Frequently Asked Questions

An Overview of Dr. Sabine Wilms’ Training Program in Classical Chinese for Practitioners of Chinese Medicine

The purpose of this post is to explain the structure, features, and benefits of my various offerings on classical Chinese for potential and current students. I receive many questions about my courses, from visitors to my website TRANSLATINGCHINESEMEDICINE.COM, subscribers to my newsletter, attendees at my lectures, casual students who have signed up for my free introductory course, or random strangers who found my name on the internet. Even my friends, family members, and current Triple Crown students have a hard time wrapping their heads around what I have been up to these past couple of years, and apparently my website may be pretty but is not the best vehicle for a clear summary of my offerings. So I have composed this list of answers, to address your inquiries more systematically and comprehensively. As you may know, I love hearing from you, so if you have any additional questions or constructive feedback, please drop me a message through THIS LINK.

“What is your whole classical Chinese program about? What does it look like?”

Until the pandemic shutdown of 2020, I had spent over a dozen years teaching classical Chinese medicine, culture, history, and language to Chinese medicine practitioners in person at conferences, in university and college programs, and in private courses all over the world. Being forced by COVID to make lemons out of lemonade, I decided to take advantage of technological advances in creating and delivering online educational content, directly from my little home on an island in the Salish Sea to you, no matter where or who you are and how much time or resources you have at your disposal.

To contribute to the advancement of Chinese medicine as a highly sophisticated, globally relevant yet historically and culturally rooted medical paradigm, I have developed a menu of online options for learning to read the Chinese medicine classics. My intent is to train Chinese medicine students and practitioners so that you can directly access the original historical sources of your medicine. In my decades of professional experience, the ability to engage with historical texts on Chinese medicine in the original language opens up a beautiful path towards personal growth, clinical expertise, and professional inspiration. Wanting to support students and practitioners at all levels, I have created a wide range of options, from the free Introduction to Classical Chinese, to a monthly self-paced mentorship on Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics, to the three nationally accredited Continuing Education courses (Foundations, Diamond Core, and Medical Medley) of my demanding Triple Crown intensive program, and culminating in the Peach Blossom Spring Collective. No matter how much time, money, and background knowledge you have at this particular moment, it is my honor and pleasure to connect with you and support you with all my heart in your personal and professional growth through my knowledge about traditional Chinese culture, language, and medicine.

“What sets your program apart from other Chinese language courses? How have your education, life path, and professional teaching and writing experience shaped your approach in creating, developing, and now teaching this program?”

This is a great question. It is wonderful that there are now a number of books, courses, and programs available to teach medical Chinese to practitioners of Chinese medicine in the West. Nevertheless, it can be challenging to find the teacher, format, and vehicle that are the best match for you. Beyond personal preferences, financial constraints, technological limitations, or other reasons that I cannot help you with, how are you to know which one to choose? Here are some facts that make my program stand out and may help you decide whether it is for you or not:

• My program is classically oriented. As such, I do not teach modern Chinese, and you will not learn how to order dinner or say hello in Chinese! I also will not teach you how to read modern research reports. On the flipside, unlike most academic upper-level programs, I do not require preexisting knowledge of modern Chinese, and we remain laser-focused on learning how to read the historical medical texts, which saves you a lot of time.

• My program is designed specifically for students and practitioners of Chinese medicine. While we do study classical grammar and vocabulary, and early history, culture, philosophy, and religion through the passages that we may be working on, the ultimate goal is always to read medical texts, and discussions focus on the clinical relevance of any material we study, from technical terms to literary genres to cosmology, medical ethics, historical context, and selections of passages and chapters from the classics.

• I am deeply steeped in the cultural and historical background of traditional East Asian medicine, due to my education (MA and PhD in East Asian Studies and Medical Anthropology with doctoral research in Taiwan, Japan, and Germany); my subsequent university teaching experience with courses on Chinese humanities, history, religion, and philosophy (University of Arizona, Pima Community College, Asian Institute of Medical Studies, National University of Natural Medicine, YoSan University, etc.); my professional connections with leading scholars and clinicians like Donald Harper, Charlotte Furth, Li Jianmin, Vivienne Lo, Nigel Wiseman, Long Rihui, Brenda Hood, Heiner Fruehauf, Liu Lihong, Sean Hsiang-lin Lei, etc.; and years of living, working, and studying in East Asia. For those of you who are unable to move to East Asia, I aim to bring East Asia to you, as much as that is possible in a virtual environment.

• Based on my academic training and activities, my program teaches to the highest academic standards of scholarship.

