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Comparison of books for Mandarin Chinese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5142 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 9 of 12 21 January 2012 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Boya Chinese looks enticing. How do they handle characters and pinyin? Are they used in tandem or is either employed without the other? Do you need to buy additional materials like separate audio or answer/translation keys? Is audio provided for most of the material used in the book? Other than the quality of the dialogues, how does it compare with the New Practical Chinese Reader series? Thanks in advance. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 10 of 12 21 January 2012 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
BC = Boya Chinese NPCR = New Practical Chinese Reader At the Absolute Beginner level BC and NPCR dialogs are mostly comparable; NPCR's are a bit more touristy and Boya's more geared towards talking to Chinese friends. BC has Pinyin transcription of the dialogs underneath each dialog as a block, while NPCR transcribes the dialogs line-by-line. The NPCR tries to explain the composition of characters, BC doesn't. (not an issue if you're using a separate book for that anyway) BC has a lot of drills on pronunciation, the NPCR doesn't. (not an issue if you're using FSI for that) At the later levels NPCR continues to present situational dialogs, except for volume 5, which contains literary excerpts that have been critized as being too much of a jump from the previous volumes. BC drops the situational dialogs early and instead features easy thought- provoking short stories or short essays, also managing to describe the way Chinese people think e. g. about birthday presents, or about the one-child policy. Both BC and NPCR drop Pinyin for dialogs, only use it in vocabulary lists. BC's vocabulary lists contain attempts to explain the word's meaning in Chinese, as well as example phrases, something that I missed in the NPCR. After every few BC lessons, there is a consolidation lesson where you review the new characters and words through grouping, association and fill-in-the-blank exercises; NPCR isn't doing any of this. BC has 9 volumes leading up to HSK 11; I couldn't find any indication of how far the NPCR's 5 volumes are supposed to lead you. Additional materials For the NPCR, there is a jungle of extra materials to purchase, e. g. a set of 4 CDs for the textbook (essential), then an extra workbook even though the textbook already contained exercises (not essential), and for the workbook you need to buy another set of CDs, there's also a teacher's guidebook, and a DVD with dramatized versions of the dialogs for every volume but the last (I guess that's why they stuck to dialog format for so long). BC comes with an mp3 CD included in the back of the book and I haven't seen any other supplementary materials. EDIT: Both of these books are primarily intended for use with a tutor. If you want an answer key, you have to get the Teacher's guidebook for NPCR; for BC there is none that I'm aware of. I also don't think that an answer key would help much, because most exercises (at least at my level) are of the writing or re-writing kind, so that there are many possible solutions. Edited by Sprachprofi on 21 January 2012 at 9:06pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5142 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 11 of 12 21 January 2012 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you very much for your detailed comparison. Both of these series look very good. I think the new edition of the New Practical Chinese Reader series comes with a MP3 CD, though I do not know if CDs with additional material are offered separately. I do remember seeing an abundance of ancillaries for it. There also seems to exist a sixth volume.
At what volume does each of these series stop providing pinyin? A good approach for a beginner without a teacher might be to use both to set up a strong foundation. Do you have a favorite site for ordering Chinese materials, preferably economically? Thanks again! Edited by Juаn on 21 January 2012 at 9:50pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6267 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 12 of 12 22 January 2012 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am not familiar with this new edition; I bought my set of materials some years ago.
In the old set, the first volume uses Pinyin throughout, the second volume puts tone marks above the characters (interesting idea!) in the dialogs, the rest don't have any indication of Pinyin near the dialogs anymore, only in the vocabulary lists. I cannot say about Boya Chinese because I haven't seen any volume between the 1st and the 4th. I think going through both as a beginner is not necessary because the first volume is too similar and for the other volumes the NPCR isn't really worthwhile. If you want to work with different resources, use Boya + Teach Yourself, or Assimil, or whatever. Textbooks are roughly a fifth to a tenth of the price when you buy them in China; the only problem is shipping cost and shipping time - but if you're getting several books and don't urgently need them, it's really worthwhile. I bought my complete set of NPCR off a Chinese seller on eBay and saved several hundred dollars. eBay is preferable to unknown Chinese online sites because it gives you buyer protection, and sellers who speak English. For smaller purchases I use http://www.chinabooks.ch or http://www.bookdepository.co.uk (free worldwide shipping). 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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