Customer Reviews

Modern Chinese (Cassette Edition): A Basic Course (Dover Little Activity Books)

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

 

 

Being almost fluent in Spanish (self-taught), I was used to finding good material fairly easily. But with Chinese, it's another story. Why is this so much better than the other stuff out there? First, it recognizes the basic fact that speakers of non-tonal languages will have their biggest problems with the tones, in both the ears & vocal chords. All other materials I have ever seen flatly refuse to cop to this essential problem! They'll start out with the "repeat after the native speaker" routine with full phrases, but without slowly training your ears & throat, it's stupidity. This method systematically breaks it all down into logical components, then slowly builds it up. After so much frustration before, I feel so good about it all now. It made me feel like the first time I read "The Elements of Style" - clear, straightened out, refreshed. Secondly, it integrates the reading and writing of Chinese effortlessly. It's absolutely painless, and adds somethings really practical (for using dictionaries, etc.) and kind of fun. And I myself find it hard to write legibly in English, so it's got to be really simple. The only thing I've found you might want to keep in mind, is to not be put off by their technical descriptions of the basic sounds at the start. Most books cheat a little bit on this stuff (i.e. "sounds like...") and these people don't mess with that. But with the tape it's a no-brainer. And if you feel more comfortable at the start, any little booklet ought to have a more "Englishized" description of the Pinyin romanization.

I bought this book because many reviewers here gave highest rates. But since this book was written in 1971, they use some obsolete words (for example, Chinese people don't usually call each other "tongzhi" any more), and some Chinese characters shown in this book have been further simplified ever since, so you need to unlearn and relearn some stuff if you really want to learn "modern Chinese".

Also, some grammatical topics which should be covered in a basic course such as comparison are not covered. Overall, this is a good text for beginners, but you will need to supplement it with a more comprehensive and up-to-date text before going on to intermediate level.

If you are just beginning and truly want to speak it correctly, then you have to get this book and tape series. I used this course for one week and then went to a tutor who was blown away by my pronunciation. You won't find a better product out there if you want correct pronunciation. It could use work on teaching how to write the characters, but otherwise it is great for the beginner.

Highly recomended, especially if you also buy the audio cassettes. Exhaustive intonation lessons before introduction to grammar lessons. Pinyin and Chinese letters follow side by side, making it easy to learn. Grammatical explanations are very objective and easy to understand. Although it is a little bit out of date (some Chinese letters were already updated), it still has a great utility.

I think the other reviews are accurate for the most part. For example, as one other reviewer mentions, this book uses a lot of phonetic terms like "affricative" and "labio" that really frustrated me at first. But using a dictionary, I created a little glossary of all the terms used and as I got to know the terms better, I found the descriptions more helpful than any other source for correct pronunciation. (These descriptions alone are, I think, worth the cost of the book.)

Another reviewer mentions that this book doesn't compare any of these sounds to English equivalents. I think this is done to help the student begin the process of "thinking in Chinese" which, while frustrating at first, probably pays off down the road.

I've used two other books and several Web sites to help me learn Chinese. I don't know if I'd recommend this book by itself, but together with other sources, I think it's invaluable.

the best thing about this book is that it is cheap and well-bound, as is typical of dover books. it also has a good (if technical) description of the phonology of chinese. as a learning book, however, it's not especially good. its grammar descriptions are not only far too technical, but even for someone like me who studies linguistics and hence understands the terms, they are poorly written and unclear. there are hardly any exercises, and they are mostly geared towards writing the script; the remainder are mostly written in the script only, without pin-yin. in general, there is far too much emphasis on learning and using the script, not very practical for a beginning book. i'd much recommend the teach-yourself book (elizabeth scurfield) instead.

The book is a western adoption of the 1963 edition of a Basic Course of Chinese for Foreigners, English version. (I happen to own the further enhanced 1971 original edition) The Latin transscription, approved already in 1958, is called PinYin today. The explanation of sounds employs the International Phonetic Alphabet, generally used in dictionaries and in language teaching. There are a couple of Chinese Characters, however, that have been further simplified after 1963. If you use the book along with something more modern, it can be value for money.

Wonderful introduction to the language, though not always consistent between standard and simplified form usage.

Think about it. Emphasis on pronunciation. How can THAT be wrong? I love this book becuase it uses repetition and then more repetition. In the end you have a vocabulary of approximately 200 words, yet the excitement is that you will be able to use those words in a lot of different sentences. The book is full of sentences and information about grammar so that as you aquire new words your usage will not cause you shame. The book does not require the addition of the cassettes or cd to be enjoyed. And look at the price. We are talking just pennies per word here, and you will be using the words correctly. I would have liked more info on stroke order for writing, but then everyone owns a copy of William McNaughton's character book, so why would the authors bother? Very important book and dirt cheap.

The only thing "modern" about it is that they keep updating the cover and raising the price. It contains obsolete words and is absent technology. Tongzhi, comrade, has become something of a synonym for homosexual, co-operative stores have given way to Walmart, and the Soviet Union is no more. Even though Dalu, Mainland China, has been using the simplified characters for decades several sentences in this book are a mélange of traditional and simplified. That other reviewer was right in that there is a heavy emphasis on linguistics and pronunciation. I have met Chinese with backgrounds in math and science who are more knowledgeable about English grammar than some American English teachers. I guess it stands to reason that the faculty of Peking University would take a grammatical approach when trying to teach Chinese to Anglophones. Where I have found the Chinese to be sorely lacking is in teaching methodologies. I was a TEFL (teacher of English as a foreign language) in China in 1999/2000. One book I was asked to "teach" was called 300 Sentences. That is exactly what it was. It contained no methodology at all, but the real coup de grace was that it was sprinkled with phrases like, "I'm going to tell my boss to go to h-ll." Modern Chinese: A Basic Course is marginally better, but it's still a cram book. If you listen to the tapes long enough and read it enough times you can eventually memorize it. Lastly, a couple of reviewers lauded this book simply because it was produced by the faculty of Peking University, which most Chinese now call Beida. It's analogous to Harvard, ergo; I'm surprised they haven't been shamed into producing a top of the line series, or at the very least updating this debacle.