5 comments about Integrated Chinese Level 1 PT. 1, Character Workbook, Trad. and Simp., 2nd Edition.

1. It appears that most of the reviewers were writing about the TEXTbook, not the character workbook. I gave the textbook four stars in a separate review and the accompanying CDs are a must. I purchased the textbook, a workbook, and the character workbook for 2 classes I attended at the Northwest China Council offices in Portland, Oregon. The characters are presented in very large type, and the "stroke order" is illustrated in detail. The set of 40 basic radicals are presented first as a basis on which to learn. It seems like a very sensible and helpful introduction to Mandarin characters. I copied the characters onto my own "flashcards" to carry around, but those can be purchased thru the Cheng & Tsui publishers.



2. This is the new standard for learning Chinese, and it works. Most decent Chinese language programs in universities are using the Integrated Chinese method. If you are taking the course in university, buy the CDs as a companion. If you are learning independently, you need to hear the language, and these CDs are effective. Good product.



3. These audio CD's are an excellent enhancement to the Textbook, workbook and character workbook for Integral Chinese. Particularly students learning independently will find these CD's essential to hearing proper pronunciation and tones. The system utilised by this combination of written and aural resources is very effective in gaining a mastery of spoken and written Chinese (including both simplified and traditional characters).



4. 
   When I think about it I should've got the first book.
   I also got the cd and tapes, but it don't say the words or the meaning of the words so it's very hard to understand.



5. The sound quality of these CDs is terrible. There's a lot of hiss, and the voices are muffled. I can't beleive they're selling these to the public! If you have to get these discs for class - there are many sources on the Internet where you can get the material on these discs for free.

5 comments about Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Modern Grammars).

1. There is a recent influx of excellent materials on learning Mandarin Chinese, both conversational and written. This includes audio books and written materials, as well as excellent multimedia works. Computerized instruction is becoming more prominent. One just beginning this subject a number of years ago may have had difficulty finding sufficient instruction on the subject, now that situation may be reversing to where one must instead select from a far larger pool, the most appropriate materials for individual focus.
   
   In most if not all cases, this book is a welcome, perhaps even essential, addition to those instructional materials. The authors are clearly passionate on this subject, and have created a work that is organized, and which spans a wide array of topics expertly. Arguably most beneficial for and targeted to intermediates in the language, this book will also be beneficial for one having only recently started Mandarin Chinese as well.
   
   The first part of this book is 17 chapters in length, and overviews the ubiquitous Pinyin romanization, followed by lessons in the important similarities and differences in word order for typical sentences in Mandarin, in comparison to English. There are a surprising number of similarities, along with significant and noteworthy differences. After this, various parts of speech are detailed, specifically adjectives and adverbs, prepositions, and numerous forms of nouns and verbs. The reason for omitting other parts of speech becomes evident. There is also included in this first part a large chapter on numbers, one that goes into far more detail and explanation of different usages than most books do.
   
   The second part of the book, the 43 remaining chapters of the 60 total in this book, provides a plethora of scenarios and common situations. This includes greetings and introductions, name usage, modern communication including internet and telecommunication, speaking in different tenses, questions and negation, discussing time, transportation and travel phrases, cause and effect and conditionals, guest and host scenarios and etiquette, expressing concerns desires and needs, requesting permission, and invitations regrets apologies and wishing others well, among other topics.
   
   Every one of the nearly 400 pages is filled with practical sentences used in daily discourse, along with new vocabulary, pinyin as well as Mandarin characters, and well thought out explanations of and elaborations upon the examples provided. Common error avoidance and helpful hints for a typical English speaker are provided throughout.
   
   There is a separate workbook available, associated with this one, that quizzes understanding of each of the chapters. Additionally, there are two books published earlier by Schaum's, one by one of the authors (Claudia Ross). Perusing the table of contents of both, it appears that this work is a confluence of the best of both of those earlier texts, and can be considered a new edition of that earlier grammar book.
   