• My decades of experience in teaching busy Chinese medicine students and practitioners allows me to be sensitive to and take advantage of your unique background and the specific strengths and challenges, which I always take into account. My offerings are practically oriented and recognize the fullness of your professional lives and the challenges of learning a new language. My courses combine live events with asynchronous discussion forums and recorded lectures to maximize connection and learning while still creating multi-directional connection, all within the constraints of your busy lives.

• All of my offerings aim to create a mutually-supportive community of classically oriented, passionate, sincere students of this sacred knowledge that I treasure deeply. We leave our egos at the door and grow and play and struggle and laugh together.

• As a successful author, translator, and publisher, with dozens of published books and scholarly articles and years of working for the major publishers in Chinese medicine under my belt, I want to train you as the next generation of leading experts, to create top-quality work that is worthy of publication. There is a reason why my professional work, according to Chinese astrology, is “Imperial Tutor.”

• I offer a complete and comprehensive training program, taking you all the way through from complete beginner to published expert.

• Here are some TESTIMONIALS where you can read what some of my students have experienced.

“Can you tell me more about your Introduction to Classical Chinese? Is it really free and why should I take it?”

As I explain on this webpage about my Introduction, yes, this offering is free, with no strings attached! You can drop out at any time, spend as much or as little time on additional study suggestions, and retake it if your life becomes too busy to continue. So why don’t you give it a try?

This course gifts you a total of 7 videos and 8 written posts, drip-fed over 8 weeks. It can be started at any time, with no previous knowledge required. It is equally helpful for students with no background at all and for more advanced students who need a refresher or lack clarity on the difference between modern and classical Chinese.

Here is what you will get out of it:

• A sense of the work ahead should you decide to continue your studies, and of the challenges and rewards of studying classical Chinese, as well as an overview of the nuts and bolts of the learning process.

• Guidance on how to find the right teacher and program for you and your background should you choose to continue.

• Immediate inspiration for your practice by introducing you to some precious classical quotations.

• Deep metaphysical questions to contemplate each week.

• Carefully curated practical suggestions for further study, from free online resources to potential local study opportunities, books, courses, etc.

• An entertaining yet enlightening no-risk, no-commitment window into the art of translation.

• A sense of my teaching style, personality, and vision.

“How does your mentorship Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics work, what does it require, and what benefits does it provide?”

The Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics Mentorship is an affordable, moderately-paced, self-directed membership program that provides three to four lessons in the form of video recordings or written posts each month, as well as monthly live text readings, a library with permanent resources, and weekly translation “challenges” of characters, phrases, and short passages. Lessons are drip-fed and cover eminently practical topics for Chinese medicine practitioners, from consulting dictionaries to finding solid digital editions to having fun with calligraphy to Pinyin spelling and measurements, and sometimes diving deeply into specific texts and passages. Inviting you to spend a couple of hours a week on classical Chinese, this affordable mentorship is intended as a follow-up for students who have completed the Introduction and for anybody else to hone their language skills, review grammar and vocabulary, gain some understanding of cultural context, learn academic standards, and gather clinical pearls. It is the ideal long-term course for the busy practitioner, but is also intended as preparation for the Triple Crown Intensive.

Here are some things you will get out of it:

• Affordable access to effective, sustainable, self-directed training in classical Chinese, at your own pace whenever you are ready for it.

• One or two weekly offerings to keep you engaged, from translation challenges to entertaining videos to serious lessons and advanced live text readings.

• Invitations for additional studies and resources.

• A monthly live text reading on Zoom and a library of recordings.

• Access to Sabine's inexhaustible treasure bag of tips and tricks to produce professional, top-quality translations and develop clinical expertise.

• A community of fellow Chinese medicine nerds.

• Immediate inspiration for your practice.

• Deep metaphysical questions to contemplate.

“What is your Triple Crown training program, what do I need to be successful, and what are the benefits?”

The Triple Crown program is my offering for the most committed, motivated, and sincere students, who have made up their mind to dedicate substantial periods of time and resources to learning classical Chinese for several months at a time.

This nationally accredited program consists of three separate courses, which can be taken consecutively over two years for the most rapid progress possible, but can also be broken up and completed as individual segments over several years. The courses are held online, in a combination of prerecorded 1-hour lectures, asynchronous discussion on a user-friendly private discussion forum, individual homework assignments with continuous feedback and support from me throughout the week, and a live 1.5-hour Question-and-Answer session on Zoom at the end of each week. Given the speed of progress and challenge of the homework load, students should come prepared with some previous background knowledge in Chinese (or the willingness to dedicate a bit more time) and be able to consistently set aside several hours each week to watch the 1-hr prerecorded lecture, complete the readings and study the homework package, memorize vocabulary, prepare the required translations and exercises (which are always shared and critiqued within our course community platform), and participate actively in the discussion forum and live 1.5-hr Q&A sessions.

