A Chinese Grammar for English Speakers vs. A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners - Which book is better?

[spock]

Recently I realized I should polish my Grammar a little, I did a forum research and found two books that seems to be suitable for me:

 

A Chinese Grammar for English Speakers

 

by Chungeng Zhu

 

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Grammar-English-Speakers/dp/7301218656/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474172832&sr=8-1&keywords=A+Chinese+Grammar+for+English+Speakers

 

 

A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners

 

by Li De Jin

 

https://www.amazon.com/PRACTICAL-CHINESE-GRAMMAR-FOREIGNERS-Revised/product-reviews/7561921632

 

 

Unfortunately I don't have chance to go through these books myself to judge contents, so I would highly appreciate your opinions. My Chinese level is between HSK 4 -5. In my opinion explanation of Grammar should be very simple, I like to focus on examples and exercises. I study on my own, that is why I need book with answers to exercises, I noticed that A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners comes with additional exercise book, more practice the better.

 

Thank you in advance for your help

 

Bart

[Luxi]

Spock, I can't help you with those books as I'm not familiar with them. I just wanted to make you aware of this on-line Intermediate Grammar MOOC by Beijing University in the edX platform:

PekingX: 20000001x Intermediate Chinese Grammar 中级汉语语法

 

It is free, though there is a charge if you want a certificate. You do it in your own time at your own pace. Earlier the course ran 'live' and there was very good interaction with the Professor and TAs, it's now left open for people to enroll and study whenever, though the staff aren't involved any longer and the discussions are quite dead. The book they follow is by Professor Xu (the one teaching the course) but you don't need it to follow the course. I haven't seen the book myself, I think it may be hard to find outside China.

 

The course is very good and covers a lot of ground, it really does improve one's grammar. It assumes about 1500 characters (I'd say a bit more probably) and a knowledge of basic Mandarin grammar), the videos have subtitles in Chinese and English, there are quite a few exercises with answer and some problems are cleared in the discussions from earlier runs. Worth a try.

[pross]

Intermediate Chinese Grammar: I have completed this course and also highly recommend it.

 

A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners: I purchased this just for the workbook.

[spock]

Thank you guys, these are very helpful.