Modern Chinese (BOOK 1) - Learn Chinese in a Simple and Successful Way - Series BOOK 1, 2, 3, 4 2nd Edition

1. When I found Vivienne Zhang's books on Mandarin Chinese, it was the result of looking for a particular type of reference that I find useful. I was looking for a good general overview of the grammar of the language with lots of examples. I especially wanted the audio for the examples, given the special difficulties with the tones. The first two volumes of her set looked like they covered what I wanted.2. The second two volumes give a set of sample sentences with vocab that cover a wide variety of typical situations, also with audio.3. Such a textbook works well as a supplement to my approach to learning languages. At this point, I want to learn enough to be able to read and listen to simple Mandarin with understanding. The basic programs I use are LingQ, Nemo, and MEMrise.LingQ gives me texts with instant (almost) access to dictionaries and some grammatical explanation. The texts are in simplified Chinese with pinyin.Nemo gives me basic vocab, phrases, and sentences for speaking.And, despite the arguments against the value of memorizing list of words and meanings, I find it helpful - if accompanied by regular reading. MEMrise gives me those lists, often with audio, as a first acquaintance with words that I will learn in context over time.Zhang's book ties it all together at a basic (beginners) level. I have successfully acquired Russian, ancient (Homeric, Attic, and Koine) Greek, and Biblical Hebrew in a similar manner. I think I am acquiring Korean in like manner.4. It may be helpful to know what you are not going to get.This is not a textbook that will bring the user to fluency, either in reading or in conversation. It is for beginners.Nor is it to be used in isolation. I have several programs that I use for pronunciation practice, and when I feel especially daring, I have several more for acquiring the writing system.The value of this work lies in bringing together a good overview of the language - something that is lacking for a great many languages - with lots of examples.This is worth emphasizing. One problem that I have faced in learning languages - and I have learned a number - is that common and necessary expressions are said differently in each language.Russian, for example, has three tenses (as opposed to the thirty+ in English) and the verbs in the past are marked for gender and number of the subject, but not person. They are also marked for aspect, which is in English, but marked. I spent a long time - living in first, the Soviet Union, and then in the Russian Federation - absorbing that system. In the end, I was fortunate to find several works of the sort that Zhang has given for Russian.Zhang's books gives an overview of every construction that I could think of at a beginning level. A person who needs to get around in a Mandarin speaking environment will find pretty much everything necessary for making oneself understood.What you will not be able to do is to teach in Mandarin, or to follow lectures. You will not be able to work in a Mandarin speaking job. You will not be able to read at will. You will be able to make your way through a newspaper - if you learn the necessary Hanji - though not with full understanding of all the nuances.You will not be able to understand everything you hear. At the basic level - understanding spoken words - you will need to listen to a lot of spoken Mandarin. What you can do with a newspaper (if you know the Hanji) you will not be able to do with a news program. And it may be a while before you can watch a Mandarin language film with full understanding.This is not saying that beginning Mandarin can be acquired without tears. One has to put in the time, lots of it. I think that Zhang's books go a long way to making that time more productive.5. The author has a good voice for the audio. Generally, I have found that, in the beginning, women's voices are the best for hearing pronunciation. Her voice is one of the best that I have encountered. She reads slowly, so as to hear the specifics of sound and tone. It would be good, at some time, to add the audio for the same material spoken at a more normal speed.

For the number of language learning books and apps I've purchased in the last couple years, I should be a multilingual scholar by now. I am not. And I have made an honest effort to use each method I've tried. The reality is not every method is suited to every one's learning style or goals. I've been going through Modern Chinese (Book 1) for a couple weeks now and am very excited about it as a tool for self study. I only wish I could find a class that utilizes this book so I could get real time feedback on pronunciation and cadence.The Modern Chinese series is unique in the way it organizes useful and interesting words and phrase, stuff you'd actually want to say, in a way that seamlessly introduces the learner to the building blocks of the language, in a sensible order. That may sound like a "no-brainer" recipe for a language learning book but in fact it's very difficult to find something that effectively uses this kind of formula.Another thing that is surprisingly uncommon are this book's side by side comparisons of grammatical English translations with "literal" translations, in the Chinese word order. This is extremely helpful for students like me struggling to internalize the grammar of another language.Another thing that should not be taken for granted is the readability of the Chinese character fonts in the ebook version. Some kindle versions are barely readable but Modern Chinese is crystal clear.One suggestion I would make to other learners is to combine use of this book with an app, or book if necessary, that teaches how to write Chinese characters in correct stroke order. The book is very good at matching sentences with the English translation and English-speaker friendly pinyin but, in my opinion, the brain is much better at recognizing characters when the hand has learned to write them or at least to get a handle on how the most common characters are formed.