   The look and feel of this book is excellent. The typefaces used and occasional diagrams provided are elegantly done and are a pleasure to read. The paperback edition has a solid and sturdy feel to it, and the thick paper used gives the impression this is meant to be used as a long term reference work. Each chapter is clearly separated by page as well as visually, and is further subdivided and organized into smaller subsections, also made visually prominent within the chapter.
   
   A very highly recommended work, focusing primarily upon intermediate level subject matter, yet presented in such a way that beginners can get an admirable jumpstart from it as well. The grammar rules of the language, along with sentence level word positioning in Mandarin, are presented in meticulous detail. This can easily supplement any of the typical beginning audio/visual or written instructional materials available on speaking conversational Mandarin Chinese.



2. As a American student of Chinese living in Beijing, China I would have to say that this book is absolutely and wonderfully amazing in content, depth and most of all in it's ability to be CLEAR AND UNDERSTANDABLE. Most of the books produced here that I have seen that are for foreigners learning Chinese are unfortunately in my opinion produced by people who are educators and NOT learners of the Chinese language. I say this because most books apparently assume that the learner knows things that they do, BUT THEY USUALLY DO NOT. I say this because as a teacher of English as well, it is apparent that I am guilty of this as well and often over look very very basic grammatical points in my teachings because I "assume" the student will know certain things.
   
   As a student of Chinese I have been constantly frustrated by textbooks supposedly produced for Chinese learning which always do not include basic information and grammatical points making it difficult if not impossible to learn the language. More importantly many of these books do not include English in it's explanations of the grammar increasing the difficulty of learning the language. This book allows novice students such as myself the ability to find the necessary information they need quickly, simply, and clearly without getting lost. It is also a book I can see using for a very long time during more advanced studies of the language.
   
   In studying Chinese I have yet to find a book solely devoted to understanding the basic grammar structure of Chinese. The few ones that I have found are often written ironically in Chinese which makes it doubly difficult to understand the structure of the Chinese language by someone who has no knowledge of the language.
   
   I wish this book was used as a required reference for all learners of Chinese. There is nothing that I have seen (and I have reviewed and used alot of Chinese textbooks) that comes evenly remotely close to the quality, depth, scope, and most importantly usefulness of this book. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN CHINESE.........BUY THIS BOOK !



3. I just started to learn Chinese a couple of months ago, when I felt the need for a grammar book.
   
   This book uses very simple vocabulary, which I can already understand. The grammar is explained with sample sentences all the time. The sample sentences are 'written' with both simplified and traditional characters.
   
   PartB is the really rich part, where not only additional grammar is presented (past, future, location, etc.), but also common and everyday expressions and situations (phone, agreement, etc.) are also explained.
   
   In my opinion it is very comprehensive, not only on beginner level. The grammar terms are simple - not like an 'official', heavy grammar book, which makes it easy for a beginner, but it is far from shallow for an advanced student either.
   
   I can only recommend it!! Currently I don't think I'll need any other Chinese grammar book in the near future...



4. After having used previous Chinese grammar books, such as those from Yip Po-ching, I found this one to offer a better organization of grammar patterns. The book is split into two sections. The first focuses on grammar patterns and the other which focuses on situational aspects of the language. These two approaches works great when learning how best to put together sentences.
   
   The book presents the material in Simplified/Traditional/PinYin. I also went ahead and got the workbook for this text and was also greatly pleased with the exercises presented.
   
   I would follow up your Chinese studies with a character dictionary (focusing on the 2000 most frequently used characters), and a vocabulary book such as those offered by HSK. With these resources you'll likely succeed in your Chinese studies. Oh, and don't forget ChinesePod; it's a great resource for Chinese listening comprehension.



5. If you are studying Chinese then you really need a grammar book as a companion to your other course materials. This will serve as a good reference which can be referred to when needed. The fact that the second half of the book focuses on functional (i.e. situational) grammar makes it easy to find the relevant grammar pattern. I won't go into too many details - you can read that in the review(s) below. I still have some grammar questions that the book doesn't answer but it is the best I have found so far. One area where the book is weak is on directional complements which can be unnatural for the western learner. Good luck on your learning!!