I ask a lot of my students but am always there to lend a helping hand and cheer you on. Read these TESTIMONIALS from previous years’ graduates. Successfully completing all three levels of my Triple Crown training program provides you with the following benefits:

• Experience in a wide range of technical medical literature, from theory to acupuncture, pulse studies, case histories, materia medica, and formularies.

• Learn about the cultural context of Chinese medicine through discussion of philosophy, poetry, and history (medical and general).

• Memorize key classical vocabulary, both medical and general.

• Master all the important grammatical structures, with an emphasis on Hàn dynasty style but additional exposure to later medical texts and commentaries.

• Learn about the key classics of early Chinese medicine and know how to approach each one in terms of sources, commentaries, vocabulary, content, and grammatical particularities.

• Closely study with one of the foremost translators and teachers in the field.

• Learn to work with some of the best academic resources, from consulting specialized dictionaries to accessing critical editions and manuscripts, finding top-notch secondary literature, and performing academically solid internet research.

• Motivation for sustained study in the happy company of other sincere, mature, and deeply committed students, as we all travel this path together.

• Immediate inspiration for your practice.

• Deep metaphysical questions to contemplate.

• Personal and professional cultivation of virtue-power 德.

“Will I be able to read historical Chinese medicine texts on my own upon graduation from your Triple Crown program?”

This is a great question that is unfortunately impossible to answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” The actual outcome of these three courses in terms of your ability to read historical Chinese medical texts after graduation depends on far too many factors to make firm promises, from your previous knowledge and experience with reading Chinese to the difficulty of any particular text you choose. Here are some examples:

• Clinical instructions for acupuncture and medicinal treatments: These are generally easy and straight-forward to read, so chances are good that you will be able to consult the key works in your field of specialization independently after successfully completing my program. Graduation from the Medical Medley will thus unlock the treasure house of clinically oriented literature on Chinese medicine in any given specialty when you have reached the limit of what is available in Western languages or modern Chinese.

• Huángdì nèijīng: You will certainly be able to engage with the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic at a much deeper level by studying solid English translations alongside the Chinese original text. Some passages will come to you easily while others are too obscure for even the most seasoned translator to understand.

• Historical case studies: While the descriptions of symptoms, formulas or acupuncture prescriptions, and modifications and outcomes may be fairly easy, this tends to be a difficult genre to work with, unless you are familiar with the particular historical context, because it requires knowledge of official titles, occupational activities, sometimes obscure references to contemporaneous physicians and their theories, etc. My program will, however, teach you about academic resources to consult and how to extract the clinical information.

• Daoist and Buddhist references: In traditional China, there was no strict boundary between “medicine,” “religion,” and “philosophy,” in the way that we are familiar with in the modern context. Especially literature on yǎngshēng (“nurturing life”) tends to contain religious content that can so easily be misunderstood and be downright dangerous when applied in a modern clinical context to an uninformed patient by a practitioner inadequately trained in the religious background of these practices and instructions. I will give you some tools to help you recognize this material and find support in tackling it.

• Late Imperial and modern commentaries on the classics and other literature on classical Chinese medicine: Even with fluency in reading modern Chinese medical texts, you may still run into problems because of the frequent classical quotations and phrases, which are often unmarked. Training in classical Chinese will vastly improve your ability to access this material without the squishy murkiness that is so prevalent in our profession these days.

Learning to read the Chinese medicine classics is truly a life-long journey, and there is no single finish line that you get to cross and then call yourself a master. I am still learning and growing after several decades of doing this almost every day of my adult life. So it would be immoral for me to guarantee that you achieve the ability to read classical Chinese literature on your own after graduation. Can any of us ever say that we truly understand an esoteric text like Língshū 8 “Rooted in the Shén” 本神? It is one of my professional goals in this lifetime to inspire as many practitioners as I can to embrace the study of classical Chinese medical literature as a life-long journey of both personal and professional cultivation.

