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Product Description
Product Description
Learning Chinese is a no-brainer with Demystified
Chinese Demystified walks you step by step through the fundamentals and moves on to more advanced topics. Each chapter concludes with a self-test that allows you to track your progress, and a comprehensive final exam at the end of the book gives instant feedback on new language skills. The book includes characters in simplified and traditional formats along with pinyin phonetic translation for easy pronunciation.
About the Author
Claudia Ross, Ph.D., is a professor of Chinese at Holy Cross University. She is the author of Schaum’s Outline of Chinese Grammar.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Great for beginners. Has nice explanation style, the only thing is missing is audio. However as it mentioned in the book, there are plenty resources which can fill this gap.
PS. delivery was fast.
PS. delivery was fast.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Adequate foundation builder
1 April 2011
Format:Paperback
I've studied Chinese in China and also used other resources such as Pimsleurs. I have the book in my hands after needing to use up a gift voucher. I wasn't sure what level(s) "Demystified" would encompass and on inspection can see it's usually not exceeding what would be considered a beginners level. The preface notes explain that the book is intended as a supplementation resource to a more extensive language course.
The writing style is very matter of fact with little attempt to amuse the reader or provide incites into Chinese culture or explorations of the history and motivations behind the language. You may or may not care about that but often one's learning experience is enhanced by such inclusions.
Pinyin, Simplified and Traditional forms are used throughout and the book even provides a brief overview of strokes (writing/hanzi). I found that as a westerner learning all three; reading, spoken and written forms at once is an ambitious exercise and a student certainly shouldn't expect this text to serve as a hanzi reference. The vocabulary is admittedly low and embraces those stock terms and phrases language learners throughout the world are familiar with. Importantly grammar is given sufficient coverage as that's a large part of your language foundation. Extensive exercises are provided at the end of each chapter.
With no audio companion the true beginner will definately have to supplement the book with an appropriate resource to polish their pronounciation(a teacher?).
As a non-beginner I'm finding it works well as a refresher.
The writing style is very matter of fact with little attempt to amuse the reader or provide incites into Chinese culture or explorations of the history and motivations behind the language. You may or may not care about that but often one's learning experience is enhanced by such inclusions.
Pinyin, Simplified and Traditional forms are used throughout and the book even provides a brief overview of strokes (writing/hanzi). I found that as a westerner learning all three; reading, spoken and written forms at once is an ambitious exercise and a student certainly shouldn't expect this text to serve as a hanzi reference. The vocabulary is admittedly low and embraces those stock terms and phrases language learners throughout the world are familiar with. Importantly grammar is given sufficient coverage as that's a large part of your language foundation. Extensive exercises are provided at the end of each chapter.
With no audio companion the true beginner will definately have to supplement the book with an appropriate resource to polish their pronounciation(a teacher?).
As a non-beginner I'm finding it works well as a refresher.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Excellent guide/overview
7 Jun 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is not an introduction to Mandarin -- notably there is no CD/DVD audio component. You probably should not attempt this book without also using Pimsleur Chinese (Mandarin) I or Chinesepod on-line or Fluenz Mandarin 1 + 2 Learning Suite - Windows, but you could use this right from the start of using them.
My basis is Pimsleur I-III plus a lot of Chinesepod Elementary which is terrific but less structured than Pimsleur. So I can handle light small talk and tourist business in China. I've gained rudimentary reading skill from dozens of sources, notably 300 and 500 character Chinese Breeze books (sold by several Asian book importers but not on Amazon). Ross's book Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Modern Grammars) has done me a lot of good.
This book has very little that is not in the resources I have named and they have a great deal that is not here. But this is a fantastically attractive overview. The format is brisk and enjoyable. You can read it cover to cover as a refresher.
As a particular virtue for beginners, this has the best concise introduction to Mandarin phonetics I have found. Some Mandarin sounds do not exist in English. It is nearly impossible for an English speaker to learn these just by hearing them and trying to repeat them. You need some help. The Sounds of Chinese has it all, but may be more than you want to know. Ross in this book gives a good beginning explanation.
Even this account relies far more than it should on comparison to English sounds (which are not very like the Mandarin ones) and it could be more explicit. For example it says that j, q, x are pronounced "with your tongue close to the roof of your mouth" -- but that means the middle of your tongue, and certainly not the tip of your tongue which should probably be behind your lower teeth for these sounds. But it is huge progress over other introductory accounts.
My basis is Pimsleur I-III plus a lot of Chinesepod Elementary which is terrific but less structured than Pimsleur. So I can handle light small talk and tourist business in China. I've gained rudimentary reading skill from dozens of sources, notably 300 and 500 character Chinese Breeze books (sold by several Asian book importers but not on Amazon). Ross's book Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Modern Grammars) has done me a lot of good.
This book has very little that is not in the resources I have named and they have a great deal that is not here. But this is a fantastically attractive overview. The format is brisk and enjoyable. You can read it cover to cover as a refresher.
As a particular virtue for beginners, this has the best concise introduction to Mandarin phonetics I have found. Some Mandarin sounds do not exist in English. It is nearly impossible for an English speaker to learn these just by hearing them and trying to repeat them. You need some help. The Sounds of Chinese has it all, but may be more than you want to know. Ross in this book gives a good beginning explanation.
Even this account relies far more than it should on comparison to English sounds (which are not very like the Mandarin ones) and it could be more explicit. For example it says that j, q, x are pronounced "with your tongue close to the roof of your mouth" -- but that means the middle of your tongue, and certainly not the tip of your tongue which should probably be behind your lower teeth for these sounds. But it is huge progress over other introductory accounts.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Great for Kindle
1 Dec 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
One of the big problems with grammar books on Kindle is poor search functions. This book resolves that issue by letting you use the table of contents to jump to chapters and sub-sections of the chapters. It also has hyperlinks throughout the text that connect related topics so it's easy to flip back and forth. The chinese characters are still a little tough to read but this version is otherwise good for the Kindle.
The index is totally useless. No hyperlinks. It's just a list of topics and sentences, with no reference on where to find them in the book. Might as well not exist.
Overall though, the format is really good with lots of information for a beginner like me.
The index is totally useless. No hyperlinks. It's just a list of topics and sentences, with no reference on where to find them in the book. Might as well not exist.
Overall though, the format is really good with lots of information for a beginner like me.
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