5 comments about Chinese For Dummies (For Dummies (Language & Literature)).

1. Chinese for Dummies is, in no way, a book for beginners. It's a book for people who have studied Mandarin for 20 years and just haven't gotten it yet. It's for people who really just don't get it... but even those people probably won't be aided by this book.
   
   What I know for sure is that beginners will be lost. This is not a teaching tool, it is a reinforcement tool, best used to supplant prior exposure to Mandarin Chinese.
   
   Don't buy this book expecting to LEARN chinese. For that, go with Rosetta Stone or Pimsleaur. But if you are looking to brush up on your Mandarin in a quick and (somewhat) easy way, this book might be for you.



2. The title of the book is misleading, it expects you to have some basic knowledge of the language. If you don't know anything about Chinese when you start reading it, you will be completely lost. If you do know the basics of the language, this book will teach you very little vocabulary and grammar (in my case it didn't teach me anything I didn't learned from Pimsleur). The teaching method used by this book is really inefficient.
   
   The audio is terribly slow, I don't have any other Chinese course that have such a slow audio speed; it is nowhere near real conversational speed and it takes forever to listen to a whole lesson.
   
   There are plenty of products out there that are better than this one, don't waste your money on this book. Pimsleur/Assimil are way better. The New Practical Chinese Reader costs about the same price and will teach you way more than this book does.



3. This is a very good reference book for learning spoken Mandarin. As stated in the Introduction, this is not a book intended to be read from cover to cover. Instead, it's written for browsing. I agree with some other reviewers that this book isn't exactly a basic Dummies book. Some previous Chinese language experience before reading this book makes more sense. The information in this book is still very useful though. One problem I have with this book is that the type is small. Sometimes it's hard to see the tone marks without wearing reading glasses. A larger font would make the transliterated text easier to read. Also, this book does not have any information about reading Chinese characters. I think this book is worth the low price as a reference book, but you'll still need other references.



4. I cannot recommend this book to anybody who does not already have a basic knowledge of Chinese. If you intend to learn some Chinese as a beginner, please avoid this [...] and seek different literary introductions.
   All this book does, is teaching you sentences and phrases and what they mean.
   
   It would tell you, how to tell a person, that you are not Chinese:
   
   Wô bú shì zhöng guó rén. (I can't do all phonetics correctly)
   I am not Chinese.
   
   That's all it does. It would have been so easy, to make this a helpful exercise by pointing out what you were literally saying, namely:
   
   I not be middle-land-man.
   
   Concealing this fact, this book almost deliberately disables you from putting sentences together yourself because it won't tell you how to!
   
   Again: It is consisting only of sentences and phrases that one must learn by heart. Maybe that's the Dummie's way, but - unless you are a chimp - I don't think anybody would be dull enough to learn an entire language this way.
   
   DO NOT BUY if you are really interested in learning Chinese as a beginner.



5. If you're a serious learner avoid this book. It does not provide the Chinese in writing, only the phonetic transliteration. This makes it very difficult to tell apart homophonic or near-homophonic words since their transliterations are spelled the same (but possibly with different tone accents). Worse, it does not help you learn (even just slightly) how to read Mandarin or vaguely identify "words" (characters) you would encounter in real-life, e.g. when you find yourself lost in China or Taiwan.
   
   Other reviews have already pointed out its other flaws so I won't bother mentioning them again. I find the one I pointed out a serious drawback for any serious learner, though it shouldn't pose a problem for those wishing to get a few phrases under their belt. (And likely Chinese writing inadvertently scares some off, so the lack here will be a benefit to some--viz. the Dummies (or dumb bastards).)

5 comments about Baby's First Words in Chinese (Baby's First Words).

1. A lot of research about the linguistic development of babies goes into Living Language's Baby First Words products. In this CD, the sounds of the Chinese language are presented through poems and traditional Chinese songs. It is easy on the ears and well produced. While this is geared at 0-2 year olds,I would also recommend it for older kids. My son is 3 and he has definitely picked up on the songs and words.



2. We have several Chinese CDs and this is the one I'm always reaching for. It is very well done. I love how it incorporates both songs and spoken Mandarin.



