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. Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language. This means that the meaning of a word is determined not only by the vowels and consonants that compose its sound, but also by the change in pitch in the speaker's voice. While "Chinese for Dummies" claims to help beginning learners navigate this difficult sound system with its chatty and casual writing style, it instead encourages replacement of the Pinyin pronunciation system that 1.4 billion Chinese speakers world-wide have used for decades with a new English-based approximation that brashly ignores tone completely. Speaking Chinese without proper tone is akin to speaking English using only one vowel. "Chinese for Dummies" seems to repeatedly ignore this point (mentioning that readers will "eventually" get to tones) and I fear that this neglect, at best, confuses and frustrates casual learners, and at worst, distracts and hinders serious students of Mandarin Chinese. I can't comment on the book's effect on learners who are also dummies.
   
   Nathan Dummitt
   author of Chinese Through Tone & Color

4 comments about All Things Considered: Advanced Reader of Modern Chinese..

1. This Chinese language text is appropriate for intermediate to advanced students. It contains 32 passages divided into two sections. The first part is a series of dialogues while the second part is a collection of newspaper articles. Each lesson is followed by grammar points used in the text, with additional examples, and by exercises based on grammar and vocabulary. Both vocabulary and passages are given in simplified and traditional characters. Chinese (pinyin) and English indexes with page references are also provided.

   This book has many strengths and, as a student, it's one of the better Chinese language textbooks I've come across. The dialogue and article format exposes students to both spoken and written Chinese. Also, passages are long enough to familiarize one with vocabulary and grammar but not so long as to become repetitive. Occasionally subjects are recycled but in a way that reinforces vocabulary and/or demonstrates variations within the language. Probably the most refreshing asset is the scope of topics. Everything from food, travel, and etiquette to Chinese culture to social and political issues (and yes, even sex) are covered. This is one of the few books that provide relevant vocabulary and discussion for students and does not feel vocab force feeding.




2. This book progresses from traditional speech lessons to more difficult newspaper readings that have been edited to better suit the level of students. The vocabulary/crib sheets are extremely helpful as well as the exercises. The only slight drawback is that while the text is written in both traditional and simplified characters,the exercises are written only in simplified characters.



3. Many Chinese textbooks try to be all things to all people. This book, however, is written by for American students. The articles will be of interest to them, the explanations will be easy to understand, and best of all, the book includes both simplified and traditional characters.

   I also like how each chapter is relatively short. If you find it uninteresting for some reason, you don't have to suffer too long; there's another one coming up behind.




4. many students in my class newly perchased this book less than 5 months ago, and within 2 months of barly any use, many students were complaining that the book's bindings were falling apart! almost all of the class's books were falling apart. also, many of the chapters have hundreds of vocab words, but many of the vocab words are repeated and repeated! it is nice that the book gives both simplified and traditional characters, but the grammar examples and the homework exercises are only done in simplified...which is a real pain if you only know traditional.

5 comments about Mandarin Chinese-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (BILINGUAL VISUAL DICTIONARY).

1. I agree with F. J. Powell's critique that this book has a serious Western bias and lacks many important Chinese words. But this 320-page book is so full of useful information and presents it in such an attractive visual format (which should motivate study and facilitate knowledge retention) at such a reasonable price that it warrants five stars.
   
   Chinese textbooks tend to stress Chinese customs, holidays, minority groups, historical figures and events, etc. So it's not so bad that this book goes in the opposite direction. Only a thick, unabridged dictionary will have every word in it, and reading such a tome cover-to-cover is hardly the most effective method for learning a language.
   
   Another negative about this visual dictionary is that, although it does present verbs, it's mostly about nouns and some adjectives. And there are virtually no sentences. So it won't teach you Chinese. But it will definitely help enrich your vocabulary if you find yourself (as I often do) starting a sentence only to stumble on a noun, point at an object and say "neige dongxi." I've tried to explain baseball and (American) football to my father-in-law, and it's basically impossible. But this book actually has several pages on these subjects that I haven't found in any other books. It has 40+ visual pages just on food.
   
