Review of "An Elementary Course in Scientific Chinese: Listening and Speaking (Vol. 1)"

[Michael H]

Review of “An Elementary Course in Scientific Chinese: Listening and Speaking (Vol. 1)”

 

Summary: useful for some basic scientific vocabulary and grammar review.

 

This is one of a series of five books intended for foreigners wishing to study science in China. The other four volumes, which I haven’t seen, are Listening and Speaking Vol. 2, Reading Comprehension Vols. 1 and 2, and Listening Comprehension.

 

The title “Listening and Speaking” is a bit misleading; there is little in this book about oral communication, while some of the words and grammar structures introduced are mainly only used in written language. A more accurate title might be “Basic Vocabulary and Grammar”, although that doesn’t sound as nice.

 

The level of the book appears to be suitable for intermediate students who have already studied at least a year of introductory Chinese.

 

The format of this book is similar to that of many Chinese textbooks. There are 30 chapters. Each chapter consists of a reading passage, a list of vocabulary words, discussion of some grammar and usage points, and exercises with answers at the back. The main difference between this textbook and many others is that the reading passages are all about topics in science or popular science.

 

The reading passages are short: usually one page and a few hundred characters. They are presented attractively, often with pictures or diagrams. The scientific quality of the passages varies. A few appear to have been written for young children and contain misleading or even false statements. This is more annoying than serious since we are reading this book to learn Chinese, not science. In any case, the sophistication of the texts, both in terms of science and language used, increases considerably as one progresses through the book.

 

Given the shortness of the reading passages, the vocabulary lists are relatively long, typically around 40 words each. However a few of the words are extremely basic (e.g. 手， 因为）, and if one doesn’t know these already then the rest of this book will be too hard. Also, an occasional non-basic word was not defined, such as 牛顿 (although I was able to figure that one out from context and sounding it out).

 

The grammar explanations are useful. Putting them all together will give a pretty good grammar review (I say “review” because I think students reading this book will probably have seen many of the grammar points previously). A few of the grammar explanations could be improved by tailoring them more to English-speaking readers. It appears that the authors wrote grammar explanations in Chinese (which maybe are the best way to explain these points to someone who knows Chinese) and then translated these directly into English. However this is not always best for an English-speaking audience. For example, the book gives a complicated explanation of what "即使" means, but it would help to also mention that this is like “even if” in English.

 

The exercises are nice, and usually fairly straightforward. Answers to all of the exercises are provided in the back of the book, including sample answers to open-ended exercises. This is especially helpful for students using the book for self-study.

 

The book is accompanied by a CD in which the reading passages are read out loud. A particulary useful feature of this is that one can hear how mathematical equations are pronounced in Chinese (the order in which one says things is quite different from English).

 

The book does not include any kind of systematic word lists for scientific Chinese, such as the names of the chemical elements in Chinese (although there is a brief discussion of which radicals are used with which kinds of elements, and there is an explanation of how to read numbers out loud).

 

In summary, the book introduces a lot of useful scientific vocabulary and gives a good review of a number of important grammar topics. The rate at which new words are introduced might be a bit overwhelming if one doesn’t know some of these words already, but it is not necessary to learn all of them to progress through the book.

 

A related book to consider is “Chinese Reading about Popular Science” (2 volumes). The latter book has somewhat harder language (and less technical science), but I found it to be quite good.

 

[StChris]

Thanks a lot for this review, really useful stuff. I want to start studying scientific material in Chinese soon and originally planned to just buy some Chinese high school textbooks and work through them, but these specially tailored for foreigners books seem like a better choice.

 

Just one question, what level would you say these books are at? By this I mean is the science the kind of stuff you learned when you were 12, 16, 18 years old or does it cover uni level material (since it''s an elementary course, I assume it'll contain high school level material).

[StChris]

Actually I have a second question

 

I'm mostly interested in physics. How would you say the content of the book is divided between physics, chemistry and biology?

[Michael H]

I would say that the scientific level of the reading passages varies from elementary school to high school. But these are just very short samples (mostly in physics and chemistry) and do not systematically cover any topic. You will surely get much better preparation by reading regular Chinese high school texts - if you can. If your Chinese is not yet good enough for that, then the book I reviewed might help bring your Chinese skills up closer to the required level.

[edelweis]

you can also have a look at lechuan's review thread which has information about the topics of the chapters in books 1 and 2

[StChris]

Ｔｈａｎｋｓ．　Ｉ＇ｍ　ａｒｏｕｎｄ　ＨＳＫ　ｌｅｖｅｌ　６　ｒｉｇｈｔ　ｎｏｗ，　ｓｏ　ｔｈｅ　ｈｉｇｈ　ｂｏｏｋｓ　ｓｈｏｕｌｄｎ＇ｔ　ｂｅ　ｔｏｏ　ｄｉｆｆｉｃｕｌｔ，　ｂｕｔ　ｔｈｅｓｅ　ｓｈｏｕｌｄ　ｐｒｏｖｉｄｅ　ａ　ｇｏｏｄ　ｐｒｅｐａｒａｔｉｏｎ．