Best grammar book?

[Gune]

Hey guys.

 

Very sorry if this is a common question and has been answered before, I'm just a bit lost at the moment with all the material available.

 

I am currently studying mandarin Chinese with the NPCR and im finding it to be great! I'm on lesson 17 and have been doing 1 lesson every 2 weeks(Used to do 1 every single week but found it to be too much.).

 

I am however finding the grammar parts in the NPCR to be lacking, explanations are very complicated and it does not offer enough examples for me to really get it(了 anyone?).

 

So is there a considered "best" grammar book out there that I could use to complement my learning with the NPCR? One that perhaps has a well structured index so that I may look up only the parts I need as I study?

 

Thanks in advance!
Stefan.

[mouse]

Yip Po-ching's series on Chinese grammar is quite good, with chapters on a particular grammar construction. The explanations aren't too confusing and there are plenty of examples.

 

了 I'm afraid you're only going to be able to get with mass exposure. In fact, it's a good idea (once you've covered the basics) to expose yourself to real Chinese (i.e. native material) and deal with grammar constructions as you come across them.

[Shelley]

I would use Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (MMCG) or Schaum's Outline Chinese Grammar (SOCG) , you can look things up in both of them, I prefer SOCG.

 

I did a little review of the 2 here

   post no. 84

 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/46180-intermediate-chinese-grammar-online-edx-course/page-5

[Xiao Kui]

another vote for Yip Po Ching's books - I used them at the beginning and they gave me a good foundation.

[lechuan]

I have about 8 grammar books, and my favorite is Yufa! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Routledge Concise Grammars), though I'd recommend it for those past beginner level. Otherwise, I find the Yi Po Ching books more accessible if starting from scratch. My first stop is usually the Mandarin Grammar Wiki though.

[Xiao Kui]

My first stop is usually the Mandarin Grammar Wiki though.

 

 

Thanks! A useful resource i was unaware of.

[anonymoose]

I also vote for the Yip and Rimmington series.

 

You should be aware, however, that the books in this series serve various purposes. There are "Grammar and Workbook"s which go through the grammar progressively with exercises, also building up vocabulary on the way. These books are best read from beginning to end. There is also a "Comprehensive Grammar" which is more like a reference book, meant for looking things up as and when. The "Grammar and Workbook"s and the "Comprehensive Grammar" essentially cover the same material, so it is not necessary to get both (although I have both, or all three to be exact, since the Grammar and Workbooks come in Basic and Intermediate).

 

If you are just starting out, I would suggest the Grammar and Workbook series. This is what I used to get started with Chinese, and I feel it gave me a good basis.

[Johnny20270]

I have used Yip Po Ching's books extensively. The first book "Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook" I have read 3 times and done every single example. The second "Intermediate Chinese: ..." I have read most chapters and a lot of the examples

It is indeed a good series but in my opinion some things you should be aware off (not to detract you from buying it!)

 

• He goes a bit over the top with English grammatically points, he should ease off a bit of that. I spent a lot of time googling English Grammar. Minor point really
• Working through the examples are crucial, Each chapter has only 4-7 pages yet has 50 exercises. These are really well worth doing. You think you understand the content and when you test yourself , you realize you didn't at all
• The chapter order is a bit strange. For example he defers the use of 把，被 and a comparison of the 3 'de' 的，得，地 to the 2nd book. My language course brought these up topics very early and rightly so. The authors suggest you should follow the books in chapter order as written, however I found it much more useful to partly jump around.
• There is no indication of whats spoken and whats formal language. I have said some words in class and my teachers have looked at me in surprised as to where I picked up that word. A vast amount do not appear even on HSK6. Not necessarily a bad thing just an observation. Its the grammar you are focusing on.
• 2 teachers and my gf (who is a Chinese linguist) have looked at this book. They have surprisingly all made the same comment "Is this person from Hong Kong or a non native?". They infer that some sentences are somewhat strange and some although grammatically correct are rarely spoken that way.
• The English explanations are excellent, accurate and concise and for that reason alone worth buying! Some questions I have asked 2 teacher and they told me, same meaning. These books highlight the concise differences. I never found a book which have as concise and accurate English explanations. 
• Every single sentence has an English translation which baffles me as to why many books don't. 
• He discusses grammar but has little discussion on sentence patterns, comparisons of adverbs etc which is a focus of many courses. For example much of the stuff, especially the "Sentence Patterns" section on the Xiao Kui's link is presumably outside the scope of the book
• His discussion on Complements is not bad but the "Chinese Grammar Wiki" is a lot better and clearer"
• The choice of font could be improved, Pinyin is in bold and your eyes naturally draw to it, it would have been better to make the hanzi in a larger font and pinyin in a small light gray font, especially in the 2nd book

 

Overall worth, well buying as long as you use it in conjunction with other material

[Gune]

Thanks for the massive help everyone!

