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A "dry" book for Mandarin? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DNB Bilingual Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4884 days ago 47 posts - 80 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, Estonian*, English | Message 1 of 6 17 April 2012 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
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Hello,
Most people in general seem to dislike long and strenuous language textbooks because they are 'boring', but I have found them to be the most effective. I feel like people misuse the word 'dry' for 'insightful' and 'detailed'. Such was the case for me with another Korean book when I was checking that language out, called 'Speaking Korean' by Francis Park It didn't have colorful illustrations. It didn't have supposed shortcuts to make stuff easier. It was a firm and deep collection of systematically progressing information, and I loved it. In other words, no bulls***, just pure focus. I already know how to write characters since I studied about 500 Hanja some time ago, but I want the book to move on to characters as soon as possible, because pinyin just doesn't look too nice to my eyes. Also, an audio CD is not too important because I plan on using Pimsleur as a supplement while learning from a good book. Problem is, too many books in Amazon are somewhere along the lines of "LEARN MANDARIN IN 5 SECONDS", "EASY CHINESE", "LEARN TO SPEAK LIKE A NATIVE IN 3 DAYS blah blah" and so on. It seems like the best ones (for my style, as I explained before) are always the hidden gems that very rarely seem to pop up with a firsthand search. That's why I want to ask those of you here who have learned Mandarin... I'd be grateful if you could recommend me a book like I described. Summarized: 1) LOTS of detail into the very root structure of how the language is formed 2) Clear and smooth progression, meaningful and systematic exercises 3) Characters (preferably simplified) introduced as soon as possible + If the book has sequels, it would be even better Thank you! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6657 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 2 of 6 17 April 2012 at 11:32pm | IP Logged |
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If you like "dryness", FSI - though does not contain - is said to be very throughout and does things step by step in
modules. As for characters, I think that there's books called Mandarin Reader, or something, that has accompanying CD's that are filled with texts of characters only, and then have a sign list in the back where the readings are. if you dislike pinyin, perhaps a book that use Gwoyeu Romatzyh would be of interest? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| DNB Bilingual Triglot Groupie Finland Joined 4884 days ago 47 posts - 80 votes Speaks: Finnish*, Estonian*, English | Message 3 of 6 18 April 2012 at 6:34am | IP Logged |
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Thanks! I heard the same for FSI as well, I might look into it.
It's not that I really dislike pinyin, I'm eager to use it in the very beginning, but I just want to proceed to learning the characters as soon as possible because they are one of the main reasons I want to study Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6657 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 4 of 6 18 April 2012 at 10:44am | IP Logged |
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Lookie, speaking of readers,
found this for one of them. Quite cute. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4664 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 5 of 6 18 April 2012 at 5:32pm | IP Logged |
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There is a lot of material fitting this description that is put out by Asian presses - I have in mind the Beijing Foreign Languages University Press, Sinolingua, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong press. I can't name the titles of any at the beginning level, but once you reach a certain point (in my case having studied 6 months full-time) there are many, many texts to choose from covering, say, business Chinese, history and culture, etc., all aimed at the language learner.
I am more familiar with textbooks from Taiwan, having used "Practical Chinese" or 實用華語 at the Taipei Language Institute. I'm not sure if you can buy this if you aren't a student there, but it's quite thorough. The Mandarin Training Center at NTNU also publishes something similar. Even though you say you prefer simplified characters, you might take a look - the neat thing about these Taiwan texts is that pronunciation is indicated for characters using the zhuyin fuhao system, which runs right above the character the way kana does in Japanese textbooks. Thus you can totally ignore the pinyin if you wish. It sounds to me like the way you want to study fits the Chinese approach to learning generally. So these Chinese publishers would be a good bet - they also put out dictionaries of various sorts that become useful as you make progress. Have fun! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| freakyaye Senior Member Australia Joined 4836 days ago 107 posts - 152 votes | Message 6 of 6 19 April 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged |
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I have a book to suggest I'm using it at the moment for my Chinese class, the class
itself is by distance through www.open.edu.au but this was my only option so I went with it. It's called short term spoken chinese and actually Ollie on hackingchinese did a small review of it. It does have some pictures but they're not the focus. It's dry like you like :-) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36609388/Lesson%2011001.pdf 1 person has voted this message useful |
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