Book Description
With Pimsleur Language Programs you don't just study a language, you learn it -- the same way you mastered English! And because the technique relies on interactive spoken language training, the Pimsleur Language Programs are totally audio -- no book is needed!
The Pimsleur programs provide a method of self-practice with an expert teacher and native speakers in lessons specially designed to work with the way the mind naturally acquires language information. The various components of language -- vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar -- are all learned together without rote memorization and drills. Using a unique method of memory recall developed by renowned linguist, Dr. Paul Pimsleur, the programs teach listeners to combine words and phrases to express themselves the way native speakers do. By listening and responding to thirty minute recorded lessons, students easily and effectively achieve spoken proficiency.
No other language program or school is as quick, convenient, and effective as the Pimsleur Language Programs.
The Comprehensive Program is the ultimate in spoken language learning. For those who want to become proficient in the language of their choice, the Comprehensive programs go beyond the Basic Programs to offer spoken-language fluency. Using the same simple method of interactive self-practice with native speakers, these comprehensive programs provide a complete language learning course. The Comprehensive Program is available in a wide variety of languages and runs through three levels (thirty lessons each) in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. At the end of a full Comprehensive Program listeners will be conducting complete conversations and be well on their way to mastering the language. The Comprehensive Programs are all available on cassettes and are also on CD in the six languages in which we offer the Basic Program on CD.
Customer Reviews:
About the accent.......2007-08-17
I am huge fan of Pimsleur cds and have used them in German, Italian, and Greek, as well as Mandarin. I agree with all of the generally favorable reviews here but I will add my experience of the accent. I spent a week in Beijing using Mandarin in taxis, and most especially each morning to get breakfast in neighborhood shops where no English was spoken (I *highly* recommend doing this for the food, the experience, the language practice, and the chance to see how local people actually approach their food).
Not one person I met used the extreme Beijing accent I had learned from Pimsleur. I *always* got better results when I tried to use the more moderate accent from the (Shanghai based) Chinesepod.
For example, no one said "ee dee-ar" for "a little bit." Everyone said "ee dee-an." And this was in Beijing.
In hindsight I would still approach Mandarin by mostly using Pimsleur. But the accent caused me trouble until I caught on that it was a problem.
Mandarin I.......2007-05-20
I work along side native born Mandarin journalists every day. I have tried many CDs and have taken basic Mandarin classes too. The Pimsleur CDs are the best hands down. Sure they are a bit expensive but spend the money. Otherwise, you will spend much more on others that are not easy or practical. Check your local library and get a feel for what's out there first. These are designed for beginners and are very useful in everyday conversation. After practcing with these discs, I have been told that my pronunciation is perfect. And that came from visitors from Beijing. If you want to learn basic Mandarin, buy these discs. You will not be dissapointed. Xie Xie Ni Pimsleur.
Wonderful!.......2007-05-08
Chinese is tough. This is by far the best method I have used to attempt to actually speak it. And one develops a perfect accent using this! If you must learn to speak Chinese, get this or get the one with only the first half of the lessons as it costs a whole lot less (under $50). You will amaze your Chinese friends when you blurt out a sentence without an accent (or, to be more correct, with a Beijing accent.)
Great but one major flaw.......2007-04-19
This is a wonderful course and I won't repeat what many people have already said... but what makes this course very difficult to follow is that they didn't add the pinyin and Chinese characters in a book. A book following the dialogue would have made it so much easier to follow and understand.
If you have access to a chinese speaker who is willing to sit with you through the entire course and help you write down the dialogues then Pimsleur's Mandarin will help you very much. Otherwise you will have to struggle more than is necessary to get the most out of these CDs.
Excellent way to learn Chinese.......2007-02-08
This is an excellent way to begin speaking Chinese, which isn't as formidable as you might think! My Chinese speaking friend, however, is amused that they teach the Beijing accent, which includes the 'r' sound at the end of words. This sound is not part of the standardized forms of Mandarin. He says that while people across China will understand the dialect you have learned, people in other parts of the country will say some words differently -- making it hard for you to understand them.
Book Description
At last a Mandarin CD course which requires no reading and which teaches you to actually speak Mandarin Chinese in a minimum of time and effort. Designed by the experts at Language Dynamics, 'Behind The Wheel Chinese For Your Car' takes the learner from basic to intermediate level Mandarin without the guesswork and pain usually associated with language learning. An expert English speaking instructor talks you through these tapes in English while 2 trained professional native Mandarin speakers teach you Chinese the way it is really spoken! Behind The Wheel Chinese For Your Car is the ideal way to learn Mandarin Chinese while you drive because there is no confusion, no reading, no looking up meanings, and no guessing. It's all on the CDs. Use your commute time to effectively learn Chinese with this delightful course whose method will have you speaking your first words in Mandarin within minutes of receiving your course, and enjoying it. The product has superb clarity of voices and exudes a spontaneity which makes learning Chinese fun. You'll be thrilled with the fast and easy to learn design of the course, beginning with the immediate gratification you feel when you conclude your first one half hour session with the CDs speaking sentences in Mandarin that Chinese speakers understand 10 minutes later on the street. You'll be amazed at the 'natural' way you just seem to pick up Chinese without having to learn grammar or reviewing. No need to go back. It's all 'built in' the course. Just imagine the thrill of being able to express what you really feel in Mandarin in 100 different ways because you know own a Chinese linguistic blueprint, a template that you can manipulate over and over again in different and personal ways while increasing your fluency in Mandarin. What' s more, you will also learn to speak in the past, present and future along with idioms all in the same course.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Supplement.......2007-05-16
The most important thing to remember when purchasing this pack is that these CDs are for beginners, NOT novice speakers. People who have had some training with Chinese in the classroom or self-study may be able to pick up and use this CD pack, but the information is presented too rapidly (and there is too much presented at once) to be good for initial acquisition.
I would give it 5 stars, but there is no clear advertising about this product. If I had some information about the rapid pace and the target audience, I probably would not have purchased this set. It will, however, be a useful set once I've mastered some basic phrases.
Excellent! CD 1 and Beyond.......2006-06-16
The 'good' doesn't stop with CD1. It's just beginning.
I notice no difference between the approach used in 'Behind the Wheel Chinese/Mandarin' and other Behind the Wheel courses I have used.
CD 2 and beyond evolve sentence building, tenses, expressions,
and tons of vocabulary that they teach you how to assemble.
Great course.
Good for listening comprehension and practice.......2006-05-06
This audio set is very useful for getting an idea of how things are pronounced natively, and some slight variations on those pronunciations. However, it would not be a good idea to start here, as it relies heavily on memory. However, a good accompanying set to any books and courses.
Meant to be listened to, not to replace study while not driving.
Great vocabulary but very disorganized.......2006-04-02
I recently bought the BHTW Chinese and honestly, I was disappointed. Let me say that I am a translator/intrepreter for some Western languages, teach languages, including at an Ivy League university - so language-learning is an important part of my life.