   I wish the Chinese character font were larger, but the book is small enough to carry around, which is another plus.
   
   If you want to learn nouns (esp. if you live in the West with Mandarin-speaking in-laws, as I do), get this beautiful, well-organized, informative book.



2. This is a nice little tome for browsing and referencing, though is not a replacement for a standard dictionary. I would agree with the others about the strong Western bias -- most people studying Chinese are interested in some aspects of culture as well, and thus would be interested in relevant words. It takes a while to figure out where some words are categorised, though there is an index in back. It also does not show traditional characters, or alternative pronounciations or uses of words as may occur in Hong Kong or Taiwan, and again a good standard Chinese-English dictionary would be a better option since most will show you the variants. Some uses and prounciations in this text are simply wrong to native Mandarin speakers from HK or Taiwan.



3. This compact, square-shaped visual dictionary is the best of its kind as far as I've seen. Being a visual dictionary, the majority of the words are nouns, but under many categories there are additional related adjectives and verbs, along with fixed phrases. Including nearly 6,000 nouns, the book covers the majority of objects that students would seek to know, while at the same time it doesn't overdo it with superfluous, obscure vocabulary. Ideal for English-speaking students of Mandarin or Chinese-speaking students of English as a reference.



4. While this dictionary includes attractive images that encourage browsing, the characters are somewhat small and the organization of the book by theme (rather than in alphabetical or Pinyin order) makes quick look-up difficult. Also, I have a hard time believing that simply listing all the body parts (for example) is an effective way to learn the Chinese words. Discussion of characters/etymology and Chinese-specific culture is limited, but this might be a fun book to look at with a non-English-speaking Chinese friend in order to facilitate communication.
   
   
   Nathan Dummitt
   author of Chinese Through Tone & Color



5. I was disappointed with this visual dictionary. I suppose I should have paid closer attention to the other reviews before making the purchase. My biggest complaint is that the font of the Chinese characters is much too small. Any character that is more than a few strokes is virtually impossible to distinguish. You would need a magnifying glass to be able to read the characters. I know why the book has this problem. All of the visual dictioanries are essentially the same -- they simply change the text for each language. Since the Chinese version requires both Pinyin and the Chinese characters, there isn't enough space to use a larger font. The cookie-cutter approach also means that the book is not culturally "in tune" with many items that you would find in China. Finally, since the dictionary is all nouns, I think it should include the corresponding measure words/classifiers for the nouns. This is a huge oversight, making the dictionary less valuable. I need to use another reference book to find out the corresponding measure words. The pictures in the dictionary are nice, but that doesn't overcome the flaws I have mentioned. While the cost of the book was relatively low, I still don't think it was worth purchasing. Oh well.

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. 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).



2. 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.



3. I bought this book years ago because it was on one of these Amazon lists, and when I got it, I couldn't figure out what to do with it. Because I was learning Chinese in university, I didn't have a shortage of materials like dictionaries. Then why "bei danzi" / memorize single characters? That's the way Chinese study English in college, which is why it's so tough for them. No. Take the "read, write, speak, listen" approach. I guess if you're learning to write all by yourself you might need something like this. I don't know.



4. If memorization is the key to learning Chinese, then this book is the best tool around. It systematically introduces every character so that one learns the simpler characters first that are subsequently combined to make new characters. The 10 pages or so of introduction is extremely informative and I suggest to anyone using this book to begin by reading it thoroughly.



5. If at all there is a single book to learn Mandarin Chinese script, this is certainly not the one. Once the expectations are made reasonable, this is indeed a great book for a beginner. The book is very well produced, on thick paper, with an attractive layout, and it is as well organized as a military camp! Although it is an encyclopedic listing of Mandarin ("man daring"?) characters, I found it to be quite interesting to skim through, and found a few characters to be quite cute.
   
