Product Description

The characters you need to complete a business transaction, find a street address, and carry out many other important day-to-day tasks are all here.

All entries include readings, meanings, stroke-orders, common compounds, and different versions of the Chinese characters. Actual use of these characters is illustrated in sample materials, forms to fill out, and photos taken in public places in Chinese, where the ability to read the characters is indispensable!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #542477 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

From the Inside Flap

About the Author
Philip Yungkin Lee, a native speaker of Chinese, is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He has published several language learning titles and has received a Teaching Excellence award from his university. He is also the author of the Pocket Mandarin Chinese Dictionary, the Essential Mandarin Chinese Phrase Book, Pocket Cantonese Dictionary, Essential Cantonese Phrase Book, 250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use, Vol. 1 and Chinese in a Flash, Vols. 1 & 2, from Tuttle Publishing and Periplus Editions.

Customer Reviews

Elegent, Conversational, and User-Friendly
As a Mandarin instructor, I am always on the lookout for texts that are easily accessible (content and cost) to students with an English background. This volume, in conjunction to vol. 2, provides a solid starting point for those who are interested in a comprehensive study of Mandarin that includes reading and writing. Preferably used with instructor-led classes for the purpose of learning proper pronunciation, students can observe both the traditional and simplified characters with an abundance of contextual usage for each character, all neatly labeled in Pinyin (pronunciation guide) and simplified Chinese characters.

Opening volume I, one is introduced to numbers 1-10 and the four tones in Mandarin. Subsequent sections contain ten characters in each set, with topics ranging from the basic greeting to more advanced expressions. At the end of each set, the workbook provides a quiz for self evaluation, a great tool for independent study and/or for instructors.

I am giving the series four stars for the following reasons: 1) lack of pronunciation guide/demonstration; 2) dedicated pages for sample dialogues that employ multiple characters introduced in the book within one setting; 3) too many practice squares (about 100) for each character per page instead of utilizing pictorial reinforcement (i.e. origin of the character) as in Fun with Chinese Characters series for those (about 70% of us) who are visually inclined.

Excellent
This book is absolutely one of the two keys to learning Mandarin. (The other is the Pimsleur programs.) I never thought I'd learn this challenging language, even though I'm conversant in three LOTE already; but this book is helping me learn how to write in Mandarin. It also has each new character or word in various contexts to show shades of meaning, which is really important in a tonal language.

I highly recommend this and its companion volume, 1, along with the Pimsleur program, which I'm sure you can get on Amazon.

Herramienta muy útil para aprender la correcta escritura de caracteres chinos.
Junto con el volumen 1 de esta colección es una herramienta muy valiosa para el estudiante de mandarín para aprender aprenden la correcta manera de los trazos de los caracteres chinos y con los ejemplos que traé también ayuda a ampliar el vocabulario.
El espacio para práctica es muy bueno. Importante que en el caso de que el caracter tenga una versión simplificada y tradicional (utilizada aún en Taiwan y otros lugares), muestra ambas.