Before I start with the specific comments, I just want to say a few words about all-audio courses in general. They are NOT for everyone. People learn in different ways and to learn a language, you generally have to inundate yourself in all ways, through visual AND audio stimuli. If you are very busy and spend a lot of time commuting, this obviously has value but I question how much you are actually retaining and more importantly able to reproduce in a different situation when you just listen. It can take longer when just having the audio stimulus. [...] they say right on the cover it can also be for home use, say on the computer while you are working, laying in bed etc. When I teach my language classes, I tell the students the audio materials are very important but ALWAYS review the text first before just listening. If this is such a nutty idea, why does Language Dimensions offer a script for some of its Spanish courses? Obviously, some people would like this.
The good points: This is the opposite of Pimsleur were they just take 4-5 dialogues and repeat everything a million times, exposing you to very little vocabulary and very few situations. Here you get lots of good vocabulary. Also, they start out CD 1 just the right way, you start building simple sentences - you learn I, you - then some verbs work, eat etc. Then you make sentences "I want to eat", "I have to go" etc. Very good.
The bad points: 1) After CD 1, any real efforts to build sentences in a systematic way stop. Yes, there are some attempts to have structure - changing to different pronouns, negative verbs etc. but these instances often have no rhyme or reason. We often get lists and lists of expressions, with only the occasional question by the English native, "How do you say that?", "Wonderful", "Let's have some fun.." He will ask for the pronunciation of some word he finds interesting but ignore structures etc. which are much more complicated
2) Generally, the focus of the course is focusing on the ENGLISH and translating it to Chinese. Thus, you will get a whole series of things in English that sound alike, "I'm going to".... etc. but in Chinese the structures can be very different, "Wo qu...", other times "Wo dasuan" (I'm planning to), I give to/he gives to, sometimes "wei ta" sometimes "gei ta" - yet no explanation is ever given on why these things are different. You have the male and female speaker translating "I'm afraid" in 2 different ways, no explanation. This becomes a HUGE problem if you want to suddenly apply the Chinese vocabulary. One English sentence can be translated many ways, and it is, and no explanation is given why. It would be better to have a bit less vocabular and a but more instruction on how to use structure. This happens sometimes in the series but there is no rhyme or reason.
3) Not only do they make it oriented to the English words instead of the Chinese words, I am 99% sure that they used their original Spanish course as a basis and just translated everything into Chinese, based on the grammar objectives of the Spanish course. For example, there is a whole section on "indirect object pronouns" - an important issue in Spanish but in Chinese, the output can be very different, involving different ways for saying "to" - wei/gei, different verbs etc. Another section has "time and weather" - Why would they keep putting this together in one phrase in Chinese, I wondered. But in Spanish, the same word, tiempo does double duty. So in Chinese we get "tianqi haishi shijian" or "tianqi huo shijian" (neglecting to mention the important difference between "haishi" and "huo". When you look at it from this perspective, you see how the objectives for translating into Spanish work, but they don't for Chinese. For example, a lot of time is spent negating present tense verbs. In Chinese, for most present tense situations, you just use "bu" in front of the verb, that's it. But so much time is spent on this. Or changing from person to person - the speaker keeps stressing he wants this "formal" - well, if you are talking about tu/usted in Spanish, this is an issue. In Chinese, it's just ni versus nin, the verb form itself never changes for person. Sometimes, they are even sloppy enough to say formal and the Chinese speaker still uses "ni" instead of "nin"!
At another point, the speaker tries to make the Chinese shi/zai constructions into something like Spanish ser/estar. There are similarities but the attempts of the English native to do this is not productive and misleading.
So much time is wasted on this stuff while other stuff, like say particles zhe, guo etc. are ignored. Word order issues in Chinese are ignored. The point is, if you try to reproduce these structures on your own, you will have a lot of problems unless you do it exactly as was said.
4) Part of the problems lies in the fact that, while there is a ton of useful vocabulary, there are many, many things which you are unlikely to say - "Every child is a gift from God", "I never ate there, not even once" - things that are nice to know but it is at the expense of reinforcing sentences that are more standard. Vocab is not reviewed in a consistent way. They will throw in a word like "cai", guess, but never really do anything with it. The stories are just heaped on without any real hope of actively reproducing the vocab - like so-and-so "speaks with a thick accent" - just thrown in. I'd say they do nothing with 50% of the vocab or mention something only once.
5) Fully devoid of any cultural context outside of the language commentary. They mentioned chop sticks once. Beyond that, this could be the Arabic course or French course. No mention of famous sites in China. In their numerous examples, they never ONCE have a Chinese name! Always Bob, Maria etc., never Miss Li or Mr. Wang. So the course is oriented to the English key words and seems also to be based on the original Spanish AND it lacks any real cultural context for China.
6) The English-speaker. His role in this is very strange. As stated above, he will often go for pages reading phrases. Then through in a "wonderful". He will ask about an occasional word or pronunciation but it is worse when he makes his observations about grammar. Many things are just wrong or absurd. He asks the speaker if there is a way to say "I give to him" (Um, what language in the world doesn't have a way to say that?). At one point, he starts referring to the PAST TENSE in Chinese with LE. This is deceptive and incorrect. LE can happen in the present tense too, Wo bing le - but they translate this as "I'm sick", no explanation. At one point, he wants to review the subject pronouns, after 15 minutes of sentences using the subject pronouns. In CD 7, he is surprised to learn that there are no specific object pronouns in Chinese - they are the same as the subject ones - um, wouldn't it be a good idea to talk about that in CD 1? At another point, he says, "Chinese does not distinguish plural" um no, that is not accurate either. There are many cases when you can use "penyoumen" (friends) etc. No one says the person has to be a walking linguistics professor but what he says should be accurate. And, as I said above, he says many structures which sound alike in English but product different structures in Chinese, so this does not help you to reproduce the structures.
7) Attempts are made to address certain subjects, clothes, ordering food etc. Yet there is often no real attempt to speak about a certain topic. You'll get 5-6 sentences on a restaurant and then something completely different. It would be better if they could have more of a topic focus.
In summary: Yes, it has value. If you can learn the many phrases, you can say some very intesting things in Chinese. The problem arises, however, if you try to USE the structures beyond CD 1. You are given very little guidance for a whole mass of vocabulary, English structures that translate into many Chinese structures, vocabulary that many not be suitable for everyday situations. Buy it for the car, but something else for more comprehensive study at home.
Great Course - Multi-Track - 2 Native Speakers.......2006-03-24
I tried Pimsleur's Chinese (Mandarin) (Instant Conversation) and returned it because it didn't have multi-tracks, they presented too little vocabulary and the the course was 'rigid'.
I prefer the method in Behind the Wheel Chinese because there are multi-tracks
(very important for in-car language learning), a good memory technique and great original sentence formation exercises that get you speaking Mandarin from the get-go.
Book Description
Comprehensive Chinese (Mandarin) III includes 30 additional lessons (16 hrs.), which build upon the language skills acquired in Levels I and II. Increased spoken language ability. Also includes a Culture Booklet.