That said, even the Foundations layer on its own will have an immediate, noticeable effect on your reading ability, since the mastery of even simple grammar structures and key classical vocabulary will provide a clarity and direction that you simply cannot achieve by teaching yourself. It’s like learning to cook or farm or play an instrument. Yes, you can teach yourself in a lifetime of perseverance and commitment and hard, hard work, but will you ever reach the level of expert and be able to run a successful restaurant kitchen or commercial farm? Will you even know what you are missing in your musical career if you haven’t jammed with others or played in an orchestra? Would you feel comfortable being treated by a self-taught acupuncturist or herbalist who have acquired their skills in isolation from books and have to look up formulas on the internet? And why wouldn’t you learn from the experts and thereby dramatically accelerate your learning process, avoid costly mistakes and embarrassments, and instead find joy, inspiration, and support in a community of fellow students?

“What are the three levels in your Triple Crown Intensive program? How do they relate to each other?”

My Triple Crown program consists of three nationally accredited courses, spaced out over two years: the 5-month Foundations (34 PDAs), the 5-month Diamond Core (21.5 PDAs), and the 6-month Medical Medley (31.5 PDAs). These three levels start in September, February, and September, respectively. They can be completed successively over the course of two years or taken one level at a time. The three courses do build on each other and, with very rare exceptions, I require students to start with the Foundations and successfully complete each level before allowing them to advance. Fluency in modern Chinese, exposure to Chinese medical literature, and even the completion of courses in 醫古文 (ancient medical texts) in China will make my courses a lot easier but does NOT give you the ability to read classical Chinese at an academic level.

Level 1 of the Triple Crown: The Foundations course lasts for 5 months, starts on September 14 in 2023, consists of 14 live meetings and 13 homework lessons, and concludes on January 18. For the Foundations, we use Bryan Van Norden’s Classical Chinese for Everyone as our main textbook, supplemented by my own material to make the lessons medically relevant. The lessons in our textbook start gently with short selections that gradually increase in length, mostly from Confucius, Laozi, and Zhuangzi. Created by one of the “Best 300 Professors in the US” (The Princeton Review) and a leading translator and professor of Chinese philosophy, the textbook always provides complete vocabulary lists, clear and explicit grammar explanations, translation tips, historical context, and even funny “nerd notes,” without assuming fluency in modern Chinese. By the end of my Foundations course, in just fourteen lessons, you will have learned the key classical grammar structures and vocabulary, by translating some of the most inspiring, well-known, and beautiful passages from Chinese philosophy. Always keeping the practical clinical applications of these lessons in mind, I will have empowered you to engage with classical medical texts in a much more direct and meaningful way by applying these lessons: You will be able to find digital versions of the Chinese classics; copy and paste them into digital dictionaries that we have set up for reading classical Chinese; and make sense of phrases and sentences by means of the grammar structures you have mastered. From here on out, you will avoid common mistakes made by readers fluent only in modern Chinese, and work with these sacred texts with a much greater sense of clarity and understanding for the rest of your life.

Level 2 of the Triple Crown: The Diamond Core course starts on February 8, 2024, lasts for 5 months, and consists of 9 live meetings and lessons, supplemented by optional but encouraged attendance of text readings of Triple Crown graduates from previous years. This course is based on the eight lessons in Part 1 of Michael Fuller’s Introduction to Literary Chinese, again supplemented with medical content created by me. Compared with Van Norden’s “Guide for Absolute Beginners,” the level of difficulty in this academic text intended for university graduate programs increases sharply, in terms of grammar structures, theoretical explanations, and amount of vocabulary. For each lesson, the book provides an excellent introduction, carefully chosen selection from fun and inspiring classical sources, detailed vocabulary list, grammar notes, and open-ended questions and exercises. The Diamond Core course requires commitment, hard work, and an open mind, BUT you will be rewarded with a level of understanding in classical Chinese that you simply cannot find anywhere else other than in university graduate programs. After only 5 months of deepening the basic lessons that you learned in the Foundations, you will have tackled the most challenging sentence constructions in classical Chinese, refined your ability to analyze sentences and phrases, and expanded and deepened your vocabulary. I have named this course the “Diamond Core” both because it is so hard and condensed, but also because it is so precious and potent. “Diamonds are forever,” after all, and like a diamond’s conductivity, purity, beauty, and clarity, this course will enable you to read the Chinese medicine classics with confidence, clarity, and authenticity, thereby allowing you to connect your contemporary clinical practice back to the ancient wisdom. Because it is harder than the Foundations, we generally have two lessons in each month, with 1 week off and a text reading to support your learning on the fourth week of each month.