   The author does a remarkable job in trying to make sense of a non alphabetical script that does not lend itself to any such attempt. Characters are grouped by number of strokes they contain, by numbers 1-1000 (there are 6-50,000 characters, I am told), and by English alphabetical order. None of these makes learning the script any less intimidating. Let's admit that the energy expenditure has to be weighed against the desired gain.
   
   Learning by immersion ("sink or swim") may be the best method to learn a language, but it is not relevant here. Next is learning to read and write its alphabet, which is apparently not the case with the Chinese language. I have tried CDs and tapes of conversational Chinese, but to memorize hundreds of meaningless phrases is hardly better than mastering the (non)alphabet.
   
   Ordinarily, learning through the grammar and usage is not considered a good method. However, I found it to be more practical for learning Chinese. I bought Claudia Ross' book Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Modern Grammars) (see my review), and the McNaughton's book at the same time. The Ross' book gives an adequate introduction to the grammar, and the remaining 3/4 of the book gives its application. I could begin to learn conversational Chinese fairly easily and painlessly. The present book satisfied my curiosity, and and curbed my unwarranted jubilation.
   
   I have tried creatively to simplify and teach foreign languages to a native English speaker with varying success Sanskrit: An Appreciation Without Apprehension, A Crash Course to Learn the Gujarati Script (Setubandh Language Series Volume: 3), and A programmed text to learn Gujarati (Setubandh language series). I wish to find a simpler way to learn/teach Mandarin Chinese. Pending that, I highly recommend both, Ross' and McNaughton's books, which are complementary.

5 comments about Beginner's Chinese with 2 Audio CDs.

1. This product is good, but is definately not the best. The first complaint I have is that it does not explain the use of the CD's, and it took me a while to figure out how to use the CDs (which only pronounces the vocab and letters).
   The second (2nd) complaint I have is that it give little to no coverage of the pronunciation. Which normally would be fine, but because this book is completely based on spoken chinese (as stated in the intro) I would have hoped that there would be something like guidelines on how to pronounce the letters.
   Finnally, it does throw a lot of things at you all at once, but if you take your time, and practise for like a day after each lesson, and practice some more, and basically go through the book SLOWLY, you can learn a lot.
   So if you by the book, I suggest getting something that would teach you chinese pronunciation, and, because this book focuses less on written chinese and more on spoken chinese, a guide to writing chinese as well.
   All in all, this book could be better, but isn't bad.



2. This book is too difficult for beginners plus you have to sit as if in a classroom and follow the CD with the book. I also bought Pimsleur CD's for beginner's Chinese and it was an excellent choice.
   I'm glad I didn't spend much money for this product.



3. I'm just starting out with (teaching myself) the Chinese language, and this book seemed like it was the best one to start with (being under $20 was a really nice bonus too!) I asked a native speaker to help me choose this, and she approved of it over several others. Anyway, I'm on the second lesson, and I've found it to be a good introduction. There seems to be a nice balance of vocabulary, grammar and general insight of the language in each lesson.
   
   The only complaint I have with this book is the format of the CD that accompanies the lessons when compared to the format of the lessons: The book has sentence structures and conversations before the vocabulary, but the CD has arranged them vocabulary first and follows up with sentence patterns and conversations (which is the more logical order.) The complaint is small enough to not knock any points off, but worth mentioning as a heads up to prospective buyers.
   
   A nice accompaniment for those interested in thoroughly learning the language might be "Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition" by McNaughton.



4. For native English speakers, the book is excellent. However the CD leaves much to be desired. The CD is all in Chinese, and therefore difficult to follow for a complete beginner in the language.



5. I'd give it 0 stars if I could. I used to be a language teacher and this book uses a very outdated methodology (audio lingual) which is based on repetition rather than a more modern approach to language learning called communicative competence.
   
