Chinese Books

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters

Alison Matthews, Laurence Matthews

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tuttle Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $17.39

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Subjects -> Reference -> Dictionaries & Thesauruses -> Foreign Language -> Chinese
Subjects -> Reference -> Foreign Languages -> Instruction -> Chinese

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I agree with the other glowing reviews. One of the hard things about Mandarin is remembering the tone of the words. There are four tones - high, rising, falling/rising, and falling. The characters are either building block characters or formed out of two (and rarely three) building block. E.g., the character for good is comprised of the symbol for woman and child and it has a falling/rising tone.

The book has a "dorky" story about each character that help you remember the constituent building blocks which has one of 4 prototype characters woven into the story depending on the tone. Thus, if I am trying to remember the character for lamp, there is story about a giant (which signifies first tone) and fire and nail (the two constituent buiding blocks) plus a sound word which helps to jog the memory.

As someone who went through medical school, I appreciate good mnemonics. This is an excellent book. If you want to learn the hanzi (Chinese characters), just get this book! It teaches the 800 most common characters. But also, it teaches a method to learn even more. When I see a character now, I start making up my own stories following the pattern of the book.

Editorial Review:

Aimed at helping students of Chinese learn and remember Chinese characters—including the pronunciation of characters—fast and effectively, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 is a systematic study aid to this difficult language.
Designed specifically to ease students into the daunting process of learning Chinese characters, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 incorporates the key principle of visual imagery. A book for serious learners of Chinese, it can be used alongside (or after, or even before) a course in the Chinese language. Concise, clear and appealing, this practical guide is well designed and includes an easy-to-use index.

Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar

Claudia Ross

Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: McGraw-Hill Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $2.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Provides Excellent Structure 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

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

Editorial Review:

Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar is designed to assist beginning and intermediate students of Mandarin Chinese develop and enhance their knowledge of Chinese grammar. Chinese morphology can be intimidating to students. By simplifying the learning process, this practical book enriches the student's understanding of the Chinese language.

The accessible summary of the major features of Chinese grammar complete with clear explanations of terms and usage is especially helpful to students. The book features 200 sets of practice exercises as well as Chinese-English and English-Chinese glossaries. It serves as a much-needed supplement to textbooks and class materials currently being used in first-and second-year college-level courses.

Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Modern Grammars)

Claudia Ross

Amazon Price: $35.95 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Routledge Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $32.62

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Very well done 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

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!!

Editorial Review:

A brand new title for the Modern Grammars series to add to the existing European Languages and to the forthcoming Japanese title. The grammar will present Chinese as spoken in the People's Republic of China (specifically, that spoken around Beijing) and give all examples in simplified characters, traditional characters, romanization (pinyin) and in translation. It will follow the series structure (two parts - one for grammar structures, one for functions), with an accompanying workbook. Linguistic jargon will be kept to a minimum throughout. We will also be creating an accompanying homepage for the workbook with additional exercises (and a reporting system enabling students to send their results to their tutors); this we hope will go further to enhance the performance of the workbook.

Baby's First Words in Chinese (Baby's First Words)

Living Language

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Living Language Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $9.46

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

FANTASTIC! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a GREAT product. I am really impressed. Even though the product is intended for 0-2 year olds, I bought it for my 26 month old son who has a mandarin-speaking babysitter. I am so happy I did. The CD is basically what I hoped for. Lots of great songs and rhymes, but what I didn't expect was how great the booklet that accompanies it would be. It shows how well researched and organized they were when they put this product together. I have been teaching Chinese graduate students English as a Second Language for 10 years and I'm convinced if they had had this product as babies and toddlers their perception and production of English would be better today. You will not be disappointed!

Editorial Review:

Before they focus in on their native language, babies have an amazing ability to hear and absorb sounds that adults unconsciously block out, like the subtleties of a foreign language. Baby’s First Words in Chinese is an introduction to the sounds of Chinese and “locks in” a child's ability to learn these sounds.

Created by linguistic experts, Baby’s First Words in Chinese is designed for newborns to toddlers up to two years old. Each package includes:

·60 minute CD of sweet and soothing songs, rhymes, words and stories
·Parents’ guide that explains how children learn languages
·Lyric sheet so that parents can sing along to the songs on the CD with their children

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

Pimsleur

Amazon Price: $32.97 List Price: $49.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pimsleur Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $17.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This Conversational program contains 8 hours of interactive audio-only instruction, effective language learning with real-life spoken practice sessions.

HEAR IT, LEARN IT, SPEAK IT®

What is the Pimsleur® difference?

The Pimsleur Method provides the most effective language-learning program ever developed. The Pimsleur Method gives you quick command of Mandarin Chinese structure without tedious drills. Learning to speak Mandarin Chinese can actually be enjoyable and rewarding.

The key reason most people struggle with new languages is that they aren't given proper instruction, only bits and pieces of a language. Other language programs sell only these pieces -- dictionaries; grammar books and instructions; lists of hundreds or thousands words and definitions; audios containing useless drills. They leave it to you to assemble these pieces as you try to speak. Pimsleur enables you to spend your time learning to speak the language rather than just studying its parts.

When you were learning English, could you speak before you knew how to conjugate verbs? Of course you could. That learning process is what Pimsleur replicates. Pimsleur presents the whole language as one integrated piece so you can succeed.

With Pimsleur you get:

• Grammar and vocabulary taught together in everyday conversation,
• Interactive audio-only instruction that teaches spoken language organically,
• The flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere,
• 30-minute lessons designed to optimize the amount of language you can learn in one sitting.

Millions of people have used Pimsleur to gain real conversational skills in new languages quickly and easily, wherever and whenever -- without textbooks, written exercises, or drills.

Conversational Mandarin Chinese includes the 10 lessons from Pimsleur's Basic Mandarin Chinese plus an additional 6 lessons.

The 16 lessons in Conversational Mandarin Chinese are the same first 16 lessons in the Pimsleur Comprehensive Mandarin Chinese Level 1.

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

Philip Yungkin Lee

Amazon Price: $24.45 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tuttle Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $15.86

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Fatal flaw for conversational Chinese learners 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 11 people found this review helpful.

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).

Editorial Review:

Whether on a train from Beijing to Shanghai or sitting under a tree in Berkeley, you can be practicing your Chinese with this quick and easy-to-use set of flashcards. Chinese in a Flash Volume 1 has a full range of features to help beginners and intermediate learners through character recognition, vocabulary recognition, revision, and testing. It includes indexes by radical, stroke count, and alphabetically by pinyin romanization.

Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition

William McNaughton

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tuttle Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $12.08

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Why buy a character book? 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

This is a revised third edition of Tuttle’s Reading & Writing Chinese.
This new edition focuses on the internationally recognized test of proficiency in Chinese, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK). All 800 characters prescribed for Level A are covered here, and the 1400+ Levels B and C characters are covered concisely.
All of the prescribed vocabulary for Levels A-C of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi is included among the example compounds. Knowledge of the 2,200+ characters and 5,253+ vocabulary items covered will equip students to take the test at either the Basic or the Elementary-Intermediate standard. Success in the top band of the Basic standard is sufficient to enter college in China.

The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition: The Quick and Easy Method to Learn the 100 Most Basic Chinese Characters (Tuttle Language Library)

Laurence Matthews, Alison Matthews

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tuttle Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $6.04

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Organized, helpful, great workbook. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am learning to speak Mandarin but felt I needed more knowledge of the written language to get a more comprehensive feel for the language. I looked around and settled on this one and it was a good choice. It has just enough information for me to learn the character and its meaning as well as some commonly used phrases in which each character appears. It gives ample space to practice the strokes of the character. The characters are also in a type size that makes it easier to read than some other books I've looked at.

Editorial Review:

The major struggle facing all beginning Chinese language students is to learn to recognize, read and write hundreds of Chinese characters. This book adopt a structural approach that helps students overcome this initial difficulty and quickly master the basic Chinese characters fundamental to this language. Intended for beginning students, The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition contains carefully selected and sequenced characters for rapid and effective learning. Each Chinese character is shown separately on a single page, along with its English definitions, hanyu pinyin romanization, alternate form, a stroke-order guide and ample writing space.
Two indexes—alphabetical by the English meanings and by pinyin romanization—are provided at the back of each book for quick and easy reference, along with extra sheets of blank boxes for writing practice.

Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary

Rick Harbaugh

Amazon Price: $17.95 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $13.84

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 79 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Worthless 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 11 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

This dictionary is designed to help students understand, appreciate and remember Chinese characters. It has the following features: -Every character entry includes a brief traditional Chinese etymology. -Genealogical charts highlight the connections between characters, showing the creation of more than 4000 characters from less than 200 simple pictographs and ideographs. -Mandarin standards in China and Taiwan are distinguished. -Simplified forms for each character are given. -Character entries list all words which use the character in any position, allowing a word to be found even if the first character is unknown. -English definitions are referenced in an English-Chinese index. -A word pronunciation index allows students to directly search for an overheard word without having to guess the initial character. -A stroke count index lists every character by number of strokes.

Oxford Beginner's Chinese Dictionary

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $8.02

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Each Oxford Beginner's Bilingual Dictionary is designed to offer English speaking adult learners a comprehensive, straightforward introduction to foreign languages, covering all the vocabulary needed for the first years of study, along with notes on grammar and usage and guidance on the culture where the language is spoken.
These easy-to-use references break from standard dictionary design. Clear entries with examples showing how the language works in context make it quick and simple to find the translation you're looking for, and the bold, color layout makes the dictionary easy to navigate, allowing you to get to grips with the language fast. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable, and all parts of the entry are spelled out in full, avoiding confusing jargon and abbreviations. Grammar and usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls, and thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in real life.
At the center of each dictionary is a section devoted to useful information on the country, countries, or regions where the language is spoken. This includes background on lifestyles and culture, tips on etiquette and interaction, and a phrasefinder that provides handy phrases for use when traveling abroad. The dictionary also includes a section on core vocabulary--all the words you absolutely must know at a beginner's level, whether you are a student, traveler, or business person.
The Oxford Beginner's Bilingual Dictionary is the perfect tool for adult language learners who need basic vocabulary at their fingertips fast.