Best books and audio for intermediate level and above?

[Horcsog]

Hi all!

Right now I have three books that I can learn mandarin from, these are,

250 Essential Chinese Characters Volume 1 and 2: Revised Edition

and

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters, Vol. 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters

As for the audio, I am listening to Pimsleur mandarin series, I will also have the Chinese.pod one.

My problem is, that these are mostly for the beginner level and once I reach intermediate, upper-intermediate level I will be left without materials.

Can you advise some great books in which I can also practice the character writing, and some audio sources as well which are designed for upper level?

[大肚男]

I think Chinese pod has lessons for all levels. so does my favorite podcast popup chinese.

also look into csl pod, which is good listening practice

[Wang7]

Ni hao Horcsog, I'm an advanced beginner and I'm envious of the progress you have made so far. Obviously I can not recommend any books but I would suggest you might try News in Slow Chinese and the CCTV links for intermediate - advanced audio feeds.http://www.newsinslowchinese.com/

http://english.cntv.cn/program/learnchinese/specialchinese/index.shtml

,

[giraffe]

I wouldn't assume that after Pimsleur you will be ready for anything near intermediate level content.

If only it were so.

You might need to do lots more beginner content (but at a more challenging level).

I found the Assimil Chinese With Ease books 1 and 2 were a good follow up to Pimsleur.

[daofeishi]

I am not sure what your approach it, but since all three books you mentioned were about memorizing characters, I'm going to assume you are not going through a well structured textbook that teaches the characters in context.

If you are anything like most learners of Chinese, trying to learn how to read Chinese from Tuttle and other books that don't introduce characters in a proper context is not optimal. You didn't learn English by memorizing the alphabet song. Why do you go about learning Chinese characters as if reading is purely about the characters themselves? Remember, when people say that literacy requires that you know so-and-so-many characters, they don't mean characters exclusively. They mean the characters PLUS all the words that the characters form. (Because, you know, knowing 目, 的 and 地 will not teach you what 目的地 means.) From thousands of characters, you get tens of thousands of words that will have to be learned. . I would highly recommend introducing some more context-centered reading material as well.

Finding reading material at the beginner and intermediate stage is not hard at all. There are plenty of textbooks out there targeted at people who are at the levels you will be at for the next 1-3 years. Here is a list of books and audiovisual resources I have seen and liked, ordered roughly according to difficulty

1. Joel Belassen's two readers. Colloquial Chinese 1 & 2. Chinese Made Easier 1-3. Chinesepod beginner.
   
2. Chinese Made Easier 4-5. Intermediate Chinese. Streetwise Mandarin (With MP3 CD). Chinesepod elementary/intermediate
   
3. Easy reading material for young native speakers, such as 小人书. Simple manhua.
   
4. Reading Chinese Newspapers. Look for simple material on youku, e.g. TV series such as 喜羊羊与灰太狼.
   
5. Read real-life Chinese+translations on ChinaSmack. Get started watching an easy TV series such as 家有儿女. The first episode project will be helpful. ChinesePod advanced.
   
6. Find a few bloggers you like and follow them, e.g. 李银河, 王晓峰, 方舟子. Good idea to pick up some rudimentary classical Chinese at this point, e.g. A Practical Primer.
   
7. Real life newspapers, e.g. 南方周末. Newscasts.
   
8. Pick up a novel. I recommend 余华 as a good starting point.
   

This should take you to an intermediate/upper intermediate level. For most people we are talking at the very least 2 years of full immersion to get through 1-7. If you can do it faster, then good on you. At that point, you shouldn't have a problem with finding your own reading material.

[Horcsog]

Thanks for all the replies! Much appreciated.

[edelweis]

so you recomment starting on novels only after you can read newspapers?

[daofeishi]

No, not necessarily. I didn't intend the list to be a chronological list of what to do in what order. I just found that reading newspaper articles/magazines was a good way of easing into the project of reading a complete novel. Starting to read books before that is definitely doable, it's just about finding material that is not too demanding given one's own level.

[imron]

I think this is generally true, mostly because at least general purpose newspapers will try to stick to a reduced character and vocab to ensure that they are readable to the masses. Books don't necessarily have this limitation, and are often full of all sorts of descriptive prose that requires a much larger vocabulary and knowledge of characters - although obviously this also depends on the author. Newspapers do have their own specialised vocab and sentence patterns, but it's a relatively small and consistent set across newspapers/articles, so once you are familiar with it it's not really a problem.

[edelweis]

Thanks for the clarification. I was afraid I had been doing things in the wrong order.

Perhaps the important thing is to read something you enjoy reading, at least if learning Chinese is merely a hobby and you don't need to achieve a specific ability in a specific time frame.

[imron]

Perhaps the important thing is to read something you enjoy reading

I think this is definitely the important thing. It's so much easier to find the motivation to read when you enjoy what you are reading.