My Awesome Books

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Hello everybody! I am so excited that I just found this forum! Everybody is discussing all the cool things I want to talk about as a student of Chinese that nobody else cares or knows about enough to talk about it.

Anyway, on to my real post...

So I think I found a really great combination of books for Chinese self study.

Grammar Books --

Basic / Intermediate Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook, two books by Yip Po-Ching et al and published by Routledge in their "Routledge Grammar Series." These books seem tailor-made to my style of learning. They explain a point of grammar, and then give several examples showing variations in usage of a particular expression or grammatical idea. At the end of each chapter are very useful exercizes, and answers are given at the back of the books. Simplified characters and pinyin are used throughout, and all the examples have English translations.

Chinese: An Essential Grammar, same series, same authors. This is a great reference book when I want to find what something means that is covered in a chapter further ahead than where I am. The only drawback is examples are givin in pinyin only, with no more than a semi-redeeming simplified character index in the appendix.

Dictionaries:

Oxford Starter Chinese Dictionary: This dictionary is great for basic words I want to look up really quickly. Especially for English -> Chinese, this is my first resource because it gives the most generic translations of English words, so even if communication is muddied by unfamiliarity with a word, I'll still get my point across. It also includes little explanations for certain structures and grammatical words. My favorite feature is that all the entries for nouns in the English -> Chinese section include the most common measure word used for the noun--why don't more dictionaries do that? Only drawback is that, obviously, it's not very comprehensive, and it only gives simplified characters.

Oxford Concise: A little more advanced and comprehensive. Gives traditional characterse as well as simplified, though emphasis is on simplified.

Chinese Characters: A Geneology and Dictonary, Rick Harbaugh ed. This could be a really helpful book, but thanks to the magic of the internet I can get pinyin for lots of words and look them up in my other dictionaries. I haven't really sat down and gone to work on this one, though I KNOW I will eventually, probably pretty soon, actually. Also, because I am putting my learning emphasis on simplified characters (I want to read and write them and read traditional--good idea?), this book doesn't get as much use as it should, since all it's functionality is reserved for traditional character use.

Characters:

Reading and Writing Chinese... McNaughton. GREAT book. Love it. Emphasis is on traditional characters, but from my limited experience it seems like a good idea to begin learning characters with traditional radicals and at least learning to recognize traditional characters.

I have a bunch of other random books, but these are my basic texts. As far as I can tell, I seem to be progressing rapidly using these as the staple of my self-imposed "curriculum" with lots of exposure through media and native speakers (when I can get them).

Well, I'd write more about what I'm up to and ask questions and what-not, but my break's over and I must get back to my data-entry. If my brain is still functioning by lunch, I'll post again.

What do you all think of these books? I think they are perfect for me and highly recommend them to anyone self-learning with my learning style (I memorize vocabulary really well and also internalize vocabulary really fast if I get a good explanation--like that in my grammar books--and then see examples--like in my grammar books and on the internet and what-not).

Edit:

Hmmm. So as I was getting home from work, I realized this post might look like spam. I assure you that it is only coincidence that both my dictionaries are the same brand. I own the Routledge grammar series (minus the newer Comprehensive Grammar) because I fell in love with it when I checked Essential Grammar out from the library. So, anyway, feel free to leave comments on your opinions of these books and what maybe you feel they are weak in so I know where to turn for other resources. Thanks.