Customer Reviews

New Practical Chinese Reader, Textbook Vol. 2 (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition)

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

 

 

This book is great for beginners. Students in their first or second semester of Chinese would benefit from having this book as a resource. It provides text with vocabulary, notes, a grammar section, drills and exercises, culture notes, and instruction on writing characters. One thing I really liked about this one is that the pinyin is omitted from the texts and dialogues. This prevents new learners from becoming dependent on the pinyin. I don't recommend getting the workbook unless you have nothing better to spend your money on or are just plain bored.

After my initial lukewarm response to Volume 1 in this series, I found Volume 2 a great improvement.

One of the chief reasons is that the dialogues are presented in character form only - without any pinyin (let alone English) there as a "crutch". Volume 1 still included the pinyin, which I guess they felt was necessary for brand new beginners. But this book forces you to use characters, which is essential.

Other pluses:

I find the vocabulary exceedingly useful. It includes not just "everyday" and functional vocabulary (how to mail a package at the post office, visit a doctor's office, etc) but interesting vocabulary that expands your conversation range to cover a number of topics, including both the mundane (weather, sports), and the more cultural. As a geography buff, I especially enjoy the tools this book gives you to talk about place and location.

The book is well organized. I like that it doesn't waste lots of space on filler. The exercises are condensed to hone in on the essence of each new grammar point. Furthermore, the grammar points are explained in excellent detail, with helpful tables breaking sentences into their component parts.

I recommend the workbook too. My favorite exercises are the ones concerning character writing. They force you to think about the characters in relation to one another, and to jog your memory for different characters you have learned that share components (or radicals).

These were written in China for use in teaching Chinese to non-native speakers and they are surprisingly good and surprisingly enjoyable. They are a little focused on things an undergrad would need to say ... I have not needed to ask anyone in China where his dormitory was. And they are obviously written with Chinese students in mind ... most Americans would not start with an early distinction between older brother (gege) and younger brother (didi) or grand mother on father's side (nai nai) and grand mother on mother's side (wai po). But the books are well designed and actually work well for self instruction.

I learned a lot of characters and more complicated dialogue, but I feel that 2 semester on this book was not enough for me. Still, as long as you get help from Chinese teachers and tutors both before, during, and after the semester is over, your Chinese can greatly be stable and improve. I recommend this book for those that really want to learn Mandarin Chinese.

I also heard that there are Chinese Books that go up to volume 6. I wish the community college that I go to went up to Chinese 6, but unfortunately, that is not the case.

This is the Chinese textbook for Chinese 3 and 4 at college. I recommend this series. These is a lab that helps one hear and practice pronunciation, but even without it the book series is excellent for beginning to learn Mandarin Chinese.

im using this textbook for a summer class and its pretty decent. the dialogue is all in chinese characters, no pinyin. so that might be a bit of a handicap/challenge, but as long as you went through the 1st book, the 2nd shouldnt be that hard. there is a new vocabulary list at the end of every lesson in the book. overall, i think the book does its job.

In Volume 2, the characters no longer have pinyin next to them like they did in volume 1. So if you don't remember a character, you have to look it up in a dictionary, which if you're serious about learning chinese you probably know is often a painful process.

Alternately you can listen along to the audio accompaniment NEW PRACTICAL CHINESE READER ACCOMPANIMENT: 4CDs Vol. 2 (Chinese Edition) to learn how an unfamiliar character is pronounced so you can look it up more easily in a dictionary.

This change is necessary at some point in learning, but the transition is hard. I wish the workbook provided pinyin, but it doesn't.