Recommendations for beginner readers...

[Shadowdh]

Hi there all,

I am going to Grant and Cutlers (a big foreign lang book shop in London) in the next few days to get a couple of beginners reader books for reading Chinese characters and was wondering if there were any that some would recommend I get or recommend I stay away from...

Thanks all

[Mike]

btw - There is a young woman from HK (or family from HK) who works at Grant & Cