"Beginning Chinese Reader"

[cjb]

Hi all,

I like the approach of DeFrancis's "Beginning Chinese Reader". The gradual introduction of new characters and new structure, with only a minimum of English along the way, is something I find very engaging. However, I don't want to learn traditional characters right now, and I can't find an edition of this book with simplified characters.

Have I missed the simplified edition, or is there another book using a similar approach and simplified characters that might be suitable?

Thanks for any tips!

James

[Phil]

This looks to be an interesting book (not one with which I was previously familiar, but one that I might certainly consider getting), so I looked at the Amazon reviews. The first concludes with the words "I suggest you buy both volumes together because the appendices with stroke order and simplified characters are at the end of the second volume.", so it may simply be that you lack the second volume.

** Phil.

[tec]

I don't know of anything quite like the Defrancis readers, but they are not available in simplified characters. The closest I can think of to them is Fundamental Written Chinese, by Yao, Lee, and Sanders. The latter has more English than Defrancis, and it uses pinyin when the relevant character hasn't been introduced yet.

[bbclanguage]

Has anyone tried the new Yale chinese text books? http://www.amazon.co...15065321&sr=1-1

want to order one but I have no idea if they are any good.

[Meng Lelan]

Wow the price is a whopper...yes I was one of the teachers chosen last year to test pilot it. I got all of those materials for free.

I ended up adopting a different textbook for my class because I didn't feel Encounters was appropriate for the students I had at the time. Also my Chinese school as a whole decided to use a different textbook. However the Encounters video culture segments and the character writing workbooks are the best I've seen anywhere.

[bbclanguage]

Thank you for your help!

Are they a good complement to students who are studying a course at university?

Any other people who has used the above mentioned book?

[Meng Lelan]

Are they a good complement to students who are studying a course at university?

I would not recommend the textbook itself for independent study. It relies very very heavily on the instructor's guidance.

[mnanon]

In what aspects does it rely on guidance?

[Meng Lelan]

Oh, every aspect....each textbook lesson has to have the instructor introduce the vocabulary and sentence pattern, then play a video or audio exercise to elicit students' responses. The instructor has to guide proper responses to each exercise. There would be at least ten or twelve of those in every lesson. The students have to be guided through everything from vocabulary to writing because the instructor has to be present to provide so much instruction, correction, and feedback. Then the readings, they are taken from real life scenarios and some were written in cursive! And this was for a beginning class! So the instructor has to provide some clues as to how a cursive character would resemble a printed character, this would take hours. I ultimately decided not to use this text and switched to something better. One thing I will say the videos about Chinese culture were the best.

[mnanon]

Thank you! Such a shame, the episodes looked amazing.

What did you switch to?

[Meng Lelan]

Chinese Link which I prefer to use as the main curriculum, but it ends up being a supplemental text as I am required to also use the Great Wall Chinese textbooks.