Review of "Business Chinese Series - Speak Business Chinese Fluently"

[Tianjin42]

As part of Sinolingua’s very generous book giveaway I will review “Business Chinese Series—Speak Business Chinese Fluently”. Thanks kindly to both Sinolingua and also Chinese-forums.

 

Description:

The book is slightly larger than A4, 133 pages and contains an audio CD. The book has 15 classes divided into three subsections in total. Each class typically includes an explanation of what will be discussed; an introductory part usually consisting of some of the key phrases/ sample sentences; assignments; requirements; background material; a medium length dialogue; explanations of the text; vocab and exercises.

The CD offers run-throughs of the text and some funky 80’s interlude style music. The readings are clear (unrealistically clear to be fair).

 

My View:

This book offers a good bridge to medium-high level business Chinese. The book contains no English – the explanations of the new words, the text and grammar is all in Chinese only. I think we the book would suit the medium to high level student best – each class requires, in my opinion, a bit of prep and actually I think it would work very well if used as a framework to host classes with a native Chinese teacher.

The book is certainly a useful resource for those who already have reasonable Chinese and who would like to learn this particular lexicon.

One note – the exercises at the end of each chapter include vocab, speaking and discussions etc. The nature of these questions (and the lack of answers) suggest again the book would work best with a teacher.

 

My feeling is that due to the amount of new (and in some cases specialist) words, you would want to be practicing these regularly  - with in a real situation depending on where you work, or by bringing it into your study routine (the audio CD is useful in this respect).

 

Faults:

The book is not easy going but then that isn’t a major fault. The student who concentrates and prepares well will be rewarded. As a textbook it is fairly standard and a little text heavy – perhaps it could have been a little more accessible if the material had been presented a little more creatively.

 

The Chinese view:

My Chinese colleague says “this all seems a bit formal – I would only speak like this when an outsider comes to the office”. He does feel that it is useful to prepare for formal business situations however.

 

Conclusion:

A good solid business Chinese text book that would probably suit students who have obtained HSK 5 (New) and are looking to use Chinese in formal business situations. It offers good value to students who are willing to put the effort in. 

 

[tysond]

this all seems a bit formal – I would only speak like this when an outsider comes to the office

 

 

Is this because you have a casual office culture? If you speak like friends then do you consider that to be "business chinese" or just regular chinese in an office?

 

I assume there are a lot of titles (Director Liu and Head of Department Wang and so on) used to give this impression, is that right?  Or is there more to it?

 

Would there not be phrases like "project plan", "deadline", "return on investment", "cash flow", "profit margin", "advertising channel", "downstream partner" and other things used that are just business vocabulary?

[Tianjin42]

This was the opinion of a Chinese colleague who had a quick look through the book. There is some useful vocab in there, similar to the examples you suggested. I think our office culture is probably slightly more relaxed than most. My feeling is that his point was simply, if you spoke the sentences as written in there, they would include the useful vocab but also it would sound a little unnatural. I will check with him.