Basic Chinese Vocabulary [Paperback]

Jerome Hu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0844285277 | ISBN-13: 978-0844285276 | Edition: 1

This handy, topic-based dictionary covers a broad range of vocabulary in romanized Mandarin Chinese (pinyin) and English that beginning students need to know.

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About the Author

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (January 11, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0844285277
• ISBN-13: 978-0844285276
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,495,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Wrong Book for Learning Chinese Vocabulary, August 2, 2004

By 

Malcolm Robinson (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Basic Chinese Vocabulary (Paperback)

I thought this book was okay at first, but then I started to really use it and realized that it's insufficient for learning Chinese vocabulary. It's pretty much just a categorized list of words in Mandarin Chinese with English translations. This was the kind of book I was looking for, but unfortunately it failed to meet my expectations for the following reasons:

1.) NO CHINESE CHARACTERS ARE INCLUDED IN THE MAIN BODY OF THIS BOOK
The claim on the back cover is deceptive. Characters only appear in the English-Chinese section of the glossary. This means that when you see a word in this book, you need to flip to the glossary in the back to see the characters. Even worse, you need to look up the word by it's English translation. This is very awkward.

2.) OUT-OF-DATE VOCABULARY
The vocabulary list was compiled before the advent of the compact disc, and well before computers and the internet were in common use.

3.) NO EXAMPLES
Each Chinese word is translated into English. The translation is usually a single word; there is no explanation of usage or sample sentences. Many of the translations are ambiguous, especially since the English used is British English, not American English. In many cases, I would have assumed a different meaning if I hadn't already known the Chinese word.

4.) POOR CHOICE OF WORDS
For some reason, the compilers decided to include several items of specialized vocabulary that you'll never use. These words are included at the expense of several basic words, which were left out. They should have included only the most frequently occurring words. You could learn all 3000 or so words in this book and you'd still find really basic structural words that you haven't learned yet.

5.) BETTER CHOICES EXIST
There are two excellent resources that I'd highly recommend for vocabulary. The first, Chinese Vocabulary Cards (ISBN: 1556370873) by Vis-Ed, is a set of 1000 flashcards containing the most basic 2500 words. The words in this deck are very well selected, and examples are provided for each entry. It's suitable for anyone at the beginner or intermediate level. The second resource that I'd recommend is Schaum's Outline of Chinese Vocabulary (ISBN: 0071378359). This book assumes a knowledge of 500 - 1000 words, which it uses to teach new words in context. It's suitable for an intermediate or advanced student. These two resources, when combined, will give you everything you need to develop an effective vocabulary.