Learn Chinese

This is a revised third edition of Tuttle's Reading & Writing Chinese.you can find more detail at this book store

This new edition focuses on the internationally recognized test of proficiency in Chinese, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK). All 800 characters prescribed for Level A are covered here, and the 1400+ Levels B and C characters are covered concisely.

All of the prescribed vocabulary for Levels A-C of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi is included among the example compounds. Knowledge of the 2,200+ characters and 5,253+ vocabulary items covered will equip students to take the test at either the Basic or the Elementary-Intermediate standard. Success in the top band of the Basic standard is sufficient to enter college in China.
Everything a beginner needs!
Great book with detailed stroke information for thousands of characters in a great format. I have yet to look for a character that was not included in this book.
My only issues with the book were the actual ordering of the characters (which, to me, seems arbitrary), and the fact the only nine individual strokes are depicted. So, for characters with more than 9 strokes, you have to do a little improvisation to write them out.
Fantastic resource that I am taking with me to Taiwan (traditional and simplified forms of the characters are shown, thank goodness).

ideal for the mandarin student
I've bought my chinese textbooks in my struggle to learn mandarin, and this has been the best one by far. By explaining the origin of the words, and linking the characters to images, it shapes a jumble of hieroglyphics into recognizable symbols, even mnemonics.

If you are studying Chinese then you really need a grammar book as a companion to your other course materials. This will serve as a good reference which can be referred to when needed. The fact that the second half of the book focuses on functional (i.e. situational) grammar makes it easy to find the relevant grammar pattern. I won't go into too many details - you can read that in the review(s) below. I still have some grammar questions that the book doesn't answer but it is the best I have found so far. One area where the book is weak is on directional complements which can be unnatural for the western learner. Good luck on your learning!!

Replaced my old Chinese Grammar books
After having used previous Chinese grammar books, such as those from Yip Po-ching, I found this one to offer a better organization of grammar patterns. The book is split into two sections. The first focuses on grammar patterns and the other which focuses on situational aspects of the language. These two approaches works great when learning how best to put together sentences.

The book presents the material in Simplified/Traditional/PinYin. I also went ahead and got the workbook for this text and was also greatly pleased with the exercises presented.

I would follow up your Chinese studies with a character dictionary (focusing on the 2000 most frequently used characters), and a vocabulary book such as those offered by HSK. With these resources you'll likely succeed in your Chinese studies. Oh, and don't forget ChinesePod; it's a great resource for Chinese listening comprehension.

Excellent - even for a beginner
I just started to learn Chinese a couple of months ago, when I felt the need for a grammar book.

This book uses very simple vocabulary, which I can already understand. The grammar is explained with sample sentences all the time. The sample sentences are 'written' with both simplified and traditional characters.

PartB is the really rich part, where not only additional grammar is presented (past, future, location, etc.), but also common and everyday expressions and situations (phone, agreement, etc.) are also explained.

In my opinion it is very comprehensive, not only on beginner level. The grammar terms are simple - not like an 'official', heavy grammar book, which makes it easy for a beginner, but it is far from shallow for an advanced student either.

A brand new title for the Modern Grammars series to add to the existing European Languages and to the forthcoming Japanese title. The grammar will present Chinese as spoken in the People's Republic of China (specifically, that spoken around Beijing) and give all examples in simplified characters, traditional characters, romanization (pinyin) and in translation. It will follow the series structure (two parts - one for grammar structures, one for functions), with an accompanying workbook. Linguistic jargon will be kept to a minimum throughout. We will also be creating an accompanying homepage for the workbook with additional exercises (and a reporting system enabling students to send their results to their tutors); this we hope will go further to enhance the performance of the workbook.You can order trom this book store

Beginner's Chinese with 2 Audio CDs by Yong Ho


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$17.13
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$11.50Great book for a beginner- the grammer explainations are excellent, the exercises useful, and the audio CD is key when just starting out

Intermediate Chinese with Audio CD by Yong Ho



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$14.93
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$14.02While an easy intermediate book, it does follow nicely from Ho's "Beginner's Chinese". Again, the grammer explanations are so well done- English speakers will be grateful. Wish he had more books.

Chinese-English Frequency Dictionary: A Study Guide to Mandarin Chinese's 500 Most Frequently Used Words by Yong Ho


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$12.89
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$7.78Fun reference for expanding your vocabulary. I think it's easiest to learn new words by building from words you already know (compounding words). This lists them together and makes it so easy.

250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use, Vol. 1 by Philip Yungkin Lee


* Each character is shown in both simplified and traditional form, along with its pronunciation and meaning. Information is given about the radical (essential for finding it in a Chinese dictionary) and other components. The character configuration and stroke order are clearly shown, along with other tips to help form it correctly. A grid of practice squares for each character page allows the user to build confidence in writing Chinese.

* Several compounds are also listed for each character. Each of these is likewise accompanied by its pronunciation, meaning and an example sentence (also transliterated and translated). These compounds and sentences build vocabulary and give extra practice in reading Chinese. All compounds are listed in an alphabetical index at the end of the book for ready reference.

* Each set of 10 characters is followed by a quiz containing a variety of imaginative exercises to review and practice the recently learned characters.

* Each set of 50 characters is followed by a "Character Building" section designed to build familiarity with identifying radicals within characters, a Review of vocabulary learned, and a Word Puzzle as an enjoyable way of revising the material covered to that point.

For the enthusiastic beginner5
This is a great starter to transition into reading and writing Chinese. Not only does it provide character descriptions with example sentences with pinyin (phonetic) accompaniment, there are exercises throughout to test learning and to help review later on. I definitely look forward to using this book to jump start my Chinese reading and writing.

