Language book written by foreigners?

[nickpellatt]

I have to say, I am with the OP on this one.

I am very much a beginner with Chinese, although I have lived/worked there for almost 3 years. Due the the fact that I learnt very little Chinese in China, I enrolled on the OU course 'Beginners Chinese' last year and am about 1/3 of the way through the material. The OU material would probably fit the bill for the OP, and its very accessible and jargon free.

One of the set books the OU recommend is 'Chinese - An Essential Grammar' by Yip Po Ching and Rimmington, and I agree with the OPs comments about this grammar guide. I actually complained to the OU about their recommendation, as I believe it isnt suitable for beginners. I know a previous post in this thread copied a sentence from the book, and Im not going to go back and copy it, but I do agree 100%.

The problem is this. If I look for clarification or explanation on a grammar point, I am going to encounter (in Chinese), a structure I dont yet fully understand. Within that structure, the grammar book is also going to introduce a number of Chinese characters I have not yet encountered. My lack of familiarity with both the structure and the characters used to illustrate said structure makes understanding pretty difficult, and very challenging.

By then adding an explanation in English that includes a number of grammatical terms or academic language that the reader may not know, the task is made much harder. The reader is challenged enough with the L2, and doesnt need the added discomfort of struggling to understand the explanation in L1.

The OU course is designed for beginners to Chinese, with zero knowledge and no assumed knowledge of any language learning. On that basis, and this could also be applied to 95% of the general populace, grammatical terms such as 'adjectival predicates' are not not known or understood. Using these often in explaining structures is NOT especially helpful as it asks the reader to learn two languages; the new language and L1. I believe this is a very common habit amongst writers of reference books. I find this not only on my language learning journey, but also on my experiences in learning to teach English, where prescribed grammar guides on the English language are often not accessible to new teachers.

So in summary, course material like the OU material would be perfect for the OP, or people of a similar mindset, but the major disadvantage is that this material currently comes with a £440 price tag as part of the OU course. (although books may be found through ebay, which is where my course books may end up when the course is over)

[anonymoose]

I have that Essential Grammar by Yip and Rimmington, although I don't recall such odd example sentences in it. Nevertheless, I think that book is really intended to be a reference for those already with a knowledge of Chinese.

For the new learner, I think the Basic Chinese - A Grammar and Workbook by the same authors is much more suitable. The vocabulary essentially builds up throughout the book, and little by way of prior knowledge is needed. That was the book I used to teach myself from scratch all those years ago, and to date I still haven't come across a better alternative.

Having said all that, whilst a good book is an important factor for getting to grips with the language, there is still no substitute for hard work.

[nickpellatt]

Ive also got the other book, basic grammar and workbook. I havent used it too much in truth, although I do like the look of it. It certainly might also fit the bill as a worthwhile investment for beginners.

I have my other course to study though, with vocabulary lists to study and remember. Adding another resource to study alongside my current course would be too hard for me, as two courses would introduce too many new characters per week.

I will finish my OU course later this year, and then hope to spend 6-8 months in China. My plan is to use my China time to practise what I have been learning, and then use the basic grammar and workbook at that time to continue to build vocabulary/knowledge etc.

[johnk]

Hi

I have half a dozen course books on learning Chinese:-

Chinese in steps 1 and 2 (used at my current evening class)

Chinese made easy 1 to 4 (hardly over opened)

Chinese for dummies (I hate this book)

Cracking the Chinese puzzle (kind of interesting but making slow progress)

Easy Peasy Chinese (way too easy)

Schaum's Chinese grammar (Another slow progress jobbie)

etc

The books that I actually use every day in my self study is a series called "Elementary Chinese Readers (revised edition)". These books have an old-fashioned feel about them with no nice pictures, just occasional line drawings. They remind me of the kind of text books I had at school 40 years ago. I wouldn't really recommend them to anyone but they work for me. I think that is the point here. Different books and methods work for different people.

The Open University is a good example.

I have an OU degree myself. But it takes a lot of discipline and a particular mindset to do a degree with the OU and not everyone has that discipline or mindset. The OU doesn't work for everybody in spite of the hue amount of work the OU staff put in.

I think the OP's question should really be: "What book will work for me?"

and that is impossible to answer. We can only make suggestions, as people here have done.

Take care,

JohnK

[Gharial]

Actually, the OP said the "epistemology" sentence was from Yip & Rimmington's Comprehensive rather than their Essential grammar, but never mind, Nick!

On page 2 the OP mentioned "the bizarro word 'tone sandhi'". Now I know I've looked this word up before, but I can't quite remember what its meaning or etymology was (something in Sanskrit about Yak milking? ), and I resolutely refuse to use Google, Wiki, dictionaries etc anymore. But then it occured to me to use the surrounding context, and I think that all they were really trying to say therefore was 'tone changes'.

[PengHaoShi]

Hi drencrom, I fully understand you, I'm almost 59 now and living for more than 9 years in Shanghai, having learnt Chinese beside my busy job with all that crab, which you mentioned, teachers, who were focussed on brutal memorization than any advanced learning approaches, ....What I use today:

- ChinesePod, as mentioned by others, it's nice to listen to it, but lacking of grammar explanations. However, you also can take it as a "structure drill" for sentence patterns,

- Skritter, for learning read and write characters (www.skritter.cn),

- Pleco on my PDA/IPhone as my dictionaries of choice (www.pleco.com),

- Short-term Spoken Chinese, as a course book series. Unfortunately, it's again these type of "student comes to China" book, but all of them are pretty short and comprehensive, have all the elementary grammar in and also serves as reading exercise,

- 发展汉语，听力：this series is in my opinion an excellent resource for improving listening skills and also reading skills(you would also need the teacher's book for self-study)

Once you come across the one book, that can fully serve all purposes, please let me know - I'm searching for it for the last 9 years already.

Happy you, Luna of Shanghai will open their location in Ningbo in May, it's a great place in Shanghai with good live music, nice crowd, decent food. A part of the management team is going over to Ningbo, they are all Malaysians, but speak quite some good Chinese - have some good practise time there.

Roland

[AlexL]

One book that sounds very similar to the OP's Japanese book is 24/7 Chinese: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933330821

Lots of cool grammar points and useful things to know. It is not a full course, just a collection of interesting language points and tips that will improve your Chinese.