Chinese Primer: Character Workbook (Gr)

By Ta-tuan Ch'en, Perry Link, Yih-jian Tai, et al.

Book Overview

Four experienced teachers of beginning Chinese have developed this introductory textbook. A pilot edition has been tested widely in classrooms and refined over a period of years. Among its salient features are lessons that are lively, amusing, and relevant to everyday life: concentrated training of ear and tongue in the sound system of Chinese; extensive grammar notes, clearly presented, with attention to mistakes English-speakers are likely to make; a carefully sequenced character workbook embodying a new and effective approach to the learning of Chinese characters; and audiovisual reinforcement via a complete set of audiotapes and two videotapes, one of which offers entertaining dramatizations of the lesson dialogues. The Chinese Primer is available in two versions, one using the GR system of romanization, which employs different spellings instead of diacritical marks for different tones, the other using Pinyin romanization. The contents of the four volumes are as follows: (1) Blue Book [ Lessons ]: Introduction; foundation work on pronunciation; lesson dialogues in romanized Chinese and English; appendices; glossary-index. (2) Red Book [ Notes and Exercises ]: Vocabularies; grammar notes and culture notes keyed to the lessons; exercises. (3) Yellow Book [ Character Workbook ]: workbook. (4) Green Book [ Pinyin Character Text ]: Texts of the lessons in both traditional and simplified Chinese characters, and a Chinese introduction for teachers. The first three volumes: Blue Book, Red Book, and Yellow Book are sold as a set (GR Set or Pinyin Set). In addition, the GR Blue Book [ Lessons ], GR Red Book [ Notes and Exercises ], and GR Yellow Book [ Character Workbook ], along with the Pinyin Green Book [ Pinyin Character Text ] are sold separately. The GR Audio and video materials are available from the Chinese Linguistics Project at Princeton University for use with this text. These supplementary materials are not published by Princeton University Press. For further information and prices, contact the Chinese Linguistics Project, 231 Palmer Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544. (609-258-4269).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691096007
• ISBN13: 9780691096001
• Release Date: May 1994
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.4" x 11.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

Chinese Primer: Character Text

The book came in great condition and it arrived on time. Also, I got it for a good price.

A clear and thorough coursebook

Ch'en and Link's Chinese Primer series is an excellent introduction to the language. Detailed and clear grammatical explanations complement texts that give individual attention to each of the four areas of foreign language learning: reading, writing, listening and speaking. However, the best feature of Princeton's texts is the dialogues: rather than tread through the same-old tired sequence of "greetings", "where are you from?", "how old are you" etc., the authors creatively use the most basic vocabulary and sentence patterns to create conversations that are humorous and full of life. Nathan Dummitt author of Chinese Through Tone & Color

good chinese books hard to find

This book fills a void. The grammar is straightforward, the examples clear, and there are plenty of exercises. It's excellent for students of chinese who have some foundation already and are looking vastly and quickly improve upon it.