Customer Reviews

The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition: The Quick and Easy Method to Learn the 100 Most Basic Chinese Characters (Tuttle Language Library)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am learning to speak Mandarin but felt I needed more knowledge of the written language to get a more comprehensive feel for the language. I looked around and settled on this one and it was a good choice. It has just enough information for me to learn the character and its meaning as well as some commonly used phrases in which each character appears. It gives ample space to practice the strokes of the character. The characters are also in a type size that makes it easier to read than some other books I've looked at.

This book is most useful for students with no exposure to the Chinese writing system. After a clear and thorough introduction to the history and development of Chinese characters, students are introduced to 100 basic characters - a nice attainable number for the first year of high school instruction or the first semester at the university level. Each entry includes several example compounds (very important for Chinese, in which disparate characters can be combined discretely to form unexpected words) as well as nice, large boxes for practicing. While the Matthews have made a nice introduction to Chinese characters, more serious students of the language will outgrow it quite quickly. Their newer book Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters provides several hundred more characters (without the practice space) for the more ambitious.

Nathan Dummitt
author of Chinese Through Tone & Color

This book really does have the characters you need to know for a basic understanding of Mandarin. I like the fact that it supplies a proper grid, gives you both stroke order and direction, and shows the radical for each character. If you're new to learning Chinese, I'd also recommend flashcards (or make your own based on this book) because constant repetition is the key here.

This book and the sequel, The Second 100 Chinese Characters, are excellent drill (recognition) and (writing) practice books for learning Chinese characters, their use in some phrases, pronunciation (Pinyin), and of course meanings. Rather than filling up all of the practice squares and running out of space to write in the book, cut out each of the pages and place them in clear page protector sleeves in a 3 ring binder. Then use dry erase pens (red or black work very well) with a suitably small point, along with a separate dry eraser with about a 1 inch diameter (Foray Dry Erase Board Cleaner works nicely)to clear your full page shortly after you finish it. This is important because your writing erases more easily on these sleeves if you don't let it linger after moving to another page. Both books' pages can fit nicely in one binder and you can use it over and over.

In addition to the books, I very highly recommend buying Tuttle's business card-sized flash cards Volumes 1-4, which have the numbered companions to each page of these two books. They contain most of the additional information that appears on the books' pages for each character. I bought several cheap camera/cell phone carrying cases from discount bins that are the right size to hold a stack of cards, and carry one with me to use whenever I am waiting somewhere (like in the dentist's office or when standing in a long line) with a few minutes to kill.

I would really highly recommend Tuttle's Learning Chinese Characters instead of this book. This book covers 100 characters, compared with "Learning Chinese Characters", which teacher 800 characters. "Learning Chinese Characters" also uses quirky stories to help you remember composite characters and drawings to help you remember basic building blocks. This book "First 100 Chinese Characters" has great information about writing the characters, but that information is almost entirely also available in "Learning Chinese Characters", and when you open this book, you'll see that "First 100 Characters" is about 15% information and the rest of every page is just room for you to the practice the characters, which you could obviously do in a separate notebook if you choose to use the information-packed "Learning Chinese Characters"
Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters

Thanks for this book. It came on time and is helping us to slowly learn to read the confusing language that is Chinese!

This is an excellent book which I am very glad to have. It is just what it looks like and is large enough to actually make it east to practice drawing the characters.

I have absolutely no educational background in Mandarin Chinese, and I love this book. It is reader-friendly and practical. It provides examples of how words are used in English to demonstrate and contrast how words are formed in Chinese. This book never promises anything that it doesn't fulfill. I look forward to purchasing the next book of this series. A+

The good thing about this very well designed book is that it starts just like an educative game and it actually ends up giving you a strong envy to discover or learn another extra 100 characters! Perhaps even to start learning Mandarin in earnest. You will never go to a Chinese restaurant like ever before... as after working out with this book for a while Chinese characters in the menu will make sense to you! Of course just the easiest ones. A real handy language book.

This is the first of two books for learning 100 Chinese characters. The pages are well thought out and also show the use of each newly learned character in combination with other Chinese words, they call 'common words'.
On each page one learns and practices only one character. Perhaps this
sounds easy until one has to do it. The detailed progress of how to write each character is very well done. It is definitely not easy to duplicate with either a pen or a pencil, because brush strokes were used by the author, thus one's finished 'product' does not look as good. This can be quite frustrating to a perfectionist.
However, it is a good tool for anyone who is a serious student of the Chinese language and its written form.
Both volumes are done and presented the same way and therefore did not necessitate to write two reviews.