Level III will increase your vocabulary and grammatical structures and triple your spoken proficiency. Upon completion of a level III, you will be able to:
* participate in most informal and some formal discussions on practical, social, and some semi-professional topics,
* form longer sentences while maintaining the target language syntax,
* be understood even by native speakers unused to dealing with foreigners,
* handle increasingly difficult grammatical structures,
* enjoy fluent conversations with a variety of strangers,
* have a near-native accent, and the subtleties of the language will be apparent in your speech,
Note: In order for the Pimsleur Method to work correctly, you must first complete the Level I + II language programs before proceeding to the Level III language program.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but where next??.......2007-02-25
The programme is useful - and I would like to continue in an audio-only format (I do not know how to pronounce pinyin, and less Chinese characters) - any suggestions for continuing to a level IV and or improving vocabulary in an audio-only way?
Thanks
As Good as Volume I and II.......2006-09-30
Now that I have reached the end of the Pimsleur Chinese courses, I am very aware of its strength and its relative weakness. Fortunately, Pimsleur is very complementary with Rosetta Stone. So now, I will redo the Rosetta Stone program, while keeping Pimsleur alive by going over one or two lessons a week.
As I said before: Rosetta Stone is stronger on vocabulary (a frog, an umbrella, West, an egg, a keyboard, November, Brazil, lipstick...) and Pimsleur on grammar and sentence structure (Did you take many pictures while you were in Nanjing? Yes, I did, but the museum was closed.)
As you may know, Volume I was much about drinking tea or beer.
In Volume II, there was a lot of business and tennis going on.
Volume III is a mix of travel (I have heard that the Peonies in Luo Yang are very famous. My room is on the fifth floor but it is not ready yet), business (I didn't have much time. I met many new clients. I needed a microphone. I dialed the wrong area code), and sheer misery (I have a sore throat. Go on my behalf to the pharmacy, buy some medicine and come back. This is my key).
I wish there had been a bit more vocabulary built into the Pimsleur (after 48 CDs and $600, one would expect to know more than one color - green). But the basis is very good indeed.
I am eager to go to China again. And I am also contemplating puchasing Pimsleur Spanish. Once you're used to such compelling company in your car and on your iPod, you can't imagine life without it.
Pimsleur Chinese Mandarin Quick and Simple.......2006-08-31
This method would be perfect if it had a text book attached to it. Babies can learn without reading, but as soon as they master the sounds of communication they need to learn how to read and write to improve their skills. I find incredible that Pimsleur refuses to give access to a text book as soon as the learner has mastered basic sounds. I am a University Professor and can testify that a language method without a text book is a fake
Bookchip version is better and easier to use.......2006-05-09
Bookchip version is better and easier to use, ( 3 bookchips compared to 52 cds) I bought bookchips and cds, send cds back. Buy Bookchip (Audiofy Bookchip) instead.
Pimsleur Mandarin Tape Series.......2005-05-03
I am at least middle aged and heading off/been to Taiwan on business. So I decided to try and learn to speak Mandarin. I am an engineer so I am bright enough, but languages in high school and college were killers. It has taken me about 18 months to go through the 3 Pimsleaur programs. I don't want to depress anyone, but I do want to give you some perspective. During the 18 months I also worked my way through the book Beginner's Chinese by Yong Ho.
Each Pimsleur lesson is 1/2 hour long and they make it sound like you just move from one to the next. Usually it takes me 3-4 times per lesson before I feel comfortable enough to move on to the next. They also say that it is strictly an auditory program. It may be, but I have to make flash cards of the new vocabulary as I go along. I have a couple of dictionaires that I work with. The Oxford starter Chinese Dictionary is good and the Rough Guide has phonetic spellings as well as the pin-ying.
Up until now, I have been learning in sort of a vacuum. I have not had much opportunity to speak or listen to Chinese outside of the tape series. When I do get an opportunity to speak, my Chinese speaking colleages say my pronunciation is good enough that people will think I really know what I am saying and will then barrage me with lots of questions expecting that I can understand them.
So while I can now phrase a lot of questions and feel pretty confident about speaking (albeit with the limited vocabulary of the series), I still have a lot of difficulty understanding my co-workers. They speak faster, use words I don't understand, or put them in different order than what is on the tapes. Still they appreciate the fact that I am trying to learn their language and are very patient with me.
As for vacabulary, the words introduced in the tape series sink in much faster/deeper than any words I have tried to learn outside of the series. The auditory system of learning phrases and hearing the words repeated works much better for me than studying with flash cards or from books.
Next stop for me is a 1/2 year assignment in Taiwan and baptism by fire. Regardless of how I fare, I wouldn't have gotten this far without the tape series. (This review program could use a spell checker)
Customer Reviews:
Stimulating and fun way to review conversational Chinese.......2007-10-08
This package of Text Book and CDs for use at home and in car, bus, train, jet, boat - wherever you can play CDs - is clean, fun and efficient. You'll get warmed up on conversational topics painlessly and effectively.
Not a great way to get Character review, but a good package for speaking fluently and idiomatically.
10 X Better Than Last Version.......2007-09-26
For students who tried the first version of LL Mandarin, this latest is far superior (both to the original LL and competitors).
First, it now had grammar fully integrated into the course. So, as you proceed thru the course, you get a clear understanding of basic Chinese grammatical constructs.
Second, it now has a separate set of CD's that are designed for book-free learning - i.e. listen while you drive. It would be helpful if the publisher included the text for this section, but it is fairly easy to follow without one.
Worth the money - better than anything else I've seen on the market...
A very good book.......2007-09-15
A very good book for a beginner. You'll get to know some useful phrases and the grammar behind it.
Great program with some minor drawbacks.......2007-08-03
I've been using Ultimate Mandarin Chinese for about three months now, and have gotten through about two-thirds of the course. The recordings are very clear, the book is very simple (no graphics or fancy stuff), but with comprehensive grammar explanations, some homework, and lots of useful dialogs and vocabulary.
If you complete the book and learn every lesson well, you can expect to be at the mid-intermediate level of speaking/understanding. You will know about 1500-2000 words, and you will be able to discuss pretty much any subject, although nothing in much depth. You'll also have a slight Beijing accent, and you'll have some brief exposure to Chinese daily life customs, and mainland Chinese culture. The book does not cover the southern accent or Taiwanese/Singaporean/etc. culture.
Although the book is marketed as beginner-intermediate, it moves very quickly. By lesson 15, the dialogs are spoken at a very fast, conversational pace, and the vocabulary starts to become specialized far beyond the standard tourist fare. The dialogs are excellent for listening comprehension because of the speed, while the vocabulary is pretty extensive. The book is also very grammar heavy, which serves as an excellent complement to Pimsleur Comprehensive Mandarin, which is heavy on speaking skills, but not grammar.
Where the course suffers, however, is in the voice actors, the editing, and the lack of writing. One of the male voice actors has a terrible, nearly incomprehensible accent that sounds awkward and foreign (he is the male speaker in Lesson 15), and each of the lessons that he's featured on is rather painful to the ear. I suspect that is not a native speaker of Mandarin and that, moreover, he is not a trained voice actor. Secondly, the editing of the text is rather poor--there are a number of typos, mostly with tone marks. Thirdly, the course is written almost entirely in pinyin, with only about 200-300 characters in the whole book. I have gotten around this problem by transcribing the pinyin into MSWord IME with the appropriate Simplified Characters, but this is a bit of a hassle, especially given the number of Chinese homonyms.
