Looking for resources before i begin learning Chinese- what do you think

[Persian]

I've decided to start learning Chinese seriously until fluency. I can have a basic conversation with chinese people, but nothing really meaningful.

So, to begin my studies, i need the following books:

• Exercise books, (Beginner's Chinese by Yong Ho is my choice but i welcome any other suggestions. I've heard mixed reviews about 'Integrated Chinese' textbooks)

• Grammar books (hardest bit about Chinese in my opinion),

• Top 1000 chinese words i need to know (i've looked all over for this and i got an HSK book. However, It just teaches me the word in Simpl. Chinese, pinyin and the english translation. It doesn't go into any more detail. Will this suffice?)

• Book that teaches me how to read, write and recognise Chinese characters.

That's about it. I'm only interested in learning simplified, mainland Chinese. I don't want to waste time learning traditional characters or Taiwanese/non-mandarin dialects.

Any suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[Persian]

Also, i do not want any online material. I'd much prefer offline material (textbooks) than online lessons. Pdf's i can print off would be an exception.

[OneEye]

New Practical Chinese Reader is a good textbook series, and so is Boya, either of which I believe would take you further than Yong Ho's books. I can't be sure because I used none of those series myself, only taken a look out of curiosity. I've instead been wasting my time learning Taiwanese Mandarin and traditional characters.

For a grammar, Li and Thompson is a good one. Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington's book also comes highly recommended.

For the record, most people you come into contact with will not speak perfect standard Mandarin. You will have to learn to understand dialect-influenced speech, and it's best if you view it positively rather than thinking it a waste of time.

[Persian]

I would like to speak Sichuanhua at a later stage, but right now i want to focus on pure chinese (Mandarin). Learning the dialects now would be too confusing.

[OneEye]

I think you're misunderstanding me. Dialect is an inaccurate term, so maybe that's why. You seem to mean 方言, but I'm just talking about the local accent in Mandarin, which will be influenced by the local 方言, but is still Mandarin. Taiwanese Mandarin, for example, is influenced by Taiwanese Minnan (among other languages/dialects/whatever you want to call them), but it's still Mandarin, and mutually intelligible with standard putonghua, while Minnan is not.

My point is that non-standard Mandarin is unavoidable, and that it doesn't do you any favors to view anything other than perfect mainland standard putonghua as a waste of your time. I'm not saying you should immediately start on Sichuanhua. I am saying that maybe it would be beneficial to learn to understand Sichuan-accented Mandarin if that's where you plan on living.

[imron]

Feel free to recommend any Sichuan accented Mandarin learning resources you're aware of ;-)

Actually I agree with what OneEye is saying - learning to only understand textbook/news presenter Chinese is not going to be that useful, but that being said you do need to start somewhere.

Basically though, any resource produced in mainland china will almost certainly meet your needs, as there is a real dearth of local dialect or dialect influenced teaching material available so it will be hard to find even if you were looking for it.

[Persian]

Thanks to both of you. I've tried searching for Sichuanese-influenced Chinese/Sichuanhua study materials and it's just not available anywhere.

One other question if anyone can reply; Should i learn hanzi first, or actual vocabulary?

[roddy]

I'd say learn to recognise the characters for any vocab item you learn. Writing is a whole different kettle of fish.

I wouldn't bother with word lists at this point - just stick to whatever you need for your textbook and any supplementary materials you use. At a later date you can maybe compare your own lists to the HSK lists to check you haven't missed anything out.

[Lu]

Learning vocab is usually easier than learning to write the characters for it, so you could consider learning the words, looking at the characters for said words, and learning to write the characters at a somewhat slower pace (but still learning characters). At some later point you can then pay some more attention to the writing. This influenced by the fact that this is how I learned it in uni, although this meant that in my second year I was inundated with too many characters to learn.