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Teach Yourself Beginner's Mandarin Chinese (TY Beginner's Languages) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Scurfield , Lianyi Song
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Book Description

26 Sep 2003 TY Beginner's Languages
In one form or another, Chinese is the language most spoken in the world. Although it has many different spoken forms, they are all written in exactly the same way. In this book you will learn Modern Standard Chinese which is understood by more Chinese speakers than any other form of the language.

Teach Yourself Beginner’s Chinese is the right course for you if you really want to learn Chinese but are daunted by the prospect of complicated grammar, classes and coursebooks. This book starts right from the beginning and explains everything in simple English. There are hints throughout to make learning easy and you can learn at your own pace with plenty of practice of each new point. It is a friendly introduction to the language which will help you to understand and speak Chinese sufficiently well to function effectively in basic everyday situations, both business and social. The course will also offer you an insight into Chinese culture and there is even an opportunity for you to find out something about the Chinese writing system if you want to.

The book is divided into two main parts. Units 1-10 introduce you to the basic structures and grammatical points you’ll need in everyday situations. Units 12-21 deal with everyday situations such as booking into a hotel, changing money, seeing a doctor, and being entertained in a Chinese home. They give you the opportunity to put into practice and consolidate the language you have learnt in the first ten units. Unit 11 is a special unit designed to give you the chance to find out something about the origin of Chinese characters and to have a taste of what’s involved in reading and writing them. If you would rather miss this unit out and concentrate on speaking and listening, you can do so without it affecting your understanding of the other units. All the Chinese in other units is given in the official system of romanization.

By the end of the course you’ll be able to communicate in a wide range of real-life situations and have all the practical information you need to enjoy your next trip to China.

Two accompanying cassettes or CDs are available separately or in a pack with the book.

The leader in self-learning with more than 300 titles, covering all subjects.
Be where you want to be with Teach Yourself.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Teach Yourself; New edition edition (26 Sep 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0340870214
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340870211
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 300,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

About the Author

Elizabeth Scurfield graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Chinese from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. She has nearly 30 years' experience of teaching Chinese to beginners. She is Chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Westminster in London. Song Lianyi grew up and was educated in Beijing. He has taught Chinese as a foreign language for more than 13 years. He is at present Lecturer in Chinese at SOAS. He completed his PhD in language teaching techniques at the Institute of Education, University of London.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Beginner's Mandarin 5 Jan 2009
This book was a requirement as part of my Chinese module at university. The book is good, showing good examples of pronunciation and also the chinese words in english writing, however the book lacks the chinese charactors and for that reason I don't think this book is very good.

It would work well for someone just wanting to speak the language, but if you are going there on holiday and need to read signs or write things down etc. this book is not for you!
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Amazon.com: 4.5 out of 5 stars  2 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent source for learning Chinese on your own 15 Nov 2007
By L. Parker - Published on Amazon.com
I've been studying Chinese on my own for a year now, renting every item my library system has on Mandarin (and living in one of the largest cities in the U.S. with all of the libraries linked - that's a lot of books!) This is, by far, the best single resource I have found for teaching yourself Chinese. It is designed to provide for you a lesson that is similar to what you would receive in a classroom setting.

Every lesson is clearly laid out, clearly explained. Each unit begins with an outline of what you can expect to learn in that chapter, as well as some hints for you to utilize while practicing the material. It then gives a few short review questions on what you learned in the previous chapter. Next, it gives you a vocabulary list. I have found the lists in this book to be the perfect length - other books give you so much vocabulary that you struggle to learn it all and are not able to advance until you do. This gives you a manageable list (although still a good size) that allows you to start using it right away by listening to/reading conversations in Mandarin that utilize the new vocabulary words.

Next, it has a section with 5-10 short articles explaining different aspects of Chinese that you would not pick up on by yourself. It spends time on sentence structure, past and future tense, etc. It goes over things such as how to tell time, how to speak about money, how to compare objects or distances, etc. This section is the "meat" of the lesson, the teaching part. The last section in each chapter are the practice exercises (all of the answers are in the back of the book.)

I will warn you - since another reviewer obviously made this mistake already - this book has an accompanying CD. Check before you buy it to see whether you are buying the book only or the book and CD. The CD is NOT necessary - it mostly aids in pronunciation (which is a very good thing!) At the beginning of the book, there is a section explaining how to pronounce Chinese pinyin, which you will refer back to often, but there is something about hearing it that enables you to better mimic the actual sound. Also, each sample conversation that you find in the book is on the CD (so you can read - or read and listen.) Out of all the exercises in the book, less than 20% require the CD to complete. All this to say - the CD is very helpful in learning to speak correctly, but the book can be used without the CD.
0 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Does anyone have any feedback about this book ? 22 Dec 2005
By Chairman Mao - Published on Amazon.com
I am preparing to start a course at a local universtity which uses this title as the class text book. Would love to get some feedback from other users of this text. Thank you
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