Overall, I think this is a great course, especially when used in conjunction with other materials (i.e., Pimsleur, Chinese in a Flash cards). With the inclusion of Hanzi and some edits, I think it could be even better. I don't think that it's the ultimate one-stop-shop for Mandarin language learning, but it is certainly worth the price and more.
Extremely helpful.......2007-03-18
I bought this product a few months ago and started learning on my own. I wanted to up the amount I was learning, so I began taking weekly lessons with a Chinese instructor. She was amazed at how much I had learned in such a short time. It helped with the vocabulary and pronounciation. I now use both and have doubled my learning ability. I needed to do this, as I only have a short time to learn. For someone who is not in such a hurry, this product is perfect!
Book Description
Congratulations on your selection of this Pimsleur Language Program. Learning to speak a language has never been easier.
The Pimsleur Language Programs, using the world-renowned method of Dr. Paul Pimsleur, will soon have you speaking the language of your choice.
This series of thirty minute lessons enables you to learn comfortably and conveniently at your own pace, and achieve measurable results.
Refer to the enclosed owner's manual and see how easy it is to learn to speak foreign language.
Customer Reviews:
An important part of Language learning.......2007-09-19
Language acquisition is not likely to come through a single method. Stories of learning English by "watching American television" are typically rather exaggerated. The same is true of the Pimsleur program. This is not to discount the value of this program, which contains some amazing sentence structure practice for anyone who wants to learn Chinese.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer in China, I have often wondered how to most efficiently learn Chinese and how to retain the information forever (the key here has been daily use of the newly learned language). Acquiring language is something that I am forced to think about daily as I confront a myriad of obstacles and challenges related to language.
So far I have created a list to meet my own needs as a learner, not all of which I thoroughly enjoy. This last point is particularly important because balance between fun and hard work is important (so one never gives up and still continually learns). If you speak English and you are studying Chinese in the United States, your list may be modified as needed.
Each day I commit to studying Chinese for 2 hours no matter what. I try to study mostly in the morning so that I do not give up on it later in the day. In addition to my studying I try to have several interactions each day using the language. These are generally friendly inquiries about directions to places I already know or prices of vegetables.
My study program includes Pimsleur; it is my "warm up" for working with a language tutor (I work with a tutor for 1 hour in addition to my study time). Actually, Pimsleur II contains a lot of the words, phrases and sentence structures I was introduced to during my initial intensive language training. I believe anyone who masters (80% or better) Pimsleur I and II can consider themselves at least an "Intermediate-Low" level speaker. Generally, I still use Pimsleur because it is excellent pronunciation practice. By mimicking the sounds I have been very successful in sounding more native-like (many people specifically praise my pronunciation rather than my Chinese ability).
I have begun an immense stack of flash cards, which serve to help me with words or phrases that are difficult. I use the `add-a-card' method, which is quite behavioral but it WORKS. These are all written in Pinyin, but I am moving toward a system of Hanzi. I use the series New Practical Chinese Reader, which has a workbook, textbook and teacher text. I listen to one lesson daily. I also read Chinese Grammar, which is published by Schaum's Outlines. I allot times each day so that I am studying for 2 hours. It's easier for me in China because every good conversation motivates me more, and every poor conversation does the same!
Pimsluer.......2006-11-04
This product is excellent
for auditory learners.
A person can do chores,
go for a walk and be
learning.
Delivery was fast and excellent
Spoken Chinese, the possible way.......2006-07-16
I'm enjoying this method every day, I'm at the end of volume II by now. I also have ended the first year of the China Academy in Brussels and volume one has certainly helped me to be the first of my class.
I still think that a list of the Chinese characters should be included in the box, listed by radicals. This could not disturbe your accent, since spoken and written language are not closely related, or even "not at all'.
Addictive, and great results to boot.......2006-06-21
I wrote a good review of volume I. Now I'm on the last lesson of volume II (and I treated myself to volume III for Father's Day). Pimsleur Mandarin is wonderful in the way it teaches you sentence structure. You will need another source to accumulate vocabulary (perhaps Rosetta Stone, which I completed and is strong on vocab but weak on grammar).
For instance, after 59 lessons with Pimsleur, I have been told only one color: green. (From Rosetta Stone, I know many colors). But I can ask "At what time did you drink GREEN tea with Mr. Chen's wife in Beihai Park?" and keep it straight. (In Rosetta, I could say green car, blue car, red car, yellow car. See the difference?)
As far as the plot is concerned, whereas volume I seemed focused on the effort of a man to drink beer with a reticent woman at his place, volume II is set in the world of business. They work hard, and they play hard: The speakers keep trying to invite each other to play tennis or drink green tea. But the timing is always wrong:"I have to excuse myself, I have a meeting at two o'clock. Tomorrow's impossible: I'm taking a business trip to Nanjing."
I haven't been to China since I started Pimsleur. But when I do little experiments in Chinese restaurants, I feel much more comfortable that with Rosetta alone under my belt (although the Rosetta vocabulary is valuable).
A great adjunct (and free too): chinesepod.com available at their website and at iTunes. Measuring myself on chinesepod.com, I am now better than elementary, and not quite intermediate (there is also newbie and advanced).
One last thought: Simon and Shuster recommend moving on to the next lesson when you feel 80% proficient with the present one. I wait until I'm 100% proficient and the answers come almost automatically to me. It takes about 3 to 4 repeats of each lesson. At that price, I don't feel like rushing through it!
If you think the script is too spartan..........2006-02-28
To comment on the people who are calling the script predictable and not varied enough, Come on, If you are serious about learning a language with this incredible system, you should have had a good Mandarin to English and back again dictionary since halfway through Mandarin I. The Pmslr CDs teach you the language by giving you an understanding of the sentence structure and the ability to recognize and replicate the tonal system that is the single biggest hurdle to learning Mandarin for an English speaker.
If you want to know east, west, toilette or anything else that isnt on the CDs, just look it up. You will already know how to handle the Pinyin (roman letters used for writing chinese)tones, and the written sylable groupings and how to pronounce them can be learned in a couple days with home made flash cards. Just copy the phenomes out of the front of your dictionary onto note cards with the english phonetic spelling on the back and shuffle and practice. start with 5 to 10 and as you learn them keep adding a few. Trust me this works.
Nobody ever said this set was the end all to an entire language. But as a basic building set it is the best anywhere. Use yr dictionary to learn new words and just plug them into your system. Dont feel bad about doing a lesson over and over or going back for a refresher either.
With this set and a little self motivation you CAN speak mandarin and with a near perfect accent. Go into chinese restrnts and tell them what youre doing and ask them to check your pronounciation too. They will be delighted youre learning and always love to help. Chinese nationals are some of the friendliest most helpful peaople ive ever met anywhere in the world. I've been 6 times for work (as a shoe designer) and Pimsleur has helped me make many friends!
