Customer Reviews

Advanced Reader of Contemporary Chinese Short Stories: Reflections on Humanity

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been studying Chinese at the college level, both in the US and in China, for about 5 years now, and this is by far my favorite Chinese textbook. The book is composed of real, honest-to-goodness modern literature, and the vocabulary lists make reading the stories undaunting and feasible. This textbook's authors selected works from a nice variety of writers, so many voices are represented. This book is appropriate for high intermediate and advanced students who can already recognize a healthy amount of Chinese characters, though the vocab lists will really help you if you're struggling with character recognition. I completely, 100% recommend this book to anyone who wants to read "real" modern Chinese literature without having to spend tons of time looking up new characters.

I like the selection of stories and they are at about the right level for me with enough words on the included vocab lists to mean I seldom have to look up a word but not such long lists I need to pour through common words on the list to find the one I need, unlike the massively long lists in Anything Goes: An Advanced Reader of Modern Chinese (Princeton Language Program: Modern Chinese). It is hard to find good books at this intermediate to advanced level. Reflections on Humanity is one of the good ones.

I don't like some of the stories being "tampered with" - the authors have abridged and simplified them. This may be OK for the target audience (students) but I would still prefer to enjoy these stories in their original form...