Barron's edition of "301": list of differences

[querido]

This post describes the minor differences between this book and the 3rd edition of "Conversational Chinese 301" (BLCUP), which is also still new.

MANDARIN CHINESE

Learning Through Conversation

Learn 301 basic conversational sentences

BLCUP "distributed by Barron's for the North American market"

(light blue with illustrations of bamboo and CD)

1. Every place (except the introduction and table of contents) where 301 has a Hanzi+English explanation of grammar, usage, etc., the Barron's edition gives the pinyin too.

2. The audio is included on one CD per volume of mp3s (compressed, 128Kbps), while the 301 set has three CDs of wavs per volume (uncompressed), sold separately. 128Kbps is very generous for speech compression; I would say this is not an issue.

3. While the 301 audio is all-Chinese, the Barron's has that same audio with an English intro and English echoes of the section headers: "...shengci...new words..." etc.

4. In definitions, where 301 gives the hanzi for the parts of speech, this book gives instead the English abbreviation (n., v., adj., etc.).

5. This has an additional glossary of Proper Names.

6. The English in explanations is very slightly edited for style, but I don't see any substantive differences.

7. Everything else inside (illustrations, use of color, typography, etc) looks identical. It is also split into two volumes like 301.

8. The Barron's does not (yet?) offer the DVDs and workbooks, but those available for 301 should coordinate perfectly with the Barron's text.