3. My baby loves this CD. She is 4 months old and loves to listen as we bounce and play with her. It is amazing how much she seems to zone into the music and speech. Time will tell if this is helping her learn Chinese, but she is really listening and hopefully picking up the sounds of the chinese language.



4. Pleasantly surprised with the accompanying written material included with this CD. It provides a broad overview of Mandarin that can be played for a newborn to expose the child to the language at several levels.



5. This CD has great audio quality and great content. My girls like it just fine. I didn't give it 5 stars because I feel, as a native Chinese Madarin speaker, some of the musical arrangements are kind of weird. Also, some of the nursery rhymes that I grew up with are butchered (either incomplete or completely changed). But overall, it's a great first CD for the little ones to be exposed to the language.

5 comments about Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition.

1. I really enjoy using this book. It is easy to find the characters. Each character has a brief description about its meaning, its ancien form, some examples of its use, and the most important: the stroke order.



2. isbn-10:0-8048-3509-8
   
   
   After studying pinyin during 1 yr, I badly needed an easy access to chinese characters and this book is the total solution.
   I couldn't imagine a better help by the character study.



3. I've bought my chinese textbooks in my struggle to learn mandarin, and this has been the best one by far. By explaining the origin of the words, and linking the characters to images, it shapes a jumble of hieroglyphics into recognizable symbols, even mnemonics.



4. Great book with detailed stroke information for thousands of characters in a great format. I have yet to look for a character that was not included in this book.
   My only issues with the book were the actual ordering of the characters (which, to me, seems arbitrary), and the fact the only nine individual strokes are depicted. So, for characters with more than 9 strokes, you have to do a little improvisation to write them out.
   Fantastic resource that I am taking with me to Taiwan (traditional and simplified forms of the characters are shown, thank goodness).



5. This is an excellent book for learning Chinese character recognition and writing. Despite indexing errors, I would recommend this book to all those who want to learn how to write and read Chinese. The book is well organized with similar sounding and similar looking characters arranged in learning facilitating sequence. In the first part of the book, which shows 1067 characters, each page presents 5 characters with the sequence of strokes clearly displayed.
   Do not be misguided by negative reviews written by some of the buyers. Look at the over-all rating and rely on the positive reviews provided by many readers.

5 comments about Chinese in a Flash, Vol. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards).

1. Tuttle's "Chinese in a Flash" cards are superb. As shown in the sample photographs, the cards include both traditional and simplified characters, stroke order, and sample phrases which demonstrate usage. The photos speak for themselves.
   
   It would have been nice if a small card-sized box were included for portability. Thankfully, the flash cards are not too much smaller than gaming cards (e.g. Magic cards), so something like the Ultra-Pro "Deck Box" is a decent fit (for roughly a third of the cards in the set).



2. If you are starting to learn Chinese, this is what you need. Chinese characters are difficult to learn but these flashcards make it a lot easier. You can take some cards with you to review wherever you go and in no time you will realise you know a lot of characters. Each card is full of information: the character (simplified and traditional) ,how to write it, pronounciation in pinyin, meaning, radical, examples, etc. Do not hesitate to buy it: you will not regret your choice.



3. + Fairly sturdy and large text
   + Includes traditional and simplified on the "front"
   + Radicial is stated on back for easier lookup in dictionary
   + Numbered to help gauge progress
   
   - Only simplified version for phrases, sample sentence, stroke order
   - Definitions are a little short to fully understand some words
   - Should/must have a basic understanding of the 4 or 5 sounds used in Chinese (otherwise the characters will be very hard to remember)
   - Cannot be the ONLY tool used to learn Chinese; need some way to "hear" the words with the correct pronunciation
   
   = One of the best tools to start learning Chinese. Great time saver (don't need to make my own flash cards). I wish there was a traditional and simplified version, or that all phrases and samples also had traditional side, but I'm learning a lot of simplified characters that I had not intended to.
   = Recommend shuffling them to eliminate use of context clues or ordering when testing yourself.
   = MUST HAVE for character recognition; only by repetition and review will reading Chinese become natural and effortless.



