; a scroll. Each juan is not bound in a single book Xihe 03:05, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

There's no point of refering from the dictionary, since this is a Chinese usage. It led me to a question that have you read Homer's Odyssey? The texts which divided into 23 books consisted no longer than a page. Eiorgiomugini 03:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's another: volume A collection of written or printed sheets bound together; a book.

Many of those who are going to be reading this don't know Chinese. The dictionary definitions show that to native English speakers, "volume" suggests something much bigger than these "juan". Anyway, take it easy; the word "volume" is still there.

As for "fiction," not all of the stories in the Taiping guangji are fiction. Many of them were considered factual to Han-Song readers. And none of them are long enough to be considered "novels". Xihe 08:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You're wrong, just what did you meant by "a few pages", some of the juan in Taiping Guangji don't span even over a page. "volume suggests something much bigger than these juan" The volumes shown in your dictionary definitions that they are bound in the book. "And none of them are long enough to be considered novels." We're talking about the lost three hundred books and novels, had you read them? "Many of them were considered factual to Han-Song readers." And where's your ground on that, had you read all the stories, we need a statistic groundwork on that, they're fiction consider to be in modern times. Eiorgiomugini 19:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Your argument makes no sense to me: 'You're wrong, just what did you meant by "a few pages", some of the juan in Taiping Guangji don't span even over a page. "volume suggests something much bigger than these juan" The volumes shown in your dictionary definitions that they are bound in the book.'

Yes, some of the juan are less than a page, which means they should not be called volumes, because "volume" in English suggests a single bound book. In any case, when I left the word "volume" in as a compromise and put "juan" in parentheses for those who do know Chinese ("many don't" means some do) you left it out. As for "novels", what is your reference for claiming that the sources were novels?

As for "Many of them were considered factual to Han-Song readers", see the reference.

Other matters: Taiping guangji (lower-case "g" is standard usage)

"and consists of" the "and" is poor English style. Xihe 00:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what kind of nonesense you had read, you suggests that volumes are somethings much bigger than these "juan" are just laughable, in any case a book can be even smaller than a "juan" like Odyssey. Those volumes could be a roll of parchment or a scroll as such. "The book is divided into 500 volumes (juan 卷) of a few pages each, totalling about 3 million words." This does not make any sense at all, since not all of the juan span over a page, the statement simply isn't true. "and consists of" the "and" is poor English style." Oh well, since you're a native English speaker why don't you suggest something better, genius, btw I don't think there's anything wrong with the use of "and", in any cases a comma before the word "and" in a list of more than two things is normal. "As for "Many of them were considered factual to Han-Song readers" the reference?? Its titled as 'T'ang Legends: History and Hearsay", read it yourself, and please do not tell me that you get this reference from search engine like the website here [1]. "what is your reference for claiming that the sources were novels?" Read the link yourself "取材於漢代至宋初的野史小說及釋藏﹑道經等﹐引書約400種。" Eiorgiomugini 06:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Xihe, you are correct that it is advantageous, not to mention a long-standing tradition in Sinology, to include the characters for translations like "volume" (juan 卷). The traditional Chinese terminologies for books do not have a one-to-one correspondence in English translation.

--Keahapana 18:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)