Best Chinese grammar book?

[Etwood]

Thanks Don_Horhe! Good to hear my purchase wasn't a bad one. Would you then recommend the other books in the same serious, e.g. the 写作 one? It sounds as if it's pretty good!

[Meng Lelan]

I'm currently going through the HSK考前强化:语法 (初，中级）, and I'm quite pleased with it. The explanations are clear and straightforward, and there are example sentences for every grammar point. The only drawback is, as you said, that there isn't a single word of English in it, but, at the 初，中 levels, this shouldn't be a problem. The first part of the book is available (legally) online here. Don't let the title page confuse you - they've put up a picture of another HSK preparation book - 全攻略.

Oh! It is nice. Especially that there's no English. I thought I saw the same thing on the China Sprout website. Is there an answer key in the back for the quizzes?

[Etwood]

Just had a look, and it appears that there are answers at the back, for both 初，中级 and 高级 books.

[Meng Lelan]

That is a big help Etwood. Looks like 苗东霞 is the editor of the series.

[Don_Horhe]

Thanks Don_Horhe! Good to hear my purchase wasn't a bad one. Would you then recommend the other books in the same serious, e.g. the 写作 one? It sounds as if it's pretty good!

Yes, I would, especially the 写作 one. Another thing that comes to mind is that even though there is an answer key at the back, there are no explanations of why a given answer is correct, unlike the books in this series. That also shouldn't be a problem, since if you just have another look at the grammar explanation at the beginning of each chapter will usually make things clear.

[hanxue]

Hey guys, I've also been trying to find me a good modern Chinese grammar reference book. I've searched around the forum and found several interesting titles as well as found a couple of them by myself. I really find it hard to pick one, so I'd like to ask you guys for some help.

As an advanced Chinese learner, what I'm looking for is the following:

- a most complete reference book which offers extensive content (not just some beginner's/intermediate stuff) that I can consult whenever in doubt about grammatical rules and use of structural particles and other words

- preferably bilingual

- user-friendly (not overly scientific and complicated)

I've been considering one of these:

1) Claudia Ross: Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Modern Grammars) (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415700108/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_hist_2)

2) Yip Po-Ching: Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar (Comprehensive Grammars) (http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Comprehensive-Grammar-Grammars/dp/0415150329/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296133505&sr=1-3)

3) Li Dejin: A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners (http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Chinese-Grammar-Foreigners/dp/7800520676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296133896&sr=1-1)

4) Charles N. Li: Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar (http://www.amazon.com/Mandarin-Chinese-Functional-Reference-Grammar/dp/0520066103/ref=pd_sim_b_3)

5) Samuel Hung-nin Cheung: A Practical Chinese Grammar (Mandarin) (http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Chinese-Grammar-Mandarin/dp/9622015956/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296126491&sr=1-6)

6) 朱庆明: 现代汉语-实用语法分析 (http://books.google.com/books?id=A6_NII-r8UMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=现代汉语实用语法分析&ei=IRcuSJnjOpCkzgTm3NC1Cg&hl=cs&sig=uk8LtAVN0Cezh9aLHJg_GvXHsd0#v=onepage&q&f=false)

From what I understand, the first two are considered quite good by many. I'm not sure about the rest though. What would you guys suggest?

[Gharial]

Hi Hanxue. Many seem pretty happy with the Ross (and IIRC Ross provides examples in not only simplified characters but also in traditional in all her works), but I suspect Yip & Rimmington's Comprehensive grammar is more, well, comprehensive, and in-depth, sophisticated even (yet without being too overtly theoretical/linguistics-oriented - not that the Ross is, either!). So I'd recommend the Ross more as a quick reference for beginner to intermediate...which you aren't...meaning the Yip & Rimmington may well be the more suitable resource for you. (The main "problem" with Y&R is that have released a whole "range" of books, ultimately variations or expansions on the core that was their original Chinese: An Essential Grammar, so the apparent choice could be a bit bewildering to the average customer. Beginners wanting an actual grammar proper should still get the Essential, which seems wide-ranging enough and pretty solid throughout; those who are a bit more advanced shouldn't be too phased by the Comprehensive Grammar; and those who want - need? Really, really like?! Perhaps due to the deficiencies of whatever textbook(s) they've previously been using - their grammar allied to formal exercises, and thus in somewhat "controlled" dollops, should obviously go more for Y&P's Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook first and foremost, though the drawback with that is that one will eventually have to also get its Intermediate companion volume in order to fully flesh out certain aspects of the grammar (whereas the Essential versus Comprehensive grammars are at least relatively self-contained works, albeit without exercises)).

