Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Traditional, simplified, pinyin and English, June 5, 2000
This review is from: Interactions I [text + workbook]: A Cognitive Approach to Beginning Chinese (Chinese in Context Language Learning Series) (v. 1) (Paperback)
I think this book is great. Each dialog is given four times. Once each in traditional writing, simplified writing, pinyin, and English. This really helps in learning to read. Each chapter has the same set of sections. Some of the sections are on: The dialog Vocabulary How to write characters, including stroke order. Culture. Explanation of grammar. I find these very helpful.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Simplified characters hard to distinguish, June 1, 2001
This review is from: Interactions I [text + workbook]: A Cognitive Approach to Beginning Chinese (Chinese in Context Language Learning Series) (v. 1) (Paperback)
I'm going to be living in China in the coming year, and I was hoping to use this text as a means to get some knowledge of the language beforehand. I will be living in Beijing, where the simplified characters are popular. In contrast to the previous review, I found distinguishing the simplified characters from the traditional to be quite difficult, and I'm somtimes left to wonder if they are even there at all. It is also not set up in a very easy to learn format: they start you out from the beginning with entire dialogues in Chinese characters (albeit, they then repeat the conversations in Pinyin and English) so they don't offer much in the form of grammar instruction, just jumbles of words with no explaination as to why or how the sentence is structured in that way. One last qualm: The workbook has many activities involving the tapes for the books (which are not included, and I wouldn't even know where to find). As a plus, it does give you the selected characters in each chapter with the number for each stroke, in addition to aides for remembering the meaning. It also offers a section on Chinese culture at the end of each chapter. All in all, this would be a good book for use in the classroom with a teacher who would be able to answer your questions.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Spin your wheels, January 19, 2005
This review is from: Interactions I [text + workbook]: A Cognitive Approach to Beginning Chinese (Chinese in Context Language Learning Series) (v. 1) (Paperback)
First the good:
The book has an excellent character reference with stroke order for key words in each chapter.
The cultural notes in each chapter are interesting and informative.
Then the bad:
Tries to do far too much, too soon. A beginning foreign language student needs to use their time building a foundation of the language that they can add to in later semesters. Huge vocabulary lists of words that students won't remember and aren't important for basic communication and learning of sentence patterns simply cause frustration and needless wasting of study time doing look up drills.
Sample dialogs SHOULD be useful. They can demonstrate the usage of key grammar points and vocabulary. The dialogs in this book are so cluttered with excessive vocabulary that one can easily spend hours just playing find the obscure words instead of getting a feel for how the language is used. I realize Chinese is difficult and a time consuming 5 credit course, but having to encounter "leading actress" or "United Nations" in dialogues really defeats the purpose of them. I suspect not one student in my class would have been able to say "vinegar" or "to be natural" in Mandarin Chinese a week after class ended, but they sure had fun turning the pages again to look up that strange character so they can get through the dialogs. Hey we can say "athletic field" so we're almost fluent!
Early language learning should focus on the core vocabulary. Let the students repeat and drill early and gain a feeling for the language. Don't believe me? Take a student who's completed two semesters with books like this and another who's listened to a complete 90 lesson Pimsleur course... drop them off in the foreign country and watch who can communicate. One has tried to memorize huge vocabulary lists, another has practiced over and over with the most useful words.
Pass on this book, unless you need to be able to say "pumpkin pie" in Chinese to feel like a proper beginner.
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