Friday, April 22, 2011

Android 300 Tang Poems

Soon I will release another educational free app, featuring the 300 Tang Poems.

These classic poems are fundamental for a classic Chinese education. Unfortunately today's students know so few of these. There are already a few apps (some free) on these poems, but alas, they are in simplified Chinese.

These classics ought to be read in its original form!

Here is a complete list. Yikes, in frames?

A few surprises, 詠鵝 is not part of the 300? (actually, 320)

This is usually regarded as the simplest (and cutest) of Tang Poems for kids.
鵝,鵝,鵝,
曲頸向天歌。
白毛浮綠水,
紅掌撥清波。

Oh, this one is not? 關雎 with the classic line: 窈窕淑女,君子好逑. Oh this is from another text (詩經, way before the Tang Poems 300)

See, this reflects how LITTLE I know about classic poetry.

Tech note: I went through helluva time copy/paste the text into xml, then the xml gets parsed and put into a SQLite database on the Android.
Once the data is set, it is straightforward to query by category, by author, and get individual poems.

Sorry, no English translations, and no simplified Chinese version.

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