4. These cards look impressive, but they have one noticeable flaw. On the front side of the cards, they only have the Chinese characters, and not pinyin. This flaw is unfortunately fatal for beginners and even many intermediates. For many novices, pinyin/conversational Chinese comes first, followed by characters over time.
   
   For those who want to focus on conversational Chinese (and have no/limited interest in written character Chinese), I would recommend "Speak in a Week! Flash! Chinese 1001 Cards" as a better alternative. They have BOTH characters and pinyin on the front, and simple definition on the back. Even better, the cards are colored differently for nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs (colors have been shown to help with memory).
   
   Note: On Amazon, "Speak in a Week! Chinese" is listed as being available in Feb. 2008, but I just picked them up for myself in Borders (Nov. 2007).



5. These are handy if you are trying to learn Chinese characters. You can sort them out as you learn them so the pile of known characters gets bigger and bigger. They have useful phrases on them to put the words in context.

5 comments about Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary.

1. I'm at a real loss as to how this book rated such good reviews. It's possible that it is a good book but I can't tell because the printing is VERY tiny. You would either need the vision of a Barn Owl or a really big magnifying glass just to make out the characters. It's going back tomorrow.



2. Chinese Characters: A Geneology and Dictionary makes searching for Chinese words easy. The author, Rick Harbaugh, has included six indexes
   to help the scholar and learner in what has often been a long, and sometimes futile, search through traditional Chinese dictionaries.
   The use of the radical index had been the only option if the pronunciation of the word is unknown.
   
   Harbaugh includes the traditional radical index, a stroke index, a pronunciation index, an English-to-Chinese index, a Chinese index, and an index using the Bopomofo phonetic system.
   
   The dictionary itself is structured around the radical system; all words
   derived from the same radical are presented in a geneological tree.
   Word combinations, bound forms, are then listed and explained.
   
   Pinyin romanization is used throughout.
   
   I highly recommend Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary.
   I wish this book had been available when I began my study of Chinese many years ago.



3. A unique tool for searching chinese characters for foreign language students. It's easy to read. The book includes all the possible ways of looking for words: by English entries, by Chinese sounds, by stroke counting, by stroke order. The body of the dictionary is designed to illustrate how Chinese characters are actually constructed starting from radicals.



4. I'm studying chinese language for 2 years now, have some conventional dictionaries and use internet for help me learning. After several months of using [...] as my prefered online dictionary to get definitions, and character genealogy, I bought this excellent book that has very clever indexes to find the information using the sounds, character components, pinyin, english meaning, stroke count, radical, etc. It is a great help for learning. Great work !



5. If you want to learn the signs along their shape, take this book.
   The book describes todays state of the signs, and their internal relations.
   
   As somebody of the reviewers said: "this editor fell prey to the seductive charm of cute graphic stories"
   Yes, and intentionally so. This book is for learning todays signs, gives relations and sometimes what is called "folk etymology", to make learning easier. If you are a sinologist, who wants to know how the signs developed diachronically, this book isn't for you. You dont need it in the first place, because you know all the signs already.
   
   I hope this distinction: structure of todays signs vs hard core sinology & etymology is helpful.

5 comments about SPEAK E-Z CHINESE In Phonetic English.

1. This book is what you need as a tourist. No fancy stuff, just essentials. They have a website where you can download the audio files so you can exercise your accent(very important!).



2. This book is an essential book to have i wish i had it the first time i went to China i will take it the next time i go thats for sure the authors of the book desperately need to make one that is easy English so the Chinese will have something that is how valuable this book is well worth the price and worth it's weight in gold please don't ever let this book go out of print it helped me actually pronounce the words so the Chinese people wouldn't think i was an idiot The Best Book You will ever own for the Chinese Language at the price why not buy Two!! it is the book i use to communicate with my fiancee and her family the girl i am going to Marry is Chinese
   :)



3. While this book is fairly well laid out and the content is helpful, be forewarned that this book contains profanity that I found offensive. I bought this book to help me communicate with my newly-adopted teenage daughter from China. I never expected to see the sh- word or the fu- word in a translation book. Who really needs to know how to curse in Chinese? Sheesh.
   
