Ni Hao: 2

The content of the book is practical and useful - words and terms used in typical daily life conversations (household items, rooms in your house, sports, asking for locations, asking for telephone numbers, stating location such as to the right of or to the left of, etc.). The sentence patterns are used repeatedly which makes this book exceptionally effective since the repetition makes it easier for the students to understand, practice and remember/retain. According to my Chinese tutor, who also teaches Chinese to native Chinese students using a different book, she is now recommending and adopting this book for her other students with non-Chinese speaking parents. She rates this book a 4.5 and says it doesn't need so much English in the introduction section. (I'm sure most English parents would disagree since it does help US understand - tee hee!). My son is learning Chinese with a tutor, period, and will continue his Chinese studies in high school. Right now he is 11, in 7th grade, and he tutors 1 hour/week. Also, the author, editor or both use UK English terms instead of American English terms (for example, on page 37, instead of , "in lesson 2 we learned" it says "in lesson 2 we learnt").

My son was preparing for his Chinese placement tests so we bought him this workbook for practices. Like the other workbook we got for him, the key to success is to spend time patiently and work through the book page by page. So he went through the entire book and aced the test with almost perfect score! The book I purchased is the revised version, not the 3rd edition, which comes with an instruction of how to download the the CD content for free.

The CD was missing

UPDATED REVIEW: I ordered the workbook new after buying used, but either way, the CD is MISSING. After talking to Amazon, there is general confusion about whether or not there is even a CD available to ship with the workbook. She couldn't find one. So, I had to return both the used workbook and the new workbook. What a pain.My old review:I bought a workbook in good condition (not brand new), but I had no idea from anything written in the product description that the workbook requires the use if the CD to complete. For example, the first lesson is to listen to CD and select the correct answer. So, don't buy this workbook unless you buy it NEW, or it will arrive without the CD. Very annoying. Fortunately my son hadn't written anything in the workbook yet or we would have been SOL. So, I am still waiting for my new workbook with the CD. I had to re-purchase and ship back first workbook since they would not allow me to simply purchase a CD.

Maybe Paul should try writing an Australian language book instead. This book is so bad I actually think it is better as a Spanish book because at least by not having any Spanish in it; it doesn't teach you incorrect sentences and words like it does with Chinese.