Also, if you are studying one or both, what do you find are the easiest and hardest parts of them? What resources have you found useful?
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(Own answer)
I’m currently studying them for fun. Originally I thought they’d somehow be useful, but now it’s more of an entertainment thing. I’m pretty bad at both. I think the grammar, while not easy either, is generally easier than learning new vocab (although べし is… fun and I haven’t studied 漢文 grammar as much yet aside from 再読文字 and reading order.) Remembering the conjugations of helping verbs isn’t so hard when writing it on a chart but it’s more difficult to remember on-demand. I tend to accumulate resources more than I use them b/c I don’t have very much free time/energy. Lately I’ve been continuing my grammar studies by reviewing everything I can then trying to take apart any sentence I don’t understand the composition of
For free/other resources I’ve been using, there’s the トライイット course (good for grammar), various mobile apps (like マナビミライ which is alright for vocab, the Gakuen ones are decent for conjugation), the さくらさく website (also vocab), Webilo (the everything dictionary), 学ぶ 教える. COM’S 古文 collection (original texts with translations), and the ds game 古文・漢文ds (surprisingly very useful for everything except conjugation)
For books,
古文
Grammar – 高校の古文漢文をひとつひとつわかりやすく is easy to understand and provides a lot of grammar drills. My one comment is that you will need to review multiple times or else you’ll forget, but it kinda encourages a one-and-off kinda learning. I write my answers in a separate notebook and only mark what I got wrong. 古典文法をはじめからていねいに is a really nice grammar reference. I think it’s a bit hard to read through like a textbook, but it has some useful insights and mnemonics for when you’re stuck on grammar + a very portable 別冊
Vocab – personally I got a vocab book (新古文単語336 which does have very nice mnemonics) then discovered idk how to study with it and it’s not all that much more effective than the free resources (although I’m very bad at vocab so)
Practice readings – 古文上達 基礎編 is great as an intro + with practice problems and readings. Polaris is challenging and has multiple levels
漢文 (haven’t touched much cause still learning 古文)
Grammar – I quite like とってもやさしい漢文 for its practice exercises (and kinda modern sentences). Also 高校の古文漢文がひとつひとつわかりやすく is still good for 漢文 I think
Practice readings – 漢文教室 has some very low-pressure reading practice. 漢文道場 is I think by the same company as 古文上達? The covers look the same. It’s also got some nice passage reading questions. 漢文読解が1冊でしっかりわかる本 has reading practice too although most of it is grammar. The explanations for the reading practice it does have are very detailed + go step-by-step
3 comments
I learned it for a class using Haruo Shirane’s [Classical Japanese: A Grammar](https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Japanese-Grammar-Haruo-Shirane/dp/0231135246/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=16ORK3N6FFNCX&keywords=classical+japanese+a+grammar&qid=1703211262&sprefix=classical+japanese+a%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-1) and [Classical Japanese Reader and Essential Dictionary](https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Japanese-Reader-Essential-Dictionary/dp/023113990X/ref=pd_aw_fbt_img_m_sccl_1/139-4620642-9220961?pd_rd_w=zTEak&content-id=amzn1.sym.7e08813e-b3a0-49ca-880a-9bdd964e1dd4&pf_rd_p=7e08813e-b3a0-49ca-880a-9bdd964e1dd4&pf_rd_r=S7WBE1P53DYZCYSAJCJ2&pd_rd_wg=hlWDA&pd_rd_r=5237d611-58ed-4b6d-8367-c0e235dd6493&pd_rd_i=023113990X&psc=1).
I haven’t touched much 古文 in a while, but it’s come in surprisingly handy for some of the stuff I read, where some passages are written in 近代文語文.
The part I found most confusing were the different “past” auxiliary verbs like き, けり, つ, ぬ, たり, and り.
The easiest? I suppose the grammatical contexts that makes the few archaic grammar that has stuck around in modern Japanese easier to process.
As for 漢文, the closest I’ve come to going into it was the bit of Chinese 文言文 I picked up trying to make sense of the writing on Chinese calligraphy specimens as well as looking into Chinese Tang and Song Dynasty poetry. It might be a fun challenge, but I can’t say I’ve had much contact with Japanese 漢文 at all.
In terms of classical, I mainly read publications published around the Meiji era (in other words 普通文) so this is where my experience lies, but in my opinion the best way to get better with that kind of writing is to, once you have a foundational understanding of the grammar, simply read more of it (while also making sure you have a strong knowledge of kanji beyond that what is normally found in post-war Japanese). The 国立国会図書館 website has plenty of original works you can read, as well as places such as 青空文庫.
The most difficult thing I have found with literary Japanese (文語体) prose is the past auxiliary verbs, much like how another user has mentioned.
As for kanbun, there are several useful websites, all in Japanese, including:
[https://xuexi.mokuren.ne.jp/kantobi/index.php](https://xuexi.mokuren.ne.jp/kantobi/index.php) (includes a free kanbun “textbook” PDF that you can request from the website creator. I use it and I think it’s worth getting if you’re interested in kanbun).
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[http://www.ic.daito.ac.jp/~oukodou/kuzukago/kundoku.html](http://www.ic.daito.ac.jp/~oukodou/kuzukago/kundoku.html) (written in traditional characters and modern kana orthography. Good resource).
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[https://www.seiwatei.net/kanbun/index.cgi?htm=kojo](https://www.seiwatei.net/kanbun/index.cgi?htm=kojo) (another good resource).
Other than kanbun books specifically, absolutely recommend doing in-depth classical Japanese. Grammar overall, suffixes, sentence structure etc form the basis for 訓読.
If you do have time, useful also to invest in classical Chinese directly: being able to read the “original” is extremely helpful in understanding where the Japanese reading comes from, and sometimes the other way around is also very interesting – some readings of Chinese classics in Japan have been around for 100s of years, and offer some interesting insights in what the Chinese scholars who brought them over taught their Japanese pupils.