I wouldn't refer the learner of Japanese to this book, for the fact, Japanese rarely use the simplified characters in everyday writing.

Buy it if you want to learn Mandarin characters5
This book will give you a very good start to character literacy. It should be used in conjunction with a program that gives you practice in pronunciation. (I've not found one shoe that fits all.) I'd recommend buying this book and v.2 along with the separately published Pimsleur CD's.

Excellent5
This book is absolutely one of the two keys to learning Mandarin. (The other is the Pimsleur programs.) I never thought I'd learn this challenging language, even though I'm conversant in three LOTE already; but this book is helping me learn how to write in Mandarin. It also has each new character or word in various contexts to show shades of meaning, which is really important in a tonal language.

I highly recommend this and its companion volume, 1, along with the Pimsleur program, which I'm sure you can get on Amazon.These books are great for learning characters and expanding your vocabulary. I often write out sample sentences to reinforce new vocab and Chinese word order. Wonderful addition to tutoring/classes.

250 Essential Chinese Characters For Everyday Use: Volume 2 by Philip Yungkin Lee



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$17.79
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$7.95The second volume. These two books together are a great way to self-study. I aimed for 50 new words a week and found it managable. Need to invest the time though!

Chinese in a Flash, Vol. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards) by Philip Yungkin Lee


Chinese flashcards
These are handy if you are trying to learn Chinese characters. You can sort them out as you learn them so the pile of known characters gets bigger and bigger. They have useful phrases on them to put the words in context.

Fatal flaw for conversational Chinese learners1
These cards look impressive, but they have one noticeable flaw. On the front side of the cards, they only have the Chinese characters, and not pinyin. This flaw is unfortunately fatal for beginners and even many intermediates. For many novices, pinyin/conversational Chinese comes first, followed by characters over time.

For those who want to focus on conversational Chinese (and have no/limited interest in written character Chinese), I would recommend "Speak in a Week! Flash! Chinese 1001 Cards" as a better alternative. They have BOTH characters and pinyin on the front, and simple definition on the back. Even better, the cards are colored differently for nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs (colors have been shown to help with memory).

Note: On Amazon, "Speak in a Week! Chinese" is listed as being available in Feb. 2008, but I just picked them up for myself in Borders (Nov. 2007).

MUST have tool
+ Fairly sturdy and large text
+ Includes traditional and simplified on the "front"
+ Radicial is stated on back for easier lookup in dictionary
+ Numbered to help gauge progress

- Only simplified version for phrases, sample sentence, stroke order
- Definitions are a little short to fully understand some words
- Should/must have a basic understanding of the 4 or 5 sounds used in Chinese (otherwise the characters will be very hard to remember)
- Cannot be the ONLY tool used to learn Chinese; need some way to "hear" the words with the correct pronunciation

= One of the best tools to start learning Chinese. Great time saver (don't need to make my own flash cards). I wish there was a traditional and simplified version, or that all phrases and samples also had traditional side, but I'm learning a lot of simplified characters that I had not intended to.
= Recommend shuffling them to eliminate use of context clues or ordering when testing yourself.
= MUST HAVE for character recognition; only by repetition and review will reading Chinese become natural and effortless. The best flashcards available. Also, I was greatly pleased to discover the first 500 flashcards of the series coincide exactly with the two books above- perfect study aids.

Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar by Claudia Ross


Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar is designed to assist beginning and intermediate students of Mandarin Chinese develop and enhance their knowledge of Chinese grammar. Chinese morphology can be intimidating to students. By simplifying the learning process, this practical book enriches the student's understanding of the Chinese language.

The accessible summary of the major features of Chinese grammar complete with clear explanations of terms and usage is especially helpful to students. The book features 200 sets of practice exercises as well as Chinese-English and English-Chinese glossaries. It serves as a much-needed supplement to textbooks and class materials currently being used in first-and second-year college-level courses.

Yeah Baby! This book is what I'm talking about!
I'm currently living and studying in China. Although I'm a full-time Chinese student, all of my text books are written by Chinese educators. This is a great thing especially when I get more advanced in my study. However, right now I'm more toward the beginning and the English explanations in my textbooks are often mistranslated and confusing. For those of you who are toward the end of their first term of Chinese study (or if you have a general understanding of the language) this book will help you greatly.

I've found it written in a way that is easier to grasp than many of my own Chinese textbooks. The readability of Schaum's book is what really sold me into singing its praises.

I too am working my way through the Pimsleur series and this book does a great job of accompanying and clarifying some of the grammar points made in those lessons.

Some people have said that this book isn't for the beginner. Well maybe so and maybe not. I will say that after a term of study I have a lot of questions that this book has helped me answer. My only regret is not purchasing it sooner as it could have helped me after the first month.

Provides Excellent Structure
Chinese has grammar? Well, not so much grammar as it applies to say, European language, but rather sentence patterns, suffix ending particles and lots and lots of them. This is an excellent book for explaining those sentence patterns and particles. This should help whip your Chinese into shape.

Troy Parfitt, author

fast shipment wished
Although I didn't have time to read through the entire book, I am sure this will be very helpful as a reference book.

I am not happy that I had to wait over 1.5 months to receive the book, but I can tell that Amazon made their efforts to ship this item seperatly with another book that I ordered in March, which was not in stock for long time.

Schaum's Outline of Chinese Vocabulary by Yanping Xie



Buy new:
$11.53
/ Used from:
$7.98