   If you sign up for to learn Chinese and they use this book run do not walk to the registrar to drop the course and find a program that uses a more up-to-date approach to language learning.

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

1. + 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.



2. 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).



3. 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.



4. Despite what others have said, these have a 2003 copyright and have Simplified/Traditional + stokes on the one side; and on the other sid there are a few examples and a few uses of the character in different compounds.
   
   Pros:
   1) I like the size because they are portable and they seem to give you many of the most frequent characters.
   
   2) I am using T'ung and Pollards colloquial Chinese and on chapter 14/17, I have been able to use about 3/4ths of the cards.
   
   3) These cards are a) a cheaper than many othes and b) you can expand them more than any other set by adding volumes 2,3,4 which will give you about 1800 characters total.
   
   Cons:
   1) Use: The translation is on the top left corner along with the small version of the character so you need to cover the character with your thumb and try not to look at the rest of the card if you want to use them in reverse.
   
   2) Use: would have been nice to list the character's type (i.e.: M, SV, V, MV, ...).
   
   3) Customer Service: I seem to have lost the 16-page booklet which allows you to look up the characters by number. Although I emailed Tuttle a couple of weeks ago to see if I could get a PDF of the 16 page booklet, they have not responded.



5. These cards are well made, no problem there, and the design of the cards are great. The problem is that each character is printed separately on its own card, whereas a high percentage of Chinese vocabulary are made of of two characters; for example, "garden" is hua-yuan, but, there's a character card for hua and another card for yuan. It would be like English cards that had a card for base and another card for ball, but, no card for baseball as one word, or for sweet potato or for study hall. The cards would work well for learning to recognize distinct, separate characters, but not for practical vocabulary practice : you may not mind this, and I wouldn't have imagined it to be a problem, either, but, for what it's worth, I no longer use the cards (instead,I have made my own so I have all of those two-character words on one card...).

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

1. 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...



2. 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.



3. 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!!



4. This is a simple, straight forward book to study the Mandarin Chinese language. It is actually a myths-buster. Having had a cursory glance at my copy borrowed from the library, I was convinced that Chinese is not particularly more difficult to learn than any other language. Although the authors do not claim this to be a book for the beginner, even a pre-beginner like myself found it to be easy to follow.
   
   Writing the Chinese characters still remains elusive, and awe inspiring, but this work succeeds eminently in making sense of how those letters combine to form words. Imagine the delight one can get to find out that Chinese nouns, and pronouns do not undergo any changes with gender, tenses, cases, etc. in most instances.
   
   This excellent work encourages the student by removing the fear generated by fear mongers and "linguo-phobes" by talking about 3-6000 characters, some with 40-50 pen strokes, several dialects, four tones of saying a sound, and so on, without ever explaining how such a language has survived for 30+ centuries.
   
   The customary approach of learning the alphabet, before learning to use the language, would probably frighten away many new comers to Chinese. Grammar (first part of the book) generally is not the best way to begin learning a new language. However, quickly reading through the early pages of this work takes one a long way. It gives much needed confidence. There is no learning by rote, memorizing lists of words, or phrases without understanding them.
   
   I have not yet reached the applied grammar (second part), but I am beginning to feel quite comfortable with the language. The book is very well organized, elegantly produced, and more than reasonably priced. One would be happy to pay that much for a lesson or two, and will get out only a fraction of what the book offers. I am ordering my own copy right now.



5. Claudia Ross improves and expands the work she did for Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar with a thorough and easy-to-use grammar guide for both beginning and intermediate learners. Chapter titles separate the language into clear and concise entires that are easy to navigate and provide hundreds of example sentences. "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar" is exhaustively cross-indexed by chapter number to help learners distinguish between multiple uses of the same word/character. Overall, an excellent resource for serious students of the language!
   
   
   Nathan Dummitt
   author of Chinese Through Tone & Color

No comments about New Practical Chinese Reader Workbook, Vol. 1.