Contemporary Chinese, Vol. 3: Textbook (Chinese and English Edition)

Learning Chinese without a family member or friend who speaks Mandarin is quite a challenge - but if I can do it you can too. The first two Contemporay Chinese books were do-able with easily increasing difficulty. The third book jumps right into a higher level of Chinese where the accent marks are removed from the Chinese Character dialogues and the increased use of grammer that is difficult to comprehend - ie. the use of double negatives. The dialogue is about 40%longer and the vocabulary about 20% more - based on the belief that the more you study Chinese the faster you learn. The grammer is more complicated and for a person who is learning it for the first time quite a leap. As before there are small errors in the translations or pin yin but nothing that is too odvious. The format is first vocabulary and then dialogues in both simplified and traditional characters. You then have the pinyin text and English translation which is pretty good. Following the dialogue are short notes "zhushi" that help explain some of the expressions or cultural explanations. The dialogue is more mature and not so youth focused that you feel your in high school again.