Level 3 of the Triple Crown: The Medical Medley starts in mid-September of 2024, lasts for 6 weeks, and consists of 12 lessons based on my very own Imperial Tutor’s Medical Medley as our textbook. This is your glorious reward for all the hard work in the Foundations and Diamond Core, since we finally get to focus exclusively on medical literature and dive deeply into some of the most famous texts of our profession. I now ask you to prepare increasingly longer and more challenging passages, which I have carefully curated to introduce you to a variety of literary genres, clinical topics, and key figures and texts. In the Medical Medley course, we study selections from the Sùwèn 《素問》 (Plain Questions) and Língshū 《靈樞》 (Magical Pivot), Zhuāngzi 莊子, Sūn Sīmiǎo 孫思邈, Shénnóng běncǎojīng 《神農本草經》(Divine Farmer’s Classic of Materia Medica), Nànjīng 《難經》 (Classic of Conundrums), Nèiyè 《內業》(“Inner Training”), Biǎn Què 扁鵲,  and Nǚkē bǎiwèn 《女科百問》 (Hundred Questions on Gynecology). While the basic structure of this course is identical to the Foundations and Diamond Core in terms of recorded lessons, homework assignments, translations posted, and the live Q&A sessions, my Imperial Tutor’s Medical Medley textbook , which I have created for the express purpose of teaching this course, offers you 12 weekly lessons that consist of an introductory essay for the medical context, a list of key vocabulary to memorize, the weekly passage plus pīnyīn transcription, extensive grammar and vocabulary notes, and discussion questions to jump-start our asynchronous discussion in the forum and invite you to think about the clinical relevance of the material. After graduating from this level, you will be able to work with original Chinese sources, whether you do so on your own or, as I hope, in the company of your colleagues through our Peach Blossom Spring Collective.

For all levels, the live discussion sessions are currently scheduled to take place on ZOOM on Thursday mornings, 9-10:30 am Pacific Time. Depending on enrollment and scheduling issues, we may be able to add a second cohort at or change to a different time. Attendance is mandatory for the majority of the live sessions, unless you have a serious reason to miss one, in which case you can watch the recording to catch up.

For all three levels, your weekly required work consists of

1. Watching my prerecorded lecture.

2. Reading the homework package.

3. Writing and studying vocabulary and assigned passages.

4. Contributing in the discussion forum throughout the week.

5. Posting your translation and receiving critical feedback.

6. Actively participating in the live Question-and-Answer session.

“How do I prepare for your program and how do I get started?”

If you have no or minimal background in Chinese, I have created the ideal preparation for my Foundations class for you:

1.     Complete my free Introduction to Classical Chinese course. Then

2.     Actively attend my Reading the Chinese Medicine Classics mentorship for a number of months, but hopefully at least for the first 7 weeks of the “Basics” section.

If you already have some background, you may skip one or both of these offerings. Given the fact that each student has different strengths and weaknesses, the first step is always to get in touch with me by filling out the admissions survey, to give me an idea of who you are and how to support you to the best of my ability. I will get in touch with you once I have received your information. For the subsequent Diamond Core and Medical Medley classes, you will simply be invited to enroll after successful completion of the previous level.

“I have heard you mention the Peach Blossom Spring Collective. Can you tell me more?”

This is my dream and my long-term vision, with these major goals:

1. Support for the graduates of my Triple Crown training program, to build on all of our hard work. While I am certainly not comfortable calling myself “master” and you “disciples,” I envision working with my most advanced students by gently guiding you in a framework somewhere between a traditional apprenticeship, internship, and creative artist collective.

2. Stepping back from my role as your teacher to become more of an advisor or senior colleague, helping you to create your own work that holds up to the highest professional standards. After decades of writing and translating books myself, I now want to train you all to assist me in this work until you are ready to do your own.

3. As a group effort, the Peach Blossom Spring Collective will ensure the quality of the work we produce, where we all hold each other accountable, ask the hard questions for and with each other, and provide each other with critical yet constructive feedback. We shall create works that far transcend the sum of our individual skills.

4. Pooling our resources and combining our individual strengths, to tackle difficult questions and ambitious projects that no single individual could finish. We can also pursue outside sources of funding.

5. Building bridges across disciplines, time, and space, by creating a network of connections and collaborations between clinical practitioners and academics; between translators, scientists, and doctors; and between specialists in East Asia and the West.

6. Publishing translations or classically-oriented research articles, produced in specialized working groups and shared in a variety of formats, from an open-access quarterly journal to zines and small e-books and to physical books or even series of books.

Thank you for your interest in my work and for reading this far. I genuinely want to support you on your personal and professional journey as you engage with the innumerable treasures to be found under the umbrella of traditional East Asian medicine. Only you can determine whether any of my offerings are right for you at this particular point in your life. If you are on the fence or still confused about how to proceed, I invite you to check out this OVERVIEW OF MY PROGRAMS and to CONTACT ME DIRECTLY.