About the Podcast

Exploring the Analects takes you passage by passage through the collected teachings of Confucius. Host Elliott Bernstein provides fresh translations, historical context, and insights for Mandarin learners while demonstrating the continued relevance of 2,500-year-old philosophical ideas to modern life.

The Analects, compiled by followers of the Confucian way in China between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE, contains hundreds of passages touching on topics that can still teach us how to live our lives today.

Each episode includes an informal interpretation, the original Chinese text with pronunciation, formal translation, philosophical discussion, linguistic notes for Chinese learners, and contextual analysis.