The Chinese Blockbuster series

[pon00050]

I am not affiliated nor the official representative for the following.

I just discovered it today and decided to open a thread when I realized that there has not yet been a discussion on this, at least from what I can tell.

 

Following is a description of the Chinese Blockbuster series from Amazon

 

A Blockbuster Approach to Learn Chinese

With over 1 billion users, Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world. Add to that the importance of China in the world economy and you end up with a situation where knowing the Chinese language gives you a tremendous advantage. Yet, most people think they will never be able to learn it because of the assumption that ‘Chinese, with its weird alphabet and sound, is too hard.’

It may have been the case in the past, but the Chinese Blockbuster Series approach is now busting out these old mental blocks for good! Once you have completed the series, you will be able to read everything in Chinese that comes your way, like Chinese texts written with traditional characters, recent novels as well as newspapers published in mainland China, street signs displayed in the China towns of the world or tattoos your friends or movie stars may have on their body.

The Chinese Blockbuster Series is your blueprint to language proficiency. It teaches:

• How to recall the building blocks that compose both forms of a Chinese character (simplified and traditional)
• How to remember the various definitions of a character
• How to memorize the various pronunciations of a character in Mandarin
• Additional facts concerning the character, such as its frequency of use, its etymology, or its ancient meanings and shapes

The details of each character are imprinted in your brain by way of funny, dramatic or true stories, allowing you to remember all aspects of a specific character in one fell swoop. You will effectively learn to recognize and pronounce all the Chinese characters you are bound to see, while being entertained!

 

 

This site seems to be the official website for this series.

 

They do offer a freebie that you can get when you sign up with email address. I have not yet had the chance to look at it.

However, I did have the chance to look at the four images provided as the preview of the first book.

While they were entertaining, I couldn't really tell how effective the method is because I have already learned these characters well enough to be able to immediately recognize them.

 

 

If anyone has used the product or is familiar with it in any way, I welcome you to share your perspective on this series.

[li3wei1]

judging from the pics you linked to, it looks a lot like the Matthews and Matthews Learning Chinese Characters book, published by Tuttle, and occasionally held up as an alternative to Heisig. Complicated stories try to link pronunciation (based on English near-equivalents), meaning, appearance, components. It works for some people.