As for the Li & Thompson, that is a pretty good book (if a tiny bit "linguisticky", though in the functional-typological i.e. reasonably useful linguistics, mould, not that this always prevents the examples seeming a bit too selective-contrastive, rarefied, and often limited to gnawing away at the same points again and again from a "variety" of angles - hence there are quite a few asterisked items in this work! - though this approach can of course often be helpful in making some point(s) crystal clear), that's quoted in many works' lists of references (only Chao's venerable grammar seems more often quoted), and really marred only by the fact that it doesn't include any characters (though these are usually easy enough to work out from the Pinyin provided, and/or look up if necessary).

The Li Dejin is cheap enough (in China at any rate) that it might be worth buying, but what English there is in it (and a lot of that is grammar terminology (jargon to some!)) might not be functionally explanatory enough (it doesn't always get very good reviews from what I recall), which is a common fault of most if not all books produced in China. The main problem with this book though is that no Pinyin is provided for the example sentences (which are all in simplified characters ONLY), so although the examples are quite textbooky and not too adventurous with the vocabulary, the book will obviously be less suitable for those who don't know in the region of say 500-1000 characters (including obviously their pronunciations!).

Lastly, Cheung et al's book was produced specifically to complement the old edition of Practical Chinese Reader (vols I & II), a task not without its challenges: "However, because of the association with PCR in the format and sequence in which grammar is introduced, we are sometimes limited in our effort to pursue an issue to its fullest extent. For example, although we are not satisfied with the treatment of 了 le in PCR, we have followed the order in which it is introduced in the book, the perfective 了 in Lesson 27 and the new situation 了 in Lesson 33. Such an arrangement makes explanation of the two 了's in Lessons 28 and 31 or the use of the sentence-了 in the pattern of imminence 要...了 in Lesson 29 a most difficult challenge. .....". (From last para of page xiv of the Introduction. You can read more of this and other books in Google Books previews). If one wants a more spread-out course in grammar, this could be just the book, but personally I would just use exisiting actual textbooks/courses (but the likes of the original Colloquial Chinese course rather than the PCR) for such an approach, and get my grammars in the form of Y&R for example, and it is only really the deficiencies of the original PCR vols I & II that necessitated this book ultimately!

I don't know 朱庆明's 现代汉语-实用语法分析, but it may have been discussed before on the forums (perhaps try searching).

[hanxue]

Wow, thanks for your response Gharial. I'm probably going to get the Yip & Rimmington's book. I've read in a review that someone mentioned the correct vs. wrong sentence are not really marked in that book though. Is that true?

[Gharial]

Hi again Hanxue. I think the reviewer you read has got it wrong*.

That is, Yip & Rimmington use an asterisk (the standard convention in linguistics for indicating unacceptability**). For example, practically at the very outset (in section 1.1.2 on pg 3) they have the following to say:

Material nouns can also be distinguished from other common nouns in two further ways:

(a) While, as indicators of small or imprecise number or amount, 一些 yīxiē 'some' and 几 jǐ (plus measure) 'several; a few' can be used with any common nouns, 一点(儿) yīdiǎn® 'a little' occurs only with material nouns:

一些书 yīxiē shū some books
几本书 jǐ běn shū a few books
*一点(儿)书 yīdiǎn® shū *a little books

一些水 yīxiē shuǐ some water
几桶水 jǐ tǒng shuǐ a few buckets/pails of water
一点(儿)水 yīdiǎn® shuǐ a little water

(My use of underlining. The ® by the way should be a bracketed r, i.e. is the retroflex suffix).