The Modern Chinese series books are decent at best. You can tell that some work has been put into them by the author and they can teach you a thing or two about the Chinese language but they are most CERTAINLY NOT all you need to master the language and it can't be done so by just these books alone. Don't be fooled by the pricing or reviews.They do not provide a structured, interesting, or thoughtful manner in which you learn the material; material is presented in a randomized order. There are better sources out there to learn the language and I would not recommend using these books solely alone to learn the language. I would recommend either taking a legitimate course or purchasing the Living Language Complete edition of Mandarin on Amazon (I am not an employee of Living Language but merely a student who has researched various study materials).The reason I rate these books a 2 instead of a 3 is because of the underhanded placebo comments and ratings this book obtained. If you click closely into each user's profile who rated this series. You will see that the comments are exactly the same by the same user for all four books and there reviews and comments were made ONLY, on these four books (no other items on the amazon website - and 20 out of 20 peoples reviews being exactly like that, coincidence? don't think so.I myself do not usually ever bother to review books, or items for that matter but felt obliged to my fellow consumers to warn them of these fake reviews. Especially those who are new to the language and want their moneys worth for a most efficient product. Again I would not go as far to say these books are completely useless. But they are definitely not "5 star" quality and should only be brought if using to supplement with knowledge already learn't.I feel somewhat sympathetic for leaving a bad review for a potentially raising author. But not enough that I'll allow people to be misled on the quality of material they're purchasing.

I can't help feel that the English in most of the 5 star reviews doesn't sound very natural - it's almost as if the majority weren't written by first language English people.... no crime in itself, just a bit strange, especially considering they are all almost overly positive....I bought this book to learn some Chinese ahead of a trip in a couple of months' time. I've studied a number of different languages with different books and have to say this is one of the worst books for language teaching. There is little explanation, no dialogue and little grammar. The chapters are just a list of words with some example sentences, but little explanation or elaborationon grammar points. It also includes the mandaring characters, but no guide on writing (I;m not sure if this comes in later books). The layout is also really dull - there are no example dialogues for you to see context, so it's as though it just expects ou to memorise random words with no context.I bought this to use alongside a Teach yourself book (they have their flaws but are good for a grounding), This book may be more useful once i have complete the TY course, but it's marketed as a book for beginners. There is a lot of emphasis on her teachng in the description of the book, one must assumer her style of teaching is just to sit at the front of a classroom and read from a book with little interaction or "hands-on learning"It may be better for classroom learning where you have someone who can explain more grammar and give you better examples / context, but pretty useless for a beginner self-studyingAlso in the description it says: "One of the unique features in these books is the literal translation into English of common Chinese expressions and vocabulary" - the Teach Yourself book does this with a lot more information and better explanations and CONTEXT (other books may as well)

What is particularly good is that the material is presented in its pinyin/Romanised form, Chinese character form, English translation and its straight literal meaning in English - which is great for getting to grips with the Chinese grammatical structure quickly. This is done across all of the books in the series so it’s easy to jump between books once familiarity is gained with the grammar and pronunciation - unlike books for other languages that I've tried to learn in the past.I bought the rest of the series after receiving the first book. The first book covers the essentials required for the rest of the series. I think it would have benefited from accompanying audio for the first book, but I found lots of resources online for the basic tones. The author highlights the differences between Western and Chinese systems for things such as number systems and other grammatical constructs in a clear manner.The material seems to be presented for everyday real life use rather than a typical travel phrasebook manner so this would be suitable for those wanting to learn the language rather than just learn a few phrases for holiday travel – there’s a small section on getting a haircut! The last book also gives insights into Chinese culture and customs.The series is concisely written and presented in a no-nonsense approach. Good value for money for the whole series.

This book reminds me of the kinds of books my dad had to learn foreign languages in the 70's.Pages of grammar and sentences to learn by rote, no scenarios to make them stick. Without the wav files (which are free to download) it's impossible to learn pages of text and it's difficult to maintain interest.I would be surprised if anyone was able to learn mandarin from this book alone, you would need a tutor to go through it with you.I would save your money and use youtube.

This is a wonderful series of books for learning Chinese – a set that I wish I had many years ago when I first started to learn.There are four volumes in the series. The first volume covers the Pinyin phoneticization system, some easy grammar and useful examples and expressions. The second volume covers more grammar as well as how to write Chinese characters. The third and fourth volumes cover aspects of daily life topics and extend your vocabulary.Two aspects set these books apart from others books for learning Chinese: (i) in addition to presenting phrases in pinyin, Chinese characters and English, the literal translation is also given. The literal translation is particularly useful in trying to understand the structure of the language. (ii) After you have purchased the volume(s) it is possible to obtain the corresponding audio files (see www.learnmodernchinese.com).Of course even with these books it still takes considerable effort to learn to read and speak Chinese, but these volumes provide an excellent start.

The focus in the book is on building up grammar and vocabulary naturally through the use of many sample sentences. Usually a simple grammar explanation is given and is followed by many sample sentences. I’ve found most of the sentences to be very practical, and good at introducing a lot of useful vocabulary for beginners. Each sample sentence is written in both pinyin and Simplified Chinese characters, and has a natural English translation underneath. I especially like that these are often accompanied by literal translations, which I find very useful in helping to understand how a given phrase is worded in Chinese.The accompanying audio tracks are recorded by the author herself and are excellent for listening to the pronunciation. Especially when learning pinyin and tones at the beginning of the book.I also contacted the author Vivienne Zhang with an enquiry by email and she was very prompt and helpful with her reply.Overall, I’ve found this book to be an excellent start for learning Chinese for a very good price. I look forward to moving on to book 2 in this series.