Book Description
This Conversational program contains 8 hours of interactive audio-only instruction, effective language learning with real-life spoken practice sessions.
HEAR IT, LEARN IT, SPEAK IT
What is the Pimsleur® difference?
The Pimsleur Method provides the most effective language-learning program ever developed. The Pimsleur Method gives you quick command of Mandarin Chinese structure without tedious drills. Learning to speak Mandarin Chinese can actually be enjoyable and rewarding.
The key reason most people struggle with new languages is that they aren't given proper instruction, only bits and pieces of a language. Other language programs sell only these pieces -- dictionaries; grammar books and instructions; lists of hundreds or thousands words and definitions; audios containing useless drills. They leave it to you to assemble these pieces as you try to speak. Pimsleur enables you to spend your time learning to speak the language rather than just studying its parts.
When you were learning English, could you speak before you knew how to conjugate verbs? Of course you could. That learning process is what Pimsleur replicates. Pimsleur presents the whole language as one integrated piece so you can succeed.
With Pimsleur you get:
- Grammar and vocabulary taught together in everyday conversation,
- Interactive audio-only instruction that teaches spoken language organically,
- The flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere,
- 30-minute lessons designed to optimize the amount of language you can learn in one sitting.
Millions of people have used Pimsleur to gain real conversational skills in new languages quickly and easily, wherever and whenever -- without textbooks, written exercises, or drills.
Conversational Mandarin Chinese includes the 10 lessons from Pimsleur's Basic Mandarin Chinese plus an additional 6 lessons.
The 16 lessons in Conversational Mandarin Chinese are the same first 16 lessons in the Pimsleur Comprehensive Mandarin Chinese Level 1.
Customer Reviews:
Pimsleur Works for Me!.......2007-10-03
I've bought various language aids over the years, but never really got far with them. The Pimsleur method of learning solely through audio recordings helped me stick with it. The beauty of this system is that it allows you to immerse yourself in learning vocabulary and gets you to start speaking immediately. I highly recommend it as the initial purchase for a language you have never studied before (but it's great for review as well). The words are broken down phonetically, and phrases introduced in the beginning are reinforced in later lessons. I also have found that not incorporating the written aspect to studying a language at the start lets you simply learn to speak it, without getting hung up on learning new characters. You can always learn those later.
An Excellent quick way to learn Chinese.......2007-07-08
Great product, easy to learn and memorize.
I use it in my car and in few days began speaking basic Chinese.
Conversational Mandarin Chinese: Learn to Speak and Understand Mandarin with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's).......2007-06-29
The approach is very effective. You learn by repetition. You don't have to revisit each lesson as you progress to the rest of the lessons as review of the previous lesson is carried forward to the next lesson.
A Great Gateway To Mandarin .......2007-06-02
I would highly recommend Pimsler to anyone learing beginning Mandarin because it uses effective teaching techniques. For example, it teaches you words, and then phrases, and helps you to retain them by asking questions that require you to employ them. I listen on my IPod as I commute on the train, and it's a plesaurable, engaging way to pass the time.
I have received several curious looks, particularly from Chinese folk, after speaking poor quality Mandarin aloud, but my accent is slowly improving. At first, I was utterly uninteligible. Then, after just 6 units of Pimsler, I actually was able to carry on a brief conversation with a Mandarin speaking telemarketer last night.
In Mandarin, I said, "Hi." I asked her if she spoke English. I told her that I didn't speak that well. I told her I didn't understand her (even though I did). Perhaps more importantly, I understood most of her responses! I asked her if she knew where College Road was when I started running out of things I knew how to say. She seemed a bit puzzled by that, so I just said, "Thank you," and hung up.
If you've ever been intimidated by the prospect of learning Mandarin, you don't have to be. It does require you to use your brain, but, as long as you can take some time to listen (e.g., while commuting), you can learn.
Enjoy!
Simple & Limited--But HIGHLY Effective.......2007-05-07
I'm through lesson 5 so far, and I've probably only learned 10-12 exchanges. But my native Chinese students tell me my accent is amazing--and I've had no previous Asian language experience. What these lessons do is make you repeat variations of the same basic question (for instance, "Do you speak English?"), and they are designed to make you pay close attention to the tones. Tones are key! I'm learning now for a trip to China, but I will probably start experimenting with other Pimsleurs when I return to pick up some Korean and Japanese just for talking to the many Asian people at my job and in New York City, where I live. I highly recommend this set.
Product Description
Easy Chinese (Mandarin, Level 1) is a self-study course designed for anyone interested in learning the Chinese language using a step-by-step-approach. The program includes a book (Easy Chinese: Basic Text and Workbook) and a CD-ROM (Easy Chinese Tutor). The Easy Chinese Self-Study Program is most appropriate for those who want to learn the Chinese language on their own with the help of a computer; it is also intended for those who are enrolled in a regular class as an enrichment or tutorial program. The Easy Chinese program is noted for the following: teaching Chinese characters, compound words, and sentences that appear most often in modern Chinese publications; emphasizing both reading and writing the Chinese language; employing a systematic and self-paced approach; allowing the learners to learn both traditional and simplified Chinese characters; providing numerous learning tools, examples, sentence patterns, exercises, and self tests; including more than 700 compound words and 1,000 sentences in the first course Easy Chinese: Basic Text and Workbook: Each lesson in the book includes a number of base characters from which many compound words and phrases are formed. Each character set includes traditional and simplified characters, compound words or phrases, pinyin pronunciation guides, and definitions. Except for the first two lessons, each lesson in the first course includes a number of illustrative sentences using words and phrases already introduced. Each set of sentences includes traditional characters, simplified characters, an English translation, and a pinyin pronunciation guide. At the end of each lesson, a variety of exercises are provided to reinforce learning. Both a Chinese index and an English index are included for easy reference. The Easy Chinese Tutor CD-ROM: The Easy Chinese Tutor CD-ROM offers a variety of learning tools, exercises, and tests that are not found in the workbook. Some of the features include: Animated character writing; brief story about each character; templates for printing hollow Chinese characters; using diagrams and boxes to explain sentence structures; pronunciation by a native speaker. System Requirements: Windows 95 or higher; 100 MHZ or faster 4xCD-ROM drive or faster; Speakers. Note: The animated writing component (stroke sequence) of the accompanied software may be incompatible with a few latest computer models.
Customer Reviews:
Conflicted.......2007-08-11
This is a very difficult review. In the first instance I have to agree with the other reviewer that this is appalling software, totally exhausting a CPU (which, for the non-techs, is absolutely unnecessary). This is especially important because the software is essential to the course, not just an optional extra, and if you use a laptop your fan will be going flat out throughout your lesson which is quite distracting. The interface is also totally modal, like something you would see in the 80s. This gives a very disjointed and inflexible experience.
On the other hand, I really think the course itself is so well designed that it might just succeed in teaching Mandarin to a Westerner, even one with no inherent language ability. It introduces elements in a very deliberate and intelligent way, has most of the content that I had hoped for, and exceeded my expectations.
