This instructive reference to the 500 most frequently used words in the Chinese language provides meaning and grammatical explanations of usage. The text functions as both a traditional dictionary and a teaching guide to the world's most widely spoken language. Each entry is presented in both Chinese characters and roman letters, with pinyin transcription. A basic introduction and a pronunciation guide to the Chinese language are also included.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
65 of 65 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is actually a dictionary of the 500 most common Chinese characters ("hanzi"), not words(it has several words listed under each character). However, it is not a true character dictionary either since it does not show how to write characters and you can only look up the character by frequency or by the pronounciation, which a student often won't know. In a true character dictionary you can look up the character by stroke count, radical or pronounciation.
However, while the lookup methods could be improved, the definitions are outstanding. Unlike a character dictionary (like the excellent "Reading and Writing Chinese" published by Tuttle), which provides a basic meaning or two along with a few examples of words that use the character, this book provides all meanings of the character along with many examples. Most helpful of all is the explanation of characters which are related to the grammar structure. For example, the aspect particle "le", the "to be" verb "shi", and the "at" and current tense aspect marker "zai" each have about a page and a half explanation along with example words and sentences.
It should be noted that only simplified characters are used in this book (simplified characters are used in mainland China while complex or traditional characters are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong). Also, all example words and sentences are shown both in characters and in pinyin (the romanization system used for pronounciation).
I found this book to be a good complement to both a standard character dictionary and a regular dictionary. I would rate it a 5 if it contained 1) a more complete lookup system (stroke count, radical, etc) 2) writing information for each character and 3) complex characters as well, at least in the entry listing if not in all of the examples.
However, while the lookup methods could be improved, the definitions are outstanding. Unlike a character dictionary (like the excellent "Reading and Writing Chinese" published by Tuttle), which provides a basic meaning or two along with a few examples of words that use the character, this book provides all meanings of the character along with many examples. Most helpful of all is the explanation of characters which are related to the grammar structure. For example, the aspect particle "le", the "to be" verb "shi", and the "at" and current tense aspect marker "zai" each have about a page and a half explanation along with example words and sentences.
It should be noted that only simplified characters are used in this book (simplified characters are used in mainland China while complex or traditional characters are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong). Also, all example words and sentences are shown both in characters and in pinyin (the romanization system used for pronounciation).
I found this book to be a good complement to both a standard character dictionary and a regular dictionary. I would rate it a 5 if it contained 1) a more complete lookup system (stroke count, radical, etc) 2) writing information for each character and 3) complex characters as well, at least in the entry listing if not in all of the examples.
71 of 73 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I concur with the previous reviewers on the overall quality of the book. The examples are nicely chosen, and while the English equivalents could occasionally stand some improvement, that's just a minor quibble. It's always useful to have a wordlist ordered by frequency of usage -- surely the most efficient general review strategy. For those of us in the over-50 set the type size is definitely on the small side, but the print quality is clear nevertheless. A magnifier or right-up-to-the-nose viewing both work well; again a quibble.
The formatting facilitates concentrating on the Chinese, too: just highlight the character text on your first pass, then ignore all the other stuff on subsequent passes. Accuracy is good, with silly errors seemingly scarce (incorrect tone mark here and there in the examples, or an occasional word lapse [e.g., the pinyin for 'xiabian de shu' is given as 'shangbian de shu' on p. 24]).
Having spent about 800 one-on-one hours with a tutor over the past year, I've lately realized that in the heat of stimulating day-to-day discussions, new and reviewed vocabulary have taken somewhat of a back seat. Yong Ho's book has provided a very easy and profitable way to pass commuting time (but only if you're a rider, not a driver!).
I'm familiar with many of the student dictionaries available nowadays: favorites, for various reasons, are the Cheng & Tsui Pinyin Learner's Dictionary (ISBN 0887273165) and the newest Century Edition of the New English-Chinese Dictionary (ISBN 7532725421), along with Wenlin for the Macintosh (incorporating the DeFrancis ABC Dictionary). But for quick and painless spare-time review, this one has the right size, shape, content, and price.
Several years ago I swore off any product produced by Hippocrene Books, having wasted good money on some perfectly useless introductory material (in a language other than Chinese). This book has certainly raised them a notch in my eyes.
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If I had to choose a single book for learning/reviewing Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) this is the one. I have been learning Mandarin for about 2 years now and purchased many other Chinese learning texts and this book is the best. One of my favorite features is to open up the book at a random character and see if I can understand the sample sentences without looking at the accompanying Pinyin. If I miss a character, I find the corresponding Pinyin and look it up in the alphabetical index. Of course there are characters used in the sample sentences that are not in the top 500 and I have other dictionaries for this purpose (this book only deals systematically with 500 most common characters from most common to least). As other reviewers have mentioned the detailed grammatical explanations of many characters (e.g. de/le/shi/guo) are invaluable for general understanding.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very useful
This book is extremely useful to me so far. I can now read almost every third word and I've only been using the book for about a month. Read more
Published 9 months ago by christine
Excellent for Vocabulary/Grammar Review
This book is more than simply a review of the 500 most frequently used characters (words). It's an excellent review of the meanings of the characters (with explanatory phrases or... Read more
Published on June 15, 2008 by Dennis W. Johnson
Very useful!
Bought this book without any expectations and was pleasantly surprised. In addition to listing the characters according to their frequency, it gives a detailed explanation of the... Read more
Published on April 12, 2008 by K. Kaspersen
Concise, precise, and replete with examples
As others have mentioned, this is an excellent book that is packed with useful information. Each word is discussed in detail with many examples of usage. Read more
Published on November 29, 2007 by JPilot
A tremendous aid to understanding the language
Other features of the book have been noted by other reviewers, but what I want to highlight are the example sentences to illustrate the many uses of each character in context. Read more
Published on April 17, 2007 by Weary Traveller
Chinese 500 Most Frequently used words
A good companion for the two Yong Ho books on Chinese mandarin. It helps to understand better some grammar and idiomatic aspects of the language. Read more
Published on April 5, 2007 by ND Quy
I LIKE it!
The 500-word list is WRITTEN frequency, not SPOKEN. Although the lists of the two differ slightly, the difference is significant. Read more
Published on January 12, 2007 by Rene E. Burau
An Outstanding Compendium
This is an outstanding and useful book for the serious learner of Chinese. By nature, the lexical resources of the Chinese language are limited -- most conversations and written... Read more
Published on July 3, 2006 by Jared Gergen
A good approach - with too many omissions
In short, if you can find this book at a reasonable price (like I did - on ebay) get it. I consider the strategy of learning the most common characters, as opposed to words (see a... Read more
Published on May 20, 2006 by James Forsyth
Great study book
This is a great book for studying Chinese, however, it is helpful to have some limited vocabulary before beginning to use it. Read more
Published on February 24, 2006 by Walter Schreiner
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
(learn more)
complex directional complement, disyllabic form, bén shù, hén hào, comparative sentences, yóu méi, verb complement Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, New Year, United States, Hong Kong, Yangtze River Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
complex directional complement, disyllabic form, bén shù, hén hào, comparative sentences, yóu méi, verb complement Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, New Year, United States, Hong Kong, Yangtze River Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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