Casette or sound files for DeFrancis 'Beginning Chinese'?

[Rrina]

I'm absolutely in love now with the 'Beginning Chinese' textbook. Just fantastic. The pronunciation exercises seem to be excellent but I don't trust my ear for the tones.

Are the cassettes or recordings for this book still available somewhere? I made a search and I only see reference to the intermediate tapes.

And just in case they're sold for $100 like the SSC tapes, can anyone tell me what's the format of the recording? How do they do the drills - do they just read them straight from the book?

Does anyone know of a library that has this recording in circulation?

Thanks, as usual!

[889]

I'm glad the DeFrancis works still have their fans; yes, the dialogues sound dated, but the structure is extraordinarily well thought out.

Have you contacted the source mentioned in this thread?

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/396-looking-for-advanced-chinese-reader-by-john-defr

[Rrina]

I had missed that thread in my search, thanks so much 889... I'll see what I can do because $120 -or $175 as I just found is the price from Yale- is way above my budget.

I'd still love it if someone can describe these tapes to me - the format, if they follow the text strictly, etc. Just out of curiosity.

But yes, the book is fantastic, isn't it? Just from a quick skim I found very clear answers about some basic points I hadn't been able to understand. I even like the line drawings! Those old books from Yale are so nice. It may be a matter of taste but some people describe FSI as boring and I also very much like FSI...

[889]

I haven't heard those tapes, so I can't tell you how they're structured. But I have heard lots of old language tapes, and I think that if you're used to hearing clear digital recordings, then you're going to be disappointed by the sound quality on those cassettes.

Why not make your own recordings with your Chinese teacher? That'll give you the format and style you want.

By the way, Peter Hessler's recent Oracles Bones has an interview with John DeFrancis, who's 96 this year.

Finally, if you ever study Japanese, you'll find that Eleanor Jorden's Beginning Japanese -- originally published by Yale as well -- follows the same approach as DeFrancis; if anything, it's even more thorough.

[Lu]

I learned Chinese using DeFrancis' book and tapes, but it's been a while... As I recall they follow the book, repeat everything a lot. They read through the dialog for you to listen, and then again for you to repeat. They also read all the sentences and patterns and all, as I recall. I don't remember ever being annoyed by them, as I recall speed was ok and they followed the book.

Good luck finding those tapes.

[ocrtech]

I know this is a really old thread but its on topic so I figured I would ask my question here.

I recently acquired the audio CDs for the Defrancis Beginning Chinese and DeFancis Beginning Chinese Reader books. I am interested in using the audio to focus on sentence comprehension. However, to my uneducated ear it sounds strange. Perhaps I am just used to the audio from the TV series and videos I currently listen to.

I have uploaded a small clip from one of the audio files. Can someone listen to the clip and tell me whether this is standard Mandarin from native speakers.

sample.mp3

[ablindwatchmaker]

The quality is pretty solid IMO. It's not as clear as material more recently recorded, but it is certainly sounds just as authentic as any Chinese I've ever heard. In fact, I I never purchased the CD's because I wasn't sure if I would be able to understadn what was going on, but I'm going to order it in the next few minutes now that I've had a chance to hear the recording you've provided. Thanks a ton for uploading this!