5 stars for the course design. 0 stars for the accompanying software.
Good book, good methodology but poor CD Tutor design.......2006-08-10
While I'm pleased with the methodology, the quality of the book and the exercises, I'm disappointed with the CDROM Tutor application. The user interface design is very poor and unintuitive. Certain sound files are corrupted since clicking them results in an error message ("computer memory is full"). As a result, pronounciation is unavailable for those characters. At the lowest level, the application must also be poorly coded since it constantly consumes 98% CPU power on a powerful PC. In this day and age, the application ought to be browser-based. I recommend that the author overhaul the application and port it to a new technology.
Would I buy it again? - yes.......2006-07-16
First this review is from a beginners point of view, and after looking to buy a chinese "course" among several titles I decided for this book and I do not regret the decision. Now to the review: This book is decent but the software that accompanies it makes it good, do not be discouraged that it is not "excellent", you DO can learn chinese with this book. Firts lets talk about the negative aspects of this book and its CDROM. It focuses on writing and reading and not so much in speaking or hearing. For instance, on the book you barely get any mention of the famous 4 tones of chinese, but in the CDROM you can hear every character of the book and also see a simple diagram of how is the tone pronnounced (like going from a high to low tone ); sadly the pronounciation is not as clear a one would wish and you spend about 3 seconds whenever you want to hear again the last character. This book is not like the one you would find in a formal chinese class, it has no pictures with dialogs and to be honest it is a bit abstract, if you are a good self student then this book is really helpful in learning.
On the good side this book has traditional and simplified forms, the CD shows you how to write the characters and also a has a nice explanation of how many of the characters came to be that REALLY helps to remember them. Also the exercises section of the book is thorough (only with the written chars.) and you know the best way to learn is to practice; I was forgetting, the selection of the characters to learn is very good, you learn popupar characters that let you start recognizing them wherever you read real soon!. My recommendation is to buy two books, not just one, no matter how good people say they are you are better with two sources of information. This book is strong in reading and writing and getting the "idea" of the characters so you should get another that is strong in developing your hearing and speaking abilities.
a good independent start for my 8 year old.......2006-05-25
I purchased this for my 8-year old son because we couldn't accommodate his request to attend Chinese classes in around his school/sports/piano schedules. He "loves it" and I'm relieved that he can progress at his own pace, as he has time, without me hovering. . . with two even littler ones, I can't always afford to do that!
Besides the benefit of enabling his self-study (cd is easily navigatable by a child and the pinyin intuitive) this system works for us because I want my son to learn both the traditional and simplified characters. However, I must admit that I have always planned to supplement his learning myself, especially in the area of pronounciation. (I both speak Mandarin Chinese with my family and studied it (Yale method) and Cantonese in college).
Looks like the price has gone up from the $26+ I spent, but it definitely fit the bill for our family.
Ten stars! An unique and easy way to write and read in chinese!.......2006-05-21
In my opinion this audiobook deserves 10 stars. If you are really interested in learning to write and read mandarin buy this tutorial in the first place .
Dr Chang has developed an amazing and effective way to make it easier to write the chinese characters. An added bonus is that the software also teaches you how to pronounce the words and best of all, the words are built into sentences with a preliminary introduction of grammar.
In few words: you can learn the basics of mandarin by your own and paying just what a teacher charges you for an hour.
Let me recommend also the other book published by Dr Chang: "Knocking at the Gate of Life". It is an encyclopedia of the chinese healing exercises and in it you will find all kind of exercises with significant therapeutic value.
Book Description
This new collection of essays by the author of Life at the Bottom bears the unmistakable stamp of Theodore Dalrymple's bracingly clearsighted view of the human condition. In these pieces, Dr. Dalrymple ranges over literature and ideas, from Shakespeare to Marx, from the breakdown of Islam to the legalization of drugs. Here is a book that restores our faith in the central importance of literature and criticism to our civilization. Theodore Dalrymple is the best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams. --Peggy Noonan. Includes When Islam Breaks Down, named the best journal article of 2004 by David Brooks of the New York Times.
Customer Reviews:
Our Cutlture, What's left of it: The Manadins and the Masses.......2007-09-11
Excellent. Should be a must in every Sociology class in every university. Ah, but that won't happen in any Govt run school. Too bad.
Stop Comparing Him to C.S. Lewis and George Orwell.......2007-08-14
I don't think there's any doubt that Dalrymple blames the welfare state for the cultural rot we're experiencing now in the West. But to call this a polemic against socialism misses the mark in my humble opinion. In fact most of these essays have nothing to do with socialism whatsoever. This is more of a cultural autopsy than an actual survey because realistically the corpse has been rotting for sometime now. And while the third world barbarian hordes overrun the lands our ancestors bled for, we, the heirs of a once magnificent Judeo-Christian civilization do nothing more than stand over the proverbial bloated corpse and inhale the intoxicating fumes as they waft upwards. It's not a polemic, it's a chronical of one man's disbelief at how low we've truly sunk as a society.
Naturally then Dalrymple spends alot of time scolding us for what a bunch of infants we've all become and really who can blame him? As he himself points out people can't even evoke the First Ammendment properly anymore. Every day we're forced to listen to the pedlers of smut, gore, and treason lecture us on what a bunch fascists Middle Americans are for daring to stand up and speak against the filth that is put over their airwaves. As if the First Ammendment were somehow equatable to a right to offend. Folks literally can't tell the difference anymore between purposive criticism of the status quo and deliberately vile and offensive behavior. Indeed the very notion that there's a difference between the two at all has been denied by the collective weight of the American academic establishment (i.e. the American Reeducation Camps).
Admittedly this unjustified sense of entitlement might be the logical conclusion of socialism as Dalrymple suggests but I would dig alot deeper than just this book alone before jumping to any conclusions. Where Dalrymple succeeds wonderfully is in calling American popular culture out for the dangling of the keychain that it really is. I think his phrase "amuseing ourselves to death" is an appropriate assessment of what's really going on, alot of stimulation and not much else.
This book is good for the cultural criticism that it supplies but it doesn't do much beyond that. At least in these essays Dalrymple chooses to focus on culture rather than on humanity, a distinction that alot of the reviews failed to take into account. I commend anyone who works to prevent the loss of our heritage but the comparissons to CS Lewis are totally unwarranted. This book is not the revolutionary tract some of you make it out to be and Dalrymple is not saying anything particularly profound about what humanity desires and needs. All he's doing is saying aloud what anyone with half a spec of dignity realized long ago.
A stimulating collection from this compassionate conservative.......2007-05-31
"Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses" is a collection of 26 essays by Theodore Dalrymple the pseudonym of Anthony Daniels a former English prison doctor and psychiatrist.
If you read and enjoyed Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom" published in 2001 you will find much to enjoy here.
Dalrymple is a "compassionate conservative" deeply concerned about the devastating consequences that liberalism has brought to society.