Ultimately the means thus presented of distinguishing the(ir) categories of material from common noun are more linguistic 'tests' than linguistic facts/usage "plain and simple", but such test-based information can of course be useful, and is assimilable enough when presented in moderation (and Yip & Rimmington do use such tests in moderation).


*Or perhaps they meant that there isn't enough "negative evidence" provided in between any wealth or not of attested/attestable data? (Me, I'm happy with simply "postive" data, though itself in sufficient quantities of course, from which I can usually extrapolate broad generalizations easily enough. That is, I find too many qualifications of a point can get a little distracting from that real point "[very possibly not] in question". The argument either way is an attempt to answer the question of what exactly students will most notice and thus be able to most take note from).

**There seems however to be no explicit mention or explanation of this convention in the Introduction to their book, nor where it is first mentioned (see above). They must therefore have assumed that users will either be familiar with the convention or able to work out what it means (it's hardly difficult!).

[hanxue]

Oh, I see... Asterisk will do just fine for me, as it also is a standard linguistic method of marking incorrect sentences. Thanks for your input!

[Gharial]

Hmm, I was sure I'd heard '(yi)dianr shu' somewhere, and lo and behold, there it is in the original Colloquial Chinese course (Lesson 3, page 37, Speech Pattern 6.5): Jīntiān wǎnshang nǐ xiǎng zuò shénme? Wǒ xiǎng kàn diǎnr shū.

Does this contradict the advice given in the Yip & Rimmington, or are the "two" distinct enough that there isn't a problem?

It would help if the Y & R provided a bit more context, but this is a problem of most grammars, in that it is hard to formulate watertight rules or always remember to make clear what the apparent exceptions might or might not be to one of those rules. (The problem with courses on the other hand however is that they often aren't comprehensive enough - not that T'ung & Pollard's course has ever struck me as substandard in any way!).

[hanxue]

Yeah, I believe I've heard that one before too, but I guess Yip & Rimmington were just referring to the particular usage of "yidian(er) shu" as in the examples they provided: "一些书 yīxiē shū some books, 几本书 jǐ běn shū a few books and *一点(儿)书 yīdiǎn® shū *a little books" where it clearly is incorrect. One could never say "give me a little bit of books"...

But I agree that could be a bit misleading when on the other hand you could say "wo zuotian kanle dianer shu"....

[Gharial]

Heh, I think you're right Hanxue - one has to go (and may often only really be able to go!) by the examples that are given in a particular work, and "analogize" appropriately on that basis!

[anonymoose]

I might be wrong here, but the way I see it, the 点 in 我想看点儿书 is relating to 看 and not 书, and therefore does not contradict Yip and Rimmington.

[hanxue]

@anonymoose: Yeah, I think you're right! Good point.

P.S.: an off-topic question: how can I quote sb's post?

[Gharial]

To quote stuff I usually highlight the passage I want to quote, then click on the speech bubble icon (that you can see in the toolbar of the post as you're typing).

I'm not sure, Anonymoose - I mainly go by the context provided, and as it's speaker B in the CC dialogue who first mentions any book, then I guess the utterance has to be the whole '(xiang) kan dianr shu'. If on the other hand A's question was a lot less open, then it would be easier to imagine the answers being necessarily more constrained:

2.A: Ni (xiang) kan ((zhei ben) shu) ma?

B: Kan.

3. A: Ni ((zhei ben) shu) kan yidianr ma?

B: Kan yidianr.

And so on.

But like I say I don't really know how this stuff is or should be processed/parsed, so all I can do is imagine (albeit badly!) a bit of discourse in context. Probably I'd go more for replicating the verb and making the action "delimitative" (kan yi kan) than actually thinking of 'kan dianr' as being much divorced from an actual target/object (even if that object isn't explicitly mentioned) with the 'dianr' relating to the verb itself. So I guess I prefer as holistic as possible than not.

Ultimately the average user of a grammar is likely to take items at a surface level (assuming those items are natural and not invented for the purposes of proving a theoretical linguistic point), and sooner or later spot any apparent contradictions.

