BNU Booklist

[woliveri]

Anyone attending BNU can you reply with the book titles you are using no matter what level.

Title and ISBN if possible.

Thank you,

Bill

[adrianlondon]

They produce their own books.

[woliveri]

You mean they are are not for sale outside of BNU? Not clear on your meaning here.

I'm trying to understand the difference in quality between the books at BNU and BLCU.

Is there a BNU publishing website?

[roddy]

I had a quick look at some of BNU's textbooks today - no ISBN number, so presumably not published. Would be good if anyone wants to do a bit of a write-up on them though

[woliveri]

Thanks Roddy,

The BLCU texts that I have, while ok, don't seem to have the vocabulary that would be useful in everyday situations. At the bank, supermarket, dealing with the police, directions, renting an apartment, etc.....

I was watching a couple of students on DaShan's Travel in Chinese on CCTV 9 and am jealous of their outstanding Chinese. They were both students at BNU. So, If BNU is doing something different from what I've experienced so far it would be great to hear about it (Including the texts they are using).

So, a write up on texts and/or classroom experiences would be great.

[adrianlondon]

There are many levels of class at BNU.

Three levels for the first year (which is odd, as there are only 2 semesters), two in the 2nd,2 in the 3rd and - I think - 2 in the 4th.

So that makes 9 levels, and each level has its own textbooks.

Also, each level has 3 or 4 classes (I'm in the 2nd level and have three types of class - duxie, tingli and huihua). My tingli and huihua books look very old, even though they have "2005" written in them. The duxie book is a much newer design - in colour (well, ok, black and blue) and on proper white paper rather than some sort of cheapo ricepaper or whatever the other books are made from.

The new duxie book has an ISBN number. I have to assume thay all the books will be replaced over the next year or so.

BNU has a bookshop on the campus perimiter where, one assumes, all books can be bought.

As for the contents of the book - well, it'd take me hours to explain it. Basically ... each of my three classes follow the same theme. Chapter 1 in each book is about the traffic. Whereas duxie might be about air pollution and the rise in private cars, tingli is about being careful not to get ripped off by a taxi driver. Huihua is about cycling instead, and the benefits that offers. Get the picture? The new vocab overlaps. As the classes don't run exactly in sync, this can get a touch confusing for the first few days until you realise you may need tnew new words from tingli which you've yet to learn, for your huihua class.

Still with me?

Chapter 2 is about going to a restaurant and/or student canteen and/or cooking. Chapter 3is about shopping.

I can only assume the other class levels follow similar themes.

The books cost around £10 for the set (3 or 4 books and 1 or 2 CDs). You can buy the sets for any class level but you do, of course, need the books for your own class level.

We buy these books from a place on campus designed for selling these text books. Whether the exact same books are available from the bookshop I don't know.

Anyway, the one ISBN I have is

ISBN 7-5004-5462-7

You owe me a beer; this was one tedious post

[woliveri]

Cool, thanks Adrianlondon,

From what you've described, if I understand you correctly, all the content from these classes are dealing with real world situations, unlike the BLCU texts I have which are in more of a "story" format.

I see on this page:

http://www.bnu.edu.cn/eng/administration/administration.htm

There's a BNU Press.

Hopefully they will bring all these books to press that can be accessed publicly.

I live in Shanghai but as soon as I can get to Beijing I'll treat you for that beer.

Thanks again.