Dalrymple's basic thesis is the the changes to society brought about by progressive intellectuals has devastated the working classes leading to the social problems we have today - single mothers, social welfare dependency, social dislocation, drug use, etc, etc.
Dalrymple also rails against art intellectuals who automatically equate "shocking", "disturbing", "breaking taboos" as good. He makes the point that once you start breaking taboos you have to keep going further to continue to shock.
The highlight for me was "How to Read a Society", which discusses a series of letters first published in 1843 written by the French aristocrat the Marquis de Custine on his experiences in Russia.
Dalrymple explores how the insights in these letters on Russian society do so much to explain how communism could take root in Russia, and how closely the tyranny of communism followed on from the tyranny of the Tsarist era.
Altogether this is a stimulating and entertaining collection.
Thought provoking. Hard going, but worth the effort.......2007-05-13
I found the first part of this book quite hard going, however that is due to my own intellectual limitations. It's a book which needs to be pondered and reflected on and I intend to return to it with that aim in mind. If you want to be stretched then this is the book for you. Theodore Dalrymple is a man who does a lot of thinking and it's very sensible, obvious stuff.
Outstanding book .......2007-04-09
I am one who is deeply concerned about the destruction of western civilization. Much of my reading the last 3 years has been on the subject. Perhaps Dalrymple has made the best of the bunch. He far easier to read than Alexander Boots' "How the West was Lost". And far more scholarly than works by Michael Savage, Neil Boortz and Oriana Falluci. Dalrymple also mixes personal experience with research to sell his point in easilu digestable chapters. Although much of his writings are in regard to England it can easily be related to america as well. My only regret is that the book was not longer, even 500 pages wouldn't be enough. I am anxouisly awaiting his next book.
Average customer rating:
- The universe in a nutshell
- Useful but Flawed
- PINYIN IS BACK IN 6TH ED
- I couldn't have survived without it!
- I wished I read the reviews first
|
Mandarin: Lonely Planet Phrasebook
Anthony Garnaut , and
Lonely Planet Phrasebooks
Manufacturer: Lonely Planet Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Chinese
| Foreign Language
| Dictionaries & Thesauruses
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Chinese
| Instruction
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Phrasebooks - General
| Instruction
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| China
| Asia
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Chinese
| Foreign Language
| Dictionaries & Thesauruses
| Reference
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Chinese
| Instruction
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Phrasebooks - General
| Instruction
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
China
| Asia
| Travel
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Travel
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
All 4-for-3 Deals
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Lonely Planet China
-
Lonely Planet China
-
Lonely Planet Beijing City Guide (Lonely Planet Beijing)
-
Lonely Planet Shanghai
-
Japanese: Lonely Planet Phrasebook
ASIN: 1741042305 |
Book Description
There's no need to lose face, forgo the Peking duck or miss the slow boat down the Yangtze. This phrasebook will prove more valuable on the road than a bicycle in Beijing.
Customer Reviews:
The universe in a nutshell.......2007-09-27
This book has almost everything you need, although i think you need some sort of knowledge cause its kinda hard too, but anyways this book its worth it, trust me
Useful but Flawed.......2007-07-11
This book is flawed, but I use it anyway because it's easy to carry around and use.
My qualifications: I live in Taiwan. I've been studying Mandarin for about a year, but only in a class for the past six months. I have carried this guide around with me almost continuously for most of the past year and have used it in a variety of situations.
The flaws:
-Some words are incorrect. Example: the word for "jump" is "tiao2" not "pao3" (which means "run"). The word given for "pineapple" is the Thai word. My Chinese teacher has also corrected my use of various dairy product words such as "cream" and "yogurt" (I derived them from this book). Perhaps some of this is due to the difference between Taiwan Mandarin and Beijing Mandarin, but I doubt all the errors can be explained in that way.
-The book only has simplified characters, which means it's more difficult to use in Taiwan (which uses traditional characters.) Lonely Planet does not provide an equivalent phrasebook with traditional characters.
-Some of the words are not useful. Why would a traveler need to talk about the ozone layer in Mandarin? If I go to mainland China, would it be sensible to discuss Tibetan separatism or the Falun Gong? Though interesting, some of the vocabulary is useless, or perhaps even dangerous to use on the mainland (I'm speaking from what I have read about free speech in the PRC, not personal experience).
-The pronunciation guide to Pinyin makes generalizations that can be damaging to the accents of students of the Mandarin language. For example, "q" is not equivalent to the "ch" in "churn". It's a different sound altogether (though it seems similar to the untrained Western ear). I understand the author simplified the pronunciation guide for clarity and brevity, but I have found it quite misleading.
-Some of the phrases do not literally mean what the book says they do. Putting the literal meaning in parentheses would be helpful (the guide does this some, but not enough). Example: "bu2shi4" literally means "is not" not "no". (This means it doesn't make sense to use it as a response to statements or questions that don't use "shi4"). Perhaps my Mandarin isn't that good (I've been formally studying for half a year now), but I've noticed differences between literal and supposed meanings several times.
-The cover is not durable. I've had to bind mine with tape to keep it from falling apart.
But, the phrasebook has these good points:
-It's small and easy to carry.
-The dictionary in the back is easy to use and has a lot of useful words.
-This guide is more practical than some others on the market.
PINYIN IS BACK IN 6TH ED.......2007-05-25
Please note that the product sold on this page is the 6th edition September 2006. This edition marks REINTRODUCTION OF PINYIN.
Best phrasebook on the market though not perfect. Issues with format, not really with content.
Front grammar section is useful, but compartmentalized format in relatively newer editions makes it harder to follow. Questionable advice claims no tones are more understandable than bad tones.
Very thorough coverage of situations, including those never encountered (e.g. drugs, expressing interest in indigenous issues). As a 5 years student of Mandarin, I find the phrases accurate if sometimes stilted, but colloquial expressions given are still current.
I only wish the color coded category tabs were more effectively used. It is hard to find phrases quickly, as it is hard to find specific situations within the five categories of tools, practical, social, food, safe travel, and dictionary.
Anyhow, I will take this book along on upcoming trip to Beijing. (Have studied mostly modern literature and newspaper in Chinese, still don't know word for can opener!)
I couldn't have survived without it! .......2006-09-13
I think for the tourist, this phrasebook is invaluable. Honestly, in 2 weeks I wasn't going to learn to write or speak Chinese well enough to hold a conversation. I used this book as a rudimentary way of communicating, by looking up phrases or words, then pointing to the characters. It really helped me in quite a few different situations. Also made a nice conversation piece on a long distance train ride--the staff were looking up words and trying their English! I can see how this would be useless if you are trying to navigate street signs, or learn to speak the language. But for a tourist who will be in and out of the country, I thought it was great!
I wished I read the reviews first.......2006-09-09
So I'm out 7 bucks. I don't plan on learning any pinyin. I would just be satisfied with pronouncing some nouns and basic phrases. The pronunciation system they have in the rough guide seems closer and the food section is much more complete. In LP, they don't seem to be in tune with the culture and many of the phrases are not useful - are you going ask in a chinese restaurant if it is "free of animal produce", "free range", "genetically modified", "gluten free"?