 

This made it a lot easier to pick one to start with. Based on your responses I will start by checking out the "Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook" by Yip Po Ching. I saw there was another one as well called "An essential grammar", not really sure what the difference is but I will go with the one mentioned in this thread.

 

Thanks again everyone for your help! Back to studying!

 

Stefan.

[Johnny20270]

send me a PM Stefan, I have them in PDF form, you can have a look first but you buy.  before you decide to buy the hard copy

 

edit: sorry that should be (see above)

[anonymoose]

The Essential Grammar is basically a pared down version of the Comprehensive Grammar. I wouldn't bother with it if I were you.

[Hopelessatlanguages]

Sorry, folks, only joined today so I am a month late. I would like to add couple of words since I've used all the textbooks mentioned.

 

What textbook to buy depends on what you want it for. If you get Yip Po-Ching, Basic Chinese and Intermediate Chinese, then you are buying a COURSE--presumably the one he used when he was teaching at Leeds University, UK. I suppose they were spread over two years and are consequently very thorough with many exercises. If I had the time I would use these, but as I only have an hour or two a day, they are just too detailed. So they are not a reference grammar, and personally I don't think that Basic Chinese would be a good first grammar because it is incomplete. For instance, you have to wait until the second book to do the bǎ structure whereas in practice you would have encountered it long ago. That's presumable the purpose of his 'Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar'. Now this is primarily a reference book and so it goes into exhaustive detail.

 

This is where I disagree that his 'Chinese: An Essential Grammar' is not worth bothering about.  It is not a 'pared down version of the Comprehensive Grammar' which it predates by seven years. Much better than Schaum which sacrifices completeness to brevity, I think it is the best brief overview of the language you can get. The layout in the Second Edition is so much clearer than the first (which didn't have characters) and it is one of the few textbooks where you can actually read the (simplified) characters without getting eye strain. I read it over and over again--everything you need to know to speak the language.

 

I have a lot of respect for Claudia Ross's Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar, but by going along the 'Situations and Functions' line it stops being a reference grammar. If you need to know a particular point of grammar, then use 'Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar', it's probably in Ross someone but it's a pig trying to find it.

 

Actually, I now mostly use 'Yufa! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar'. No good for a beginner but after a year or two, it comes into its own. Very clear and concise with brilliant examples. 

 

Since this is my first ever contribution, I shall just bore you with another book which I find really useful:

 

Henry Hung-Yeh Tiee: A Reference Grammar of Chinese Sentences

 

Pretty old (1986) and looks like it was produced on someone's PC but the 100s of short sentences cover the whole grammar in depth, and you don't even have to read the explanations.  Anyone else use it?

[Johnny20270]

Actually, I now mostly use 'Yufa! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar'. No good for a beginner but after a year or two, it comes into its own. Very clear and concise with brilliant examples. 

 

 

 

How do you rate this compared to Yip Po Chings books. 

[cingia]

For a beginner I would suggest "Modern mandarin chinese grammar" by Claudia Ross and Sheng Ma, and "Yufa!" by Wen-Hua Teng. The first book is essential to understand the essentials of chinese grammar; the other is useful to give a more schematic introduction/draw your attention on certain topics. I don't like the book series from Po-Ching Yip and Don Rimmington ("Basic Chinese, a grammar and workbook" - "Intermediate Chinese, a grammar and workbook"): too many details, too many rules... If I had used that as my first approach to chinese grammar, probably I would have give up immediately... However they've written a wonderful book: "Chinese - A comprehensive grammar",.I love it, but it is more a "reference grammar" for advanced students: when you finish NPCR (books 1 to 6), you may consider buying it.