Chinese For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback)) [Paperback]

Wendy Abraham (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764583751 | ISBN-13: 978-0764583759 | Publication Date: July 22, 2005 | Edition: 1

Features real-world examples and a mini-dictionary

Your friendly guide to understanding Chinese - quickly and easily!

Curious about Chinese? Whether you're a student, a traveler, doing international business, or you just want to pick up basic Chinese, this clear, easy-to-follow guide will have you pronouncing words in standard Mandarin like a native speaker. From grammar, numbers, and vocabulary to greetings, popular expressions, and proper etiquette, you'll make yourself understood in no time!

Discover how to
* Have everyday conversations
* Speak in "perfect pitch"
* Construct sentences
* Understand cultural rules and taboos
* Get around in a Chinese-speaking country

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Features real-world examples and a mini-dictionary

Your friendly guide to understanding Chinese — quickly and easily!

Curious about Chinese? Whether you're a student, a traveler, doing international business, or you just want to pick up basic Chinese, this clear, easy-to-follow guide will have you pronouncing words in standard Mandarin like a native speaker. From grammar, numbers, and vocabulary to greetings, popular expressions, and proper etiquette, you'll make yourself understood in no time!

Discover how to

• Have everyday conversations
• Speak in "perfect pitch"
• Construct sentences
• Understand cultural rules and taboos
• Get around in a Chinese-speaking country

About the Author

Dr. Wendy Abraham has taught Chinese language, literature, culture, and religion at universities throughout the U.S. She is currently finishing her second doctorate in Chinese Literature at Stanford.

Product Details

• Paperback: 375 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (July 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764583751
• ISBN-13: 978-0764583759
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,936,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not for beginning beginners!, April 13, 2006

By 

Kafrin (NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese For Dummies (Paperback)

If you have no previous exposure to Chinese, this book/CD will make you FEEL like a Dummy! You are expected to repeat entire phrases and sentences from the start. It's better for a beginner who has already done some basic work in Chinese. However the book is wonderful for explaining Chinese culture, and the author definitely conveys her own love for China and the people and language. The cultural notes are fascinating and definitely more accessible for "dummies" than the audio section. If you are a beginner looking for a "step 2" program the CD is a great challenge and introduces a lot of new vocabulary.

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A good 2nd book, October 7, 2005

By 

Stephen Leahy (Appleton, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chinese For Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback)) (Paperback)

This book suffers from two problems. One is that it throws readers directly into conversation and overwhelms them. I used the book to pick up a few cultural niceties, but my Chinese friends laughed at my failure to use the correct tones. The other problem is that it is shoehorned into the Dummies framework of organizing books rather than trying to absolute novices the basics first. This book has good appendixes and other reference material. It would be a great second book after you have mastered another approach of learning basic Chinese. I quickly ditched this approach, and bought the Pimsleur series.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Entirely useless!, May 18, 2008

By 

inktvis (Quakenbrück) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese For Dummies (Paperback)

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:

W'ô bú shì zhö'ng 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.