Modern Chinese: A Basic Course

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.

All books from Peking University are just one word, exceptional. "Peking University is Havard University in China, and Havard is Peking in U.S." --Clinton

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 Although it is a little bit out of date (some Chinese letters were already updated), it still has a great utility.

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.