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Cracking the Chinese Puzzles by TK Ann

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30 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3
translator2
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 Message 25 of 30
07 September 2011 at 12:43am | IP Logged 
I just received the Abridged Edition of Cracking the Chinese Puzzles (which is over 800 pages and certainly more than I need). I purchased it used on Amazon for $30.00 and if you have any hesitation at all about buying it, don't. I have not been able to put it down all day. Worth every penny!!


Edited by translator2 on 07 September 2011 at 12:43am

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newyorkeric
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 Message 26 of 30
07 September 2011 at 3:05am | IP Logged 
Do you know how many characters are in it and how they were whittled down from the other volumes?
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translator2
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 Message 27 of 30
07 September 2011 at 4:41pm | IP Logged 
The book states:

"This abridged edition explains exhaustively each of 3,650 most commonly used characters extracted from a survey of 1.4 million characters appearing in Chinese newspapers and represents 99.8% of the survey. In the unabridged edition, a further 2,238 characters were studied which are omitted in this abridged edition."

Some of the 45 chapters are:
Chapter One Prounucation -
Chapter Two What is a Busshou? -
Chapter Three Pictographs -
A Bird's Eye-View of the Entire Field of Chinese Characters
1,400,000 Character Survey
Everything started with Man
Verbs are the Hands
From Tears to Ocean
572 Modern Chinese Characters involve "Water"
The Importance of a Dot
etc.

Lots and lots of text to read. This is not your typical character book with a simple list of characters and meanings.

newyorkeric wrote:
Do you know how many characters are in it and how they were whittled down from the other volumes?


Edited by translator2 on 07 September 2011 at 4:43pm

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newyorkeric
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 Message 28 of 30
08 September 2011 at 6:53am | IP Logged 
Thanks, this sounds like a good choice since I don't plan on learning 6000 characters!
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newyorkeric
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 Message 29 of 30
29 September 2011 at 10:23am | IP Logged 
I just received the abridged edition from bookdepository. I think that for most people it will be a better choice than buying the five volume edition, which has a lot of extra stuff that isn't essential to learning the 3650 common characters. (Volume 5 for example just contains appendices and word lists that aren't so useful.) The abridged edition contains all the descriptions of the bushous and the 3650 characters, which are the meat and potatoes of Ann's method. And the abridged book actually contains more than the 3650 characters - some of the less common characters were included contrary to what the introduction of the book says.

Edited by newyorkeric on 29 September 2011 at 10:24am

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kealist
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 Message 30 of 30
12 October 2011 at 6:09am | IP Logged 
I own all of these books, abridged and the 5 volume set and would second that the
abridged is good enough, although who wouldn't want to collect all of them? They are a
lot of fun


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