Great alternative to English textbooks written in Chinese common in China
349824
I have been teaching for a year in China, but I was looking for some supplemental material since I will have the same class next year for oral English and we have already completed the school-issued textbook. As most of the textbooks in China--English textbooks included--are written in Chinese, which can be a little difficult for me to read, I was overjoyed at finding Andy Smart's book tailored to the Chinese, while focusing on use of English. In looking through the book, I have become very excited to use some of these tools for the next year of teaching here in China. It is interesting too that some of the cultural aspects that I suspected from my first year teaching, Mr. Smart also has observed as well and included them in some teacher notes throughout the book. Thus, I am certain that I can trust his insights into other matters relating to teaching EFL in China that I have yet to notice. His book is a fine piece of work, and I appreciate him sharing his experience in this way.
1625576
I highly recommend this book that comes with 2 DVD's and an audio disk.  If you are a beginner and you want to speak Chinese this is what you want.  It is great!  I have looked at and tried a lot of study materials and this is the best for me.  Fun, right to the point...he doesn't miss a beat.
2557956
Since I read fairly voraciously about North Korea, I thought it would be interesting to try to learn a little of the Korean language, Hangul.  This book is  very good for learning the basics since there is a good introduction and a section that tells the student how to use the book.  There is no DVD or CD  with it, so you must rely strictly on the book.  It is laid out so that the student learns about 4 letters in the Korean alphabet at a time and learns the pronunciation, learns to write the character with the pen strokes going in the right order and to use those letters to make a short word. Korean is written and read from the top down instead of horizontally like we read.  They have fewer letters than we have in the English alphabet, and Korean is much easier to learn than Chinese or Japanese.  The language has borrowed from both Chinese and Japanese, but is is completely its own language.

If you would like to learn to speak, write and read Korean,  this book offers a good way to learn.
3894998
I've used the whole series of these great, comprehensive English workbooks. Although they are named "Total Reading", they have reading plus a whole lot more, for a really good course in general English. I really like the way each page is a complete lesson, and the colour pictures make the books fun and attractive for children. I'm Australian, and we just don't get beautiful books like this over here. It's worth paying for the international postage just to get hold of these great books. I recommend the books in this series to anyone who wants to help their children to improve their English.
2596174
A lot of textbooks and workbooks are designed around the assumption that the instructor will be teaching grammer. This is not always the case, especially with instructors who are native speakers. Whether or not you find yourself in this situation, the Schaum's Chinese Grammer Outline is a great supplement to your language education. I have taken four semesters of Mandarin and this book is right inline with the words I have learned and also has a few new terms that give insight to grammatical differences and structures that coincide with most mandarin classes.
3463155
I find this series to be excellent, and much better than the newer resources.

Certainly, this series isn't for you if you don't want to learn the characters; there is no Pinyin in any of the exercises, only characters.  My experience of learning the characters, however, and doing the exercises, is that I find I have memorised the Pinyin as a matter of course by the time I have learnt each character - because learning the characters takes longer.  Also, an understanding of the characters significantly enhances your understanding of the meaning, and has the added advantage that you'll end up being able to read Chinese at the end of it!

I completely disagree with the reviewers who have found the book to be disorganised, or the explanations of the grammar to be confusing.  I don't find the book to be boring at all, and the ongoing storyline of the characters Gubo, Palanka & Ding Yun is entertaining and engaging, to me.  The book teaches much more vocabulary than modern textbooks like Integrated Chinese, and while a few words are dated or even obsolete, the characters aren't obsolete, so it isn't a significant criticism.

I can understand why people may find the exercises repetitive and boring, as these exercises systematically combine all the words learnt into sentences in the context of the new grammar learnt.  All I can say is that until I started doing these by-rote exercises, I wasn't memorising the words or the grammar.  It's also true that there are a number of errors in the book - words appear occasionally in exercises before they've been taught - but it's a minor criticism.

All things considered, I have no intention of ever looking for an alternative Chinese textbook.
1483464
This is my daughter's favorite bilingual book and mine as well. This book has pinyin and simplified Chinese characters. I'm trying to teach my daughter Chinese but am only proficient in the language and can only read pinyin; she is often inpatient with me if I pause to figure out the pronunciation of something in other books. But this book has great illustrations that keep her engaged and entertained. A wide variety of topics are covered, including eating, sports, weather, clothing, family members, animals, Chinese New Year, etc so she never gets bored. Of course my toddler wants me to re-read the page (over and over again!) where the kids accidentally bump into each other and say "Sorry!" to each other but now she knows how to apologize in Chinese very well! Highly recommend this book!
4577529
At my school where students study language and also learn about Chinese culture I found this book to be a good addition to our student library. With all new choices I read a small part of the book first and I found with this book that I had quickly read the whole book!
I found the writing style to be very easy to read and get into. The book soon gave me a deeper understanding of this large group of working woman in China. For somebody who had lived in China for a long time, I still found myself learning a lot more about this country. Considering how big an industry factory production and export is in China, its definately worth learning more about the people who make so many of the "made in China" products we all use. I found, perhaps due to the authors background as a journalist and a overseas Chinese, that she was able to make insights apparent to the reader that I really appreciated.
Would definately read and buy more books like this one, highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about Chinese society today!
1854603
I would give this a go if one were completely new to Chinese characters.