   Just know what you're getting when you buy this.



4. I have bought a few books and an audio course in order to learn some Chinese for fun and also because I wanted to communicate better while visiting China. If I had my pick of just one resource, this awesome, efficient little reference would be it. The best part about it is the pronunciation key for us Westerners to pronounce pinyin, it helps enormously. The book starts with the pronunciation guide and the four tones, then moves on to the essential phrases in every contexts, such as transportation, currency, time and calendar, and restaurants. It teaches both words and short phrases and sentences that introduce you to sentence construction. At the end there's a 130-page dictionary that is surprisingly complete, and includes a pronunciation key for every word. Most of the times I want to know how to say something out of the blue, it's there.
   
   As an added bonus, there's a *lot* of interesting things here that you are unlikely to learn from any other source. I am not sure why they are there but there they are, some are pretty funny. If you want to tell someone she's cute or sexy or that you love her, if you want to curse, call somebody an idiot or crazy or odd, how to call BS, how to say Chicago or California or Spain, how to say general or female/male body parts, how to say football or basketball, how to say honey (both as the sweet liquid and as a term of endearment), how to say "I'm stuffed", how to say so-so, and a bunch of other things, look no further: it's all here.
   
   You can also download an audio version of the book for free from their website, I have not tried it yet but I definitely will. I took this book everywhere I went to in China. Highly recommended.



5. What can I say? I am traveling to China, and looked at many resources to learn some Chinese. This is by far the easiest one to learn quickly and easily for someone who only speaks English. Their online resources and responsiveness to inquiries are a big bonus. The authors truly care about improving relations between China and other countries, and have made this available for a very reasonable price.

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar.

1. Schaum's has been a standard supplement for the study of any collegiate subject. This publication is no different. I highly recommend this book as a supplement to Mandarin study. It's my reference for written Chinese.



2. As I wrote in another review on Modern Chinese Grammar, I am developing a course for English speakers to learn Mandarin. What I didn't write is that if I could only have one Chinese grammar this would be it. This is an outline. It is not as complete or functional as the Modern Chinese Grammar. However, it contains all that you would need to master Chinese patterns ( there is a scholarly argument as to whether the language actually has a grammar).
   
   I have found information in here that I found no where else. This is a concise, distillation of how the language functions. Recently my Chinese teacher showed me a pattern but couldn't explain the logic and rules of use behind it. She said, " I can't tell you why but this is the way we say it." Of course, I found the information in Schaum's.



3. Although I didn't have time to read through the entire book, I am sure this will be very helpful as a reference book.
   
   I am not happy that I had to wait over 1.5 months to receive the book, but I can tell that Amazon made their efforts to ship this item seperatly with another book that I ordered in March, which was not in stock for long time.



4. Chinese has grammar? Well, not so much grammar as it applies to say, European language, but rather sentence patterns, suffix ending particles and lots and lots of them. This is an excellent book for explaining those sentence patterns and particles. This should help whip your Chinese into shape.
   
   Troy Parfitt, author



5. I'm currently living and studying in China. Although I'm a full-time Chinese student, all of my text books are written by Chinese educators. This is a great thing especially when I get more advanced in my study. However, right now I'm more toward the beginning and the English explanations in my textbooks are often mistranslated and confusing. For those of you who are toward the end of their first term of Chinese study (or if you have a general understanding of the language) this book will help you greatly.
   
   I've found it written in a way that is easier to grasp than many of my own Chinese textbooks. The readability of Schaum's book is what really sold me into singing its praises.
   
   I too am working my way through the Pimsleur series and this book does a great job of accompanying and clarifying some of the grammar points made in those lessons.
   
   Some people have said that this book isn't for the beginner. Well maybe so and maybe not. I will say that after a term of study I have a lot of questions that this book has helped me answer. My only regret is not purchasing it sooner as it could have helped me after the first month.

5 comments about Conversational Mandarin Chinese: Learn to Speak and Understand Mandarin with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's).

