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Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script (TY Beginner's Scripts) (Paperback)

by Song Lianyi (Author), Elizabeth Scurfield (Author)
2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Customers buy this book with Complete Mandarin Chinese Book/CD Pack (Teach Yourself) by Elizabeth Scurfield

Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script (TY Beginner's Scripts) + Complete Mandarin Chinese Book/CD Pack (Teach Yourself)
Price For Both: £24.68

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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Teach Yourself (30 April 2003)
  • Language Chinese
  • ISBN-10: 0340860170
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340860175
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.4 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 54,273 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > Languages > By Language > Chinese > Phrase Books
    #6 in  Books > Languages > By Language > Chinese > Level > Introduction
    #27 in  Books > Reference > Language > Handwriting

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Product Description

Product Description

The Chinese script is an amazing tool with which you will be able to go some way towards understanding Chinese, one of the world's most ancient languages, and its culture. 'Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script' starts from scratch, explaining the origins of the language and how characters have evolved. It teaches you how to write characters correctly from the beginning and, through a series of carefully graded exercises, how to understand enough from signs, directions, instructions and even menus to be able to get by. You will surprise yourself with your ingenuity and your ability to guess correctly, based on the sound logic learnt from this book.

The book is divided into to main parts. Units 1-4 introduce you to the origins of the Chinese script, explain how characters and words are formed and the basic rules in writing them. Unit 4 ends with a mini test to enable you to check your progress so far.

Units 5-9 introduce you to real-life situations such as reading signs, maps, notices and even menus. You will be able to write numbers, dates, tell the time, and fill out simple forms. There is a comprehensive test at the end of Unit 9.

Unit 10 explains how to use a Chinese-English dictionary and Chinese word-processing packages with concrete examples. There is also a brief introduction to Chinese idioms.

By the end of the book, you will understand how the Chinese script works and will have mastered the basics of reading and writing Chinese.

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


About the Author

Elizabeth Scurfield was until recently Chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Westminster in London, where she was a founder member of the Chinese section. 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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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Walk before you Run - Please Read On, 29 Oct 2006
After reading the negative reviews about this book, I just had to buy it to see what all the fuss was about.

The Chinese have the idiom "Ren bu ke mao xiang, hai shui bu ke dou liang" (never judge a book by it's cover) and I liked the cover so I parted with the cash.

Now before we start, on the contary to what has been expressed here by the respective reviewers, this is not a bad book...it isn't great, but it's not entirely bad.

We need to use some logic here (something we require for this demanding subject). The Chinese also say, "xian xue zou, zai xue pao" (you have to walk before you can run).

I can only imagine those who have already reviewed (slaughtered) this book, without really reading it tried to run first.

Chinese is not easy to read or write, and this book will be NOT much use to you if you are a COMPLETE BEGINNER. You can't pick up book and just start reading and writting Chinese. Kids in China practice like you wouldn't believe and illiteracy is higher than we would be led to believe too.

When we pick up something called Teach Yourself, we think great, easy peasy. So "Teach Yourself How to bend it like Beckham will have us curling free-kicks pass the world's best goalkeeper's, (and get us some action with Posh) but in reality, we are dreaming. Beckham has worked hard to achieve his level of accuracy with a football, and so we have to begin the long road to learning Chinese Script. Its not going to happen overnight, neither will you shift that beer gut in time before the summer holiday so you can show off your lovely 6 pack.

You can't just read this book and have mastery of the subject. Like the others, you will come away after the first chapters feeling disappointed if you do.

As opposed to being for beginners, this book would make a satisfactory interim resource for someone who had a reasonable command of about 300+ basic characters to consolidate and build from.

It is not easy to explain Chinese script at all and with limited materials on the market, this point is emphasised.

Exercises in the book are a good gauge for your progress and if you complete them, your confidence will grow.

In response to some of the reviews, I know we have complex subject issues dealt with before more standard situations, but colleagues, thats why we should also buy the other books in the range. This is a obviously a supplimentary book, not a stand-alone. I would personally recommend studying this guide on COMPLETING Teach Yourself Chinese when you have a rough idea of what you are doing.

As for buying the Teach Yourself Japanese Script instead, not the most ideal recommendation as it will only confuse you (If you are learning Japanese however, it is a fantastic book and you should buy it).

When I first started learning Chinese (and Japanese) I began by ignoring the written script and concentrating on Speaking and building my confidence. I then added the final piece of the jigsaw.

WALK BEFORE YOU RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh......and Good Luck
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Erm, interesting., 1 Jun 2008
This book filled a niche for me as an intermediate learner, as it's the only text I've used to place its main emphasis on functional written Chinese (signs, menus, forms, posters..) rather than expressive writing. As with all books in this series, it assumes no knowledge of the spoken language.

If you were travelling in China, this book's pragmatic approach would help you 'decode' some of the Chinese you would be coming across everyday, which could be very satisfying. In this context only would I recommend this book to someone with little or no previous knowledge of the script. For a novice student, working through this book cover to cover would be frustrating, because it doesn't really build up your written Chinese past about the third chapter, after which it gives you snapshots and expects you to rely on guesswork.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Misleading indeed..., 20 Jul 2007
By Zoroastre (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
The title "Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script" is very misleading indeed! It starts rather well and adopts a step by step approach but ends up with something like "We feel we must give you the chance to practise your weather vocabulary!" (p.95 of the book) while never actually teaching it! The book is a waste of time and money. Don't buy it.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Chinese script
I recently started to learn Chinese via PinYin but have been encouraged to try and learn script as well. Read more
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2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
I expected alot more from this book, mainly because it was written by Elizabeth Scurfield. She has done many courses on Mandarin Chinese which have really improved my speaking and... Read more
Published on 24 Nov 2006 by Brendan T. Hole

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