At the same time, however, there are numerous apps available via iphone and itouch as wells as Chinese Flashcard Memorylifter: the added interactivity plus the sound of the actual character and bigram is instrumental in learning and adequate recall.

Also try Heisig's marvelous book on learning Hanzi (chinese characters) as well as Matthews' Learning Chinese Characters. Great books that take advantage of mnemonics for the English--->Chinese learner.
749159
Got this as my first attempt to learn anything about Chinese. I like the idea of going through this book before moving on to a full on beginning chinese book. The intro is very concise and informative, and doing a couple of new characters a day, and doing a couple of additional lines on previous characters, seems to be working for me. Nice layout throughout.
424465
I used this book to supplement a college class.  It is excellent as far as the set of characters it contains (most common), and in teaching proper stroke order.  It is far better than the $100+ of textbooks I had to buy for the class.
Note that you have to learn proper pronuniciation through some other method.  No book can explain what a sound is like, although all the chinese books try!  This is the first review I have written, and I hope it helps those who follow.  I have purchased many Chinese language books, and this is the best.  Use it along with a Pimsleur audio course, and you will be on your way.
Wayne
4172825
I purchased this book for my Korean friend. He found it very useful. At first it looks very basic as there are alot of pictures but it has alot of good exercises. He has learned alot from it and is eager to move onto the next book.

I would reccommend this book to anyone who hasn't been to language school and wants to learn English at home.

Good value as well at $19.80
2874333
I needed this book for my Chinese class but didn't want to spend $50 for it by buying it at the school book store. Even though I am using this book in a classroom setting I believe that self-teachers would learn a great deal from this book also. It has so many grammar and culture notes, along with a eide range of vocabulary words.
4593258
This compact paperback is the best value simplified Chinese-English dictionary that I have found. It has 40,000 entries, which covers most words in everyday use.
The English-Chinese section has the pinyin transliteration for each word. (Pinyin is the Romanized written version of Chinese that uses accents to indicate the correct tones). Where a word can have a different translation depending on the context, this is clearly indicated.
The Chinese-English section is ordered alphabetically, English-style, according to its pinyin pronunciation. There is a list of radicals at the front of the book for when you don't know the correct mainland Mandarin pronunciation.
Very importantly for a portable dictionary, the paper is high quality and the fonts are large and clear enough not to be unreasonably eye-straining. There is also a short list of common Taiwanese equivalents to Mandarin Chinese, spelled in pinyin and traditional Chinese.
1923012
As a practictioner of Yang Ben-Hou based taijiquan with 27 years experience, I would recommend anybody with an interest in the internal martial arts to buy, read, study and then work at applying the materials  presented in this book. This is clearly one of the best expositions of  internal martial arts theory written in readable English that I have  encountered to date. One of the problems Americans have in learning the  Chinese martial arts is that there is very little written material  available that is readily understandable and practically applicable to the  average student. The "Tai Chi Classics" are written in terse and  frankly arcane Chinese, and are then translated into a stilted style of  English which communicates little in the way of immediately useful  information. My own taiji teacher, a 79 year old practictioner from China  who learned taiji beginning at the age of 16, and who is fluent in most of  the Chinese dialects as well as in English, essentially says that the books  out there are "useless" to learn from, and up until I read this  book, I basically agreed with him 100%. Now I have an exception to state to  my teacher's  rule of thumb. One thing I should state about this book: the  techniques illustrated here are more from Chinese wrestling (san shou) than  they are from conventional taiji or tui shou (push hands). I personally  wasn't as interested in the second section of the book detailing the throws  than I was with the first half of the book detailing proper setup and body  alignment principles. No matter. The book is excellent. Buy it!
473148
This is the textbook for a Chinese art history class I am taking. I don't normally enjoy reading my textbooks, but this one is an exception! It is informative, easy to follow, and written at a great introductory level (I have only had one previous art history class). Chapters are ordered and laid out in a sensible way and it is easy to re-find things and compare, for example, Shang period ritual bronzes to ritual bronzes from the Eastern Zhou.

I feel like this book would be best in conjunction with a class, in order to address other important works and go more in depth on certain topics that are only briefly covered in the book.

Great, colorful pictures!

Good price, too :)
2921022
My son entered a Chinese immersion program this year. He had spent 2 years (2-4) in China at a Chinese preschool, so this was a perfect primer a few weeks before entering the program. I see they are already learning the first two strokes taught in the book, so seems the perfect supplement with room to practice strokes and a great introduction to basic Chinese characters.