Practical Chinese Reader: v. 2 [Paperback]

I studied out of this book for a semester and I have to say, I thoroughly hated it. If you actually want to learn how to converse in Chinese, the lessons and vocabulary in this book are not useful at all. You learn either esoteric words or, more often, words and phrases that are outdated and not representative of how native speakers talk. Likewise, the grammer is not very well integrated into the lessons, and the excercises are poorly explained and don't help you learn much. Half the time they contain words which aren't in the lesson you're studying and, without outside knowledge, you wouldn't know what they meant and have to look them up. The lessons overall are boring and are pumped up with propaganda and useless facts like how many people can fit inside Tiananmen Square. I much prefer the Zhong Wen Ru Men series produced by Princeton University, which is taught using dialogues, which help you learn how to converse, rather than just stuff you with useless facts and vocabulary.

It looks like I am one of the few who actually like this book. I am using this series to learn Chinese and I have found the books to be really great. The lessons are very interesting. You learn a lot about Chinese history and culture in the process of learning the language. It has a huge amount of propaganda, but to me, this is informative and entertaining,instead of offensive. I love the way the lessons build on each other so that your reading becomes better with each lesson.
The main drawback for me would be the explanations of grammar and usage. I have a horrible time trying to understand Chinese prepositions and things like that.I do wish the explanations were a little clearer.While this book doesn't have a lot of pinyin, I have found that watching Chinese dramas, movies, and karaoke videos are a great suppliment that more than makes up for this shortcoming.
Sorry if this is rambling. This is my first time writing a review. I really love these books and I hope others will enjoy them as much as I do.

I understand what some of the other reviewers mean but something that is important to know with Chinese is pinyin is not the written language for Chinese. It is difficult to understand Chinese written in pinyin even for native Chinese speakers. As well the Chinese language existed for thousands of years without pinyin to help one learn. It is just that though a guide to help you learn pronunciation.

What I did when I learned Chinese with The first practical Chinese reader was as it does give you pinyin to know how to say the words I would remember the pronunciation and when there were conversations in the book in characters I would copy it and write the pinyin underneath the words. If I didn't remember the pinyin I would look back to it to refresh my memory and doing this and writing the characters helped me alot with remembering the characters and the pronunciation.

To give the negative reviewers credit for their reviews I do agree that a few words I learned were outdated. For instance '' was taught to me from the book and it said it meant "Gramophone". I didn't even know what gramophone meant in English but I later learned that the Chinese word mentioned in the modern day can also be used to mean record or cd or disc. If you want to avoid this shortcoming of the book. I might recommend The New Practical Chinese reader. I have been told by other people that it is a very good book and is more updated than the original series.
Although the first Practical Chinese Reader series is not that old. It was first written in the late eighties and has been revised in more recent issues. So really the vocabulary is not as archaic as these people say.

So while I see where the negative reviewers are coming from I feel the issues are really not that bad. Although the issue of propaganda I don't see at all. That could mean the book brainwashed me and now I have old Chinese communist values and can't tell that there is propaganda but oh well. (Joking)

Well anyway. I highly recommend this book and I am sure The New Practical Chinese reader is very good as well. So I hope you are very happy with the books if you purchase them. I enjoyed the first Practical Chinese Reader and I have the third one and I got the second one and I can't wait to learn more Chinese from these books.

Good luck everyone with learning Chinese!