1. Upfront notice: This package offers the same first 15 lessons as in Pimsleur's Mandarin I. (Wish I'd known, because I bought them all over again, in order to continue with just the next 15 lessons!)
   
   I like learning languages and have used all kinds of tapes / CDs to practice in the car. Used in that way, this program is tops! (A friend from mainland China was astonished at how, in just a few weeks, I started speaking in fluent sentences, with a near-perfect accent -- and using current, idiomatic expressions.)
   
   With Pimsleur, you won't progress through many topics or an extensive vocabulary -- but what you encounter, you'll learn well. (The program repeats concepts over and over, configured in different ways to avoid monotony and to embed them into your head.) And--as far as it goes--the material is all high-value, immediate-use.
   
   To really learn Mandarin, you'll also need to take up other resources about the written characters and grammar, and to build vocabulary. And be aware: this program proceeds at a fairly sedate pace. If you want to go zero-to-60 in Mandarin for a trip to Beijing in 2 weeks, you need to find a different approach. For me, this is a way not to waste time in the car--and I go through about one lesson per week until I know the content cold! But Pimsleur has been an incredibly effective kick-off to what clearly will be a lifetime of effort . . . like losing 10 pounds, the first week of a diet.



2. I really like the Pimsleur series. What you learn sticks pretty well due to the repetition.
   
   However, Mandarin is just so ridiculously complex and different from English, that trying to learn it just through CD's is almost a joke.



3. These CD's were worth twice the price. Knowing absolutely nothing about Mandarin, I listen to them while driving and amazingly, I find myself remembering and correctly pronouncing Mandarin. Languages are difficult for me and I had a special mental block about the difficulty of Mandarin.
   Anyone who wants to/needs to begin learning Mandarin should buy these CD's.



4. Let me first state that I recommend this product to anyone with no prior experience with Mandarin or someone who wants to casually learn a little. Here are the pros and cons.
   
   Pros:
   1) CD format is great
   2) Lessons are short and easy
   3) You can learn very quickly IF you dedicate the time
   4) Lessons learned in the previous section are reinforced in the next.
   
   Cons:
   1) There is no pin yin to go with the CDs. I had a hard time distinguishing between, for example, "ni" and "yi". This is probably because I listen in my car instead of at home. Your best bet is to listen through your home stereo system or walkman.
   2) The words and pharases you learn are not necessarily the ones you want. For example, in Lesson 4 you are taught how to say "Where is Long Peace street?" Who needs to know this??
   3) There is no discussion of sentence or phrase structure so that you can form your own. For example, the sentence "You speak Mandarin very well" is structured "You Mandarin speak very well". The serious learner needs lessons on sentence structure.
   
   Overall this is a good beginner product. If you're a serious learner, you'll need additional resources like a dictionary, phoenitics guide, and phrase book.



5. I love Pimsleur's method, but NOT FOR STARTING Mandarin. Needs more explanation, not "listen and repeat".
   
   For an English speaker, Mandarin requires more up-front explanation of how the pitched syllables work.
   
   I've used Pimsleur's audio CDs for learning basic Japanese and Spanish and *LOVED* it.
   
   But when I bought Pimsleur's Mandarin, I was stumped. I couldn't even imitate the very first sentence, no matter how many times I went back and tried again. My mouth just didn't know how to make that sound. And there was no explanation, just "listen and repeat".
   
   After an hour of trying one sentence of this Pimsleur Mandarin, I had to give up. Knowing there must be a better way, I was about to take private lessons.
   
   Instead, the brand new "Michel Thomas Method" to Mandarin has just been released by Dr. Harold Goodman and it made all the difference in the world. A completely different approach that I feel needs to come FIRST, BEFORE you get into the Pimsleur method.
   
   In the Michel Thomas method, someone really takes the time to explain the sounds and grammar. No memorization, just explanation then experience. It gets you really understanding the basic building blocks of Mandarin first, so that when you're done with its 10-hour audio CD program, THEN you can come back here to Pimsleur's Mandarin and it'll all make sense.