Customer Reviews:
Invaluable!.......2006-07-03
I would have been lost in China without this book! It gives the most common words needed by a traveler and except for the short conversational sentences, shows the words in Chinese script as well as pinyin and phonetic English. Having the words in Chinese is important because when you can't pronounce them, you can then point to them! Chinese friends told me that some words were wrong, and indeed the word for 'Bandaid' was wrong- using that got only some sort of long, hardly sticky tape, however overall, the book was excellent, well laid out and with most of the words and phrases one needs to survive in China.
Excellent beginner's dictionary, very good phrasebook.......2006-06-11
The book opens with an excellent 45 page section on basic ways of forming common sentences: yes/no questions, questions about how much or how many, handling verbs, et c.
The English to Chinese dictionary gives 160 pages with examples, and notes on usage, and some cultural notes to explain nuances of meaning. The Chinese words are given in pinyin, and a phonetic spelling (adapted to Chinese sounds but to American ideas of how a sound might be spelled), and Chinese characters -- so if you cannot successfully pronounce one you can point to it and people anywhere in China will be able to read the characters.
Then come 50 pages of Chinese to English alphabetized by Pinyin spelling. When you achieve mastery of Mandarin you'll use dictionaries arranged by Chinese characters but I can assure you that would do me no good at this point.
Useful signs like "information desk" or "International departures" are collected in one section, and menu items in another. Signs are organized thematically with Chinese character spellings -- since you may see them that way, or you may need to point to one in the book to ask a local where it is -- and they are also in pinyin, and English. Menu items get all of that plus a phonetic spelling since you are more likely to try to say them. All very nice.
However, this is much more a dictionary than a phrasebook. The rival Chinese Phrases for Dummies has many more phrases, very usefully organized by theme. They are given in Chinese by pinyin and a suggestive phonetic spelling. The Dummies book also gives basic grammar and probably more helpful advice on pronunciation than the Rough Guide and it gives very much more help on how to talk to a waiter, for example, and it has a long section on how to deal with medical questions (which the Rough Guide barely touches) and other topics. Dummies collects a number of especially useful idioms at the end, mostly to make you more graceful or polite. Plus Dummies is laid out in a large and systematically varied typeface which will help you to find a phrase on a page if you are bit flustered, rushed, or tired.
If you want this kind of book at all then you should probably buy both the Rough Guide and the Dummies. They are cheap.
A warning: Many beginners' dictionaries try to "help" you by not using the official pinyin romanization -- the official Chinese method of putting Chinese into the basic western alphabet. Instead they give something between their idea of how pinyin ought to be done, and their own idea of a phonetic spelling. Some omit the tones altogether. Do not even look at anything that omits the tones. Mandarin, like all varieties of Chinese, is incomprehensible without the tones. As to pinyin, there are serious problems with making it universal in China: It works better for Mandarin than for other dialects such as Cantonese; and it fails to distinguish between homophones so that it works poorly for people's names and for literature. But the usage in China seems decisive to me:
China means to become the world's number one tourist destination. They know that will not happen unless they include western alphabetic spellings on important street signs and shop signs and so on. And they have chosen to use pinyin. They use English too in especially international places, but not everywhere. When you go to China you will see pinyin and you will not see some American publisher's idea of how it should have been done instead. So you may prefer some other phonetic system but I want to learn the official hanyu pinyin that I will see there. It is just a small investment of time learning, for example, to say "ch" when you see q, plus you get help with this in both the Rough Guide and the Dummies since they give phonetic spellings along with pinyin.
I have not seen the The Rough Guide to Mandarin Chinese Dictionary Phrasebook 3 published by Rough Guides; Updated edition (May 29, 2006). It is just a few pages shorter than this and is probably just a minor update.
A Must Have Guide to Mandarin.......2006-02-14
I spent a month in Beijing this past summer and this particular guide was absolutely invaluable. I went to China with about 30 other Americans and we all agreed that of all of the guides we had, this book was by far the easiet to use. It provides short phrases in Mandarin, Pinyin and English. I used the book to buy "Bandaids" and special order a birthday cake. You simply have to point to the phrases that are applicable. I also liked the book because of its compact size.
Very good phrasebook.......2005-11-03
For the first year of my life in China, I carried this phrasebook with me at all times. It covers most of what you need in a very small package and also (essential to learning Mandarin) has tones accurately and clearly marked over pinyin characters. If "worse comes to worst," you can show the Chinese character in the book to the person you are trying to communicate with. There are helpful explanations in various places in the book as well. For instance the listing for train carries an explanation of the different categories of seats available (hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper). There are sample conversations, there's a very brief section for translating some Mandarin back into English. For those who are trying to learn the language more in depth, the introductory sections in the front are helpful when it comes to grammar and verb tense. For what it's worth, this book is sold for double its face value in bookshops located inside hotels that cater to foreigners within China.
Very disappointed.......2005-07-07
My copy is actually missing pages. (I bought it brand new) As I was flipping through it when I received it, I saw blank pages throughout the book. I thought maybe these were placed there to write notes or stuff so I didn't pay much attention to it. Then about three weeks later as I was looking up an entry, I flipped from page 25 to 26 and 26 was a blank page. So was 27. I flipped again and there was page 28 in tact. But the words made a huge jump and I then realized these weren't blank pages for notes, they were blank pages because the information didn't get printed on them. This book is full of this missing data! I assume it's too late to return the book now so it's not very useful to me. Also, from what I did see, it is quite a bit different from the Chinese I have been learning by using the Pimsleur method, Rossetta Stone and my ABC dictionary. So if you're not used to seeing the differences in Chinese for the same word, it may be a little confusing. I won't buy another book from this publisher.
Books:
- Choke
- Church of The Holy Sepulchre
- Chyna Black
- Complete Vampire Chronicles (Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the body Thief)
- Complete Vampire Chronicles (Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the body Thief)
- Construction Site Work, Site Utilities and Substructures Databook
- Crescent: A Novel
- Da Brudderhood of Zeeba Zeeba Eata: A Pearls Before Swine Collection
- Death in Paradise (Jesse Stone)
- Dry Ice (Dr. Alan Gregory Novels)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Perfect Pitch: The Art of Selling Ideas and Winning New Business
- History: Fiction or Science
- College Accounting: Chapters 1-13
- Dearborn Total Needs Planning
- Food and Beverage Cost Control
- Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel
- History: Fiction or Science
- Management Accounting in Support of Manufacturing Excellence: Profiles of Shingo Prize-Winning Organ
- Engineering on the Edge: The Future of Nanotechnology and Robotics
- The Lion's Skin
Mandarin II
![Chinese (Mandarin) III (Compr.) [CD]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0743525469.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
Chinese (Mandarin) III (Compr.) [CD]
Chinese in a Flash, Vol. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards)
Schaum's Outline of Chinese Vocabulary
Reading and Writing Chinese: A Guide to the Chinese Writing System
![Chinese (Mandarin) III (Compr.) [CD]](http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/21W81XBFAGL.jpg)
