Integrated Chinese series character workbook question

[shibole]

Greetings!

I'm attemping to use the Cheng & Tsui Integrated Chinese series (level 1 part 1) textbook with the aid of my wife (a literate native Chinese speaker). I'm using the textbook and the workbook, but not the audio CDs or the character workbook. So far I like it a lot.

I think my wife is probably better than some audio CDs and the character workbook is probably just a bunch of blank squares to write characters in, so I didn't buy those. I wasn't going to use the non-character workbook because I was afraid that it depended too much on the audio CD's, but luckily the publisher was kind enough to make some sample lessons from the workbook available on their web site so I could determine that this wasn't the case.

Anyway, there seem to be no sample pages for the L1 pt 1 character workbook available. Can anyone tell me how many times the character workbook recommends that you practice each new character and whether or not it contains any content beyond blank grids and large printed versions of the characters to practice that might make it worth $20?

Thanks for any help/advice you can offer.

[Jeremy@TCE]

It doesn't give advice on how many times to practice a character, but there are like 7-8 blank spaces.

The character workbook doesn't have much more (if anything, it's been a while) than stroke order and nice big boxes (squared off) to practice characters in.

Useful but probably not worth $20 - plus you can get similar things for Chinese people (but with much more challenging characters)

[shibole]

It doesn't give advice on how many times to practice a character, but there are like 7-8 blank spaces.

7-8 blank spaces or 7-8 blank lines? I'm assuming there'd be a blank space for every time you're supposed to practice the character....

Thanks

[WangLongju]

As we wrote in the Preface, the more you practice characters, the more it should help you to remember them. Of course, there's a lot of writing to be done in the Workbook as well, but for people just beginning to learn to read and write Chinese characters, we (and other teachers in the field) felt that a Character Workbook (CWB) is indispensable as a guide to the development of proper stroke order and and proportions.

That said, the CWBs for both L1-Part 1 and L1-Part 2 are more than just a collection of boxes to write characters in. We've also provided stroke order (by numbers superimposed on large characters), frequency data on each character, pinyin pronunciation, English definition, radical indicators, present both Simplified and Traditional forms together, and each character written stroke by stroke (later becoming component by component). We also have included some puzzles and word games directly related to the vocabulary in each lesson.

Jeffrey J. Hayden

Co-author, Integrated Chinese, Character Workbook

[Rrina]

plus you can get similar things for Chinese people (but with much more challenging characters

This got my attention. Details, please...

[shibole]

That said, the CWBs for both L1-Part 1 and L1-Part 2 are more than just a collection of boxes to write characters in.

Thanks for the info. Are there any sample pages from the L1 P1 book available?

[WangLongju]

> plus you can get similar things for Chinese people (but with much

> more challenging characters)

But this won't necessarily keep a student focussed or on track. That's the thing about Character Workbooks designed along with specific textbook vocabulary -- they are presented in a context and are presumably recycled and reinforced as the textbook moves along, thus strengthening the level of familiarity of the characters as well as the connections in short and long term memory. This allows them to be more easily recalled when needed as time goes on. The practice, however, needs to be fairly regular and frequent.

.

[WangLongju]

> Are there any sample pages from the L1 P1 book available?

Please see attached. Do note that this PDF is generated directly from the computer file; my co-author's final pennings of the characters stroke by stroke as in the published book were done after I sent him hardcopies of the pages.

.

IC1a2-CWB-L00d-Rad.pdf

[shibole]

Woohoo! Thanks!

Though I can probably get by without it, I just ordered this from Amazon (they have it in stock, C&T store doesn't, and I have a free month of free 2 day shipping) partially for what it provides, and partly to support the author and company in producing this great series of books. Keep up the good work!

[roddy]

Also good to see more authors helping out their readers on the site!