An intensive, well thought out two-volume beginning course for adult learners. The lessons develop an 800-word vocabulary and 301 basic conversational sentence patterns. On completion, the student... This description may be from another edition of this product.
I found this book to be comprehensive, but a bit daunting for me, a true beginner. I had to purchase the Workbook, the CDs and some flash cards to make it more manageable - and I have an instructor as well! The book teaches everything (characters, pinyin, vocabulary and conversation) at once from the first chapter on. I could spend a month on each chapter and still not know all of the initials, finals, spelling rules, characters, etc. If you are patient and use the supplemental materials this book can be beneficial. You may have a difficult time learning Chinese from the book alone.
Perfect first textbook, I'm on chapter 7 and I can speak sentences!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
This book, uses Simplified Chinese characters. It has English instructions 60% of the time, which forces you to look up words at times, which I believe is a pro. The pinyin is also beside the vocab. Overall, I like this book a lot. I use it with a Mandarin level 1 and 2 class with an instructor.
Tried lots of others; this textbook worked very well for me.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
I've never taken classes, but have just self-studied (with help). I've tried a lot of other textbooks and never got very far. This is the only one I've ever completed. CC301 Vol. 1 contains the first 20 beginner lessons that can be covered at about one lesson per week. With any language, there are four essential components: Reading: This textbook is excellent for this. First the basic sentences are listed. Then there are conversations that use these sentence patterns - introducing variations and expanding on the basic patterns. The vocabulary is listed and then there is a grammar section. Finally, each lesson has a set of exercises. Writing: I write out all the Chinese text in each lesson as I read it and do the exercises. I suggest getting a Chinese Character dictionary that shows stroke order like: Cheng & Tsui Chinese Character Dictionary: A Guide to the 2,000 Most Frequently-Used Characters. Because of the complexity of the characters, stroke order is important for legibility and (eventually) learning the equivalent of cursive writing in Chinese. The textbook uses simplified characters, so make sure the dictionary is in simplified. Listening: I suggest getting the accompanying set of CD's. The entire lessons have been recorded, so you can listen/read along. Quite often I just have a lesson playing in the background or in the car instead of listening to music. Speaking: I just try to repeat along w/ the CD's; also, I'll pause/play/rewind. I find speaking the hardest part of learning Chinese. There is a DVD that accompanies the book, but I found it reasonably unnecessary.
Conversational Chinese
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
Excellent book for learning basic Chinese using either Pinyin or Chinese characters - or both! One can choose to master the vocabulary either by focusing on just the Pinyin in the vocabulary lists and reading sections or by memorizing the characters as well. (Unfortunately, for one attempting to learn Chinese on one's own, the Pinyin is not included in the grammar notes.)
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