[.ca] Practical Chinese Reader I (ISBN 7100000882)

Try something else:
I used this book at a college course in Chinese. The book has flaws though. My teacher had to point out mistakes in the book such as on page 475 where it says that zu2qiu2 is football (it really is soccer) and on page 324 when it says a ke4ting1 is a drawing room (really a living room). There are many other mistakes in the book to point out. The book is terribly outdated and uses many words and phrases which are not heard often today. The book itself looks quite old and was most likely typed up on a typewriter. There is no way to pick up how to pronounce pinyin from this book unless you are taught from a cassette tape or by a real person. My teacher has already opted to change the book for next year. One of the earlier comments said this book had no propaganda. Yeah right. This book is full of it \opropaganda, not da4bian4 =) \c. Let me cite some examples. On page 19 it clearly says. "But Chinese characters have serious drawbacks... Reforms should be carried out to make the characters easier." Another one on page 78 "The simplified forms, as compared with their complex equivalents, are much easier to learn, to memorize, to read and to write." Obviously a biased view is trying to be imposed on the reader. I really haven't tried any other books, but as far as this one is concerned you might want to reconsider if you are looking for a good book to learn Chinese from.

This series is actually one of the best you can get.:
Granted this series is rather old and slightly outdated, but it has been in my experience that such methods are actually some of the better finds on the market. There is nothing wrong with the vocabulary as the Chinese taught is the modern standard speech of the People's Republic and the English employed is that of the British Commonwealth: This is not surprising as the ones who would have the copyrights to either language would be the Chinese and the English. The word "zuqiu" is based on the word "football" as "soccer" is primarily American usage; the word "keting", which roughly translates to "guest hall" (the place where one receives guests), has its equivalents in "drawing room", "living room", or "salon" - all of which refer to the same thing. There are some words which may have dwindled in usage in the past five years like "tongzhi", comrade, but these are moot points as they are in the minority. The pronunciation and grammar are impeccably explained and demonstrated but do use a good amount of linguistics vocabulary, a method not frequently used in overall language instruction in the United States. There are plenty of exercises; stroke order charts for newly learned characters are only in books I and II. It is highly probable that after the diligent completion of this six volume course, one will have a solid foundation and a strong command of Chinese. One will also have a better understanding of China or the Chinese as the dialogues and readings illustrate everyday life, common situations, modern Chinese thought, modern Chinese behaviour, and explain items of artistic and historical cultural interest. There is no propaganda in these books... and if it seems like there is, it only reflects the overlooked obvious fact that Communism has permeated all facets of life in China including the culture and overall outlook on life, not to mention that the Commercial Press is a state owned enterprise and that these books were composed long before the recent commercial and societal reforms, both of which have been questionably beneficial to China despite Western approval. Many of the images do recall the nineteen seventies, but with the recent retro-revival style trend that began in the early to mid-1990s, they are now more delightful than they are distasteful. The typography is excellent; the books were actually typeset by metal press rather than typewritten. The print quality is not terrible, but for improved quality, there are editions printed in Hong Kong with bleached paper (or high grade off-white paper), richer inking, and sturdier binding. These are more difficult to find unless one has a good Chinese bookshop in the area. The paper used in the Mainland produced editions is unbleached natural pulp based paper; it is somewhat better than newsprint despite how it looks. I have had the original edition for more than ten years without a problem with the binding. The Pracitcal Chinese Reader series is available in Arabic, French, Spanish, German, and Russian editions, and probably not as widely distributed as the English series is outside of China. There are tapes available from a company in San Francisco, but I would advise against it as the speakers are not native Northern Chinese speakers. Audio supplements are generally not provided for Asian and African languages as they are for most European languages. The best bet is to find native speakers from Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei province, and so forth, or to watch or listen to Chinese Central broadcasts via satellite television or internet radio as the standard is specifically Northern based. VCD format of well-produced television series - Chinese telenovelas - from China are now available; there is ample dialogue, scenes of Chinese life, and subtitles in Chinese for those who need them (non-speakers, the deaf, and students). Be warned that overseas Chinese may not be a good barometer or a way of comparing your progress as the majority of them come from areas that do not naturally speak Northern Chinese, or areas that speak a highly mutated form of it from inundation by Southern Chinese languages. Moreover, the level of language that these books instruct may be more elevated, cultured, and intellectual in flavour than one would encounter from overseas Chinese who were not raised or educated under the PRC system. Overall, I highly recommend this series as one of the best ways to begin studying Chinese and to advance solidly in the language. Equip yourself with a good dictionary, a guide to master handwritten Chinese («Learn to Write Chinese Characters» by Johan Bjorksten, Yale, is spot on), and a few Chinese friends, and you will be on your way to linguistic success. Also, remember to practise, practise, practise. Chinese is not a difficult language to learn as many of the myths about the language would have us to believe, but the key lies in devoting time to practise it. Good luck!...

The good books always fall apart:
There are three main points I'd like to make about this book, but first here's what I think about it. The book takes the reader at a decent pace, explaining pronunciation, grammar concepts, and whatnot in great detail. There are exercises to practice that one can do with a partner or by himself. Vocabulary is relatively slow at the beginning, but so it is with all language books. It's great if you want to learn Chinese and have had a little bit of exposure to a language with a different writing system. Finally -- the reader must decide if this is okay with them -- in every chapter, the beginning text is written in both Chinese characters and pinyin (english letters), so you can't really be sure that you are reading it on your own or using the pinyin as a crutch. However, there are practice texts throughout later chapters that give you the chance to read characters alone. The second volume of this book takes away the pinyin, so you can't use it like in the first book. Here are my points: (1) THE BINDING ON THIS BOOK IS OLD, AND THUS IT FELL APART AFTER TWO DAYS OF READING IT. I'm not too sure if this is a problem with this particular shipment, or if all these books will do that, but I didn't buy the book to look pretty, I'll just tape it up. (2) THE BOOK IS BEST FOR THOSE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCE IN LEARNING ANOTHER LANGUAGE AND THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO LINGUISTICS TERMS AND IDEAS, OTHERWISE YOU NEED A TEACHER. Thankfully, I am both, so this book is incredibly helpful. They have diagrams to show the position of the tongue, and use words such as "fricative, affricative, hard palette, aveolar" to describe how to pronounce the words. If you don't know these words, you'll be confused on pronunciation; you should get help from someone else. However, if you know linguistics, this is what you're looking for. (3) THE BOOK IS OLD, SO THERE ARE SOME PHILOSOPHIES AND TERMS THAT ARE NOT USED TODAY. Based on another review, I've learned that some of these words are incorrect. As well, the book usually mentions something about the Chinese attempting to create an alphabet, and thus they use simplified characters as a bridge to get to that point (...). As far as I know, the Chinese have no intention of doing such, because to be honest, learning Chinese characters is not that hard for Chinese. Enjoy the book if you get it, because it's a good one, but make sure you have some tape handy to bind it back together.

The best starter:
I used this book for 2 Chinese college courses and it's really great. The way you learn new vocabulary by immediately seeing how they are used in sentences is fantastic. Also, they don't have any sentences that are translated word for word. You just learn to use the words and grammar correcty by seing them used over and over again, which I think is the best way to learn a language. DO NOT GET THIS BOOK WITHOUT GETTING THE AUDIO TAPES WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!! If this is your first chinese learning program, then there is NO way that you can pronounce the words correctly without hearing them on the tapes first! The tapes' pronounciation are crystal clear, pronouncing the "x, q, j, and zh" perfectly (the best Mandarin pronounciation I've ever heard). It is true that the book does contain SOME errors and I had a teacher who gave some commentary on some of the things (really not that serious), but I think this book with the tapes, is an excellent starter for conversational Chinese Mandarin.

Ah, Palanka and Gubo!:
My two best language-learning buddies. It just wouldn't be a Chinese textbook without those two! This is an excellent series, by far my favorite of all the Chinese primers out there. As the previous reviewers have mentioned, yes, it's a little outdated and there's a bit of communist propaganda-type stuff in there sometimes, but it's still the BEST primer around! 5 stars.