[Friday]

I've browsed through dozens of books available in the mainland, but I've had difficulty finding an excellent grammar book.

Problems:

(1) All of the books that I've found feel incomplete, including the rather large reference books, only covering what I assume must be the basics.

(2) Most of the books use rather unusual English to explain the grammar, In fact, many books seem to share the same language, as if they were derived from the same source.

(3) Most of the books waste lots of space providing Chinese explanations for the grammar. If I could understand the Chinese explanations, I wouldn't need the book.

(4) Many books use seemingly random and unusual vocabulary in its examples, even for simple grammar points.

The average grammar book on the shelf seems to be written written for people who have an extensive Chinese vocabulary, but little understanding of Chinese grammar, and an advanced degree in linguistics.

I have found one fairly good book, but as far as I know, they've only published volume 1, in what is a planned 4-volume series:

A Chinese Grammar for Foreign Learners 1

汉语阶梯语法与练习

Beijing Language and Culture University Press

The book uses one page to explain the grammar point, with examples, followed by one page of exercises.

Pros:

(1) The book is easy to understand and concise. It is easy to internalize each point.

(2) It uses clear English alongside each example and explains the rules using clear, non-technical English.

(3) The example sentences use simple vocabulary throughout. If can read 600 or more characters, you can probably understand all of the example sentences without using a dictionary. Difficult words have the pinyin and definition beside them.

Neutral:

(1) The book does not use the pinyin below every example. To me, that is a good point, as the vocabulary used is so simple, but those who can't read the basic 600 or so Chinese characters will dislike this.

Cons:

(1) The table of contents is in Chinese, so it might take a bit of time to find the grammar point you are looking for.

(2) Some patterns, although grammatically correct, are rare, and won't be used by Chinese speakers.

(3) It is only volume 1, so you are limited to 108 grammar points. Hopefully they'll publish the other volumes soon.

[querido]

(2) Some patterns, although grammatically correct, are rare, and won't be used by Chinese speakers.

That's a problem.

I wonder how the other popular grammar books score in this regard.

My favorites, though I'm not really qualified to judge, are the Yip & Rimmington Basic and Intermediate "Grammar and Workbook"s.

Also, the Samuel Cheung is pleasant reading, being a little less like a reference book.

[Gharial]

I couldn't find anywhere more suitable for this, so I thought I'd bung it in here (relating as it does to the Yip & Rimmington books):

In my recent review of the Collins Chinese Dictionary (CCD3) I mentioned in passing something about "the use of only 没 méi by itself for also negating an ongoing aspect (e.g. 他没在看电视)", followed by "though I suspect that 不 bù would probably be the more usual negator in this type of example, and the context make clear whether past or present was meant".

I thought I'd better check on the underlined part of what I said however, and noticed that alone of all my textbooks and grammars, Yip and Rimmington's (whose books I haven't really made much/enough use of yet!) are the only ones to really come out in favour of 不 rather than 没 (so I'm not quite sure why it occured to me/quite where I got the idea from to question that 他没在看电视 example from the Oxford Chinese Minidictionary over in my review of the CCD3!):

The two negators are different in the way they are used with aspect markers:

(i) 不 bù, and not 没(有) méi(yǒu), is normally used with the continuous action marker 在 zài:

妈妈不在吸尘。 māma bù zài xīchén

Mother is not vacuuming (at the moment).

那时候妈妈不在吸尘。 nà/nèi shíhou māma bù zài xīchén

Mother was not vacuuming at that moment.

It is unusual to say:

*那时候妈妈没在吸尘。 nà/nèi shíhou māma méi zài xīchén

(Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook, chapter 17 section C (page 128). Yip & Rimmington say something similar in their Comprehensive Grammar, but that doesn't IIRC provide as many if any examples for this particular topic. "Bonus": note how Y&R don't mark changes in tone/tone sandhi ).

Any comments?

[anonymoose]

I don't have a copy of the book at hand, but if I remember correctly, at the very beginning in the foreword, it specifically says that the rules are only general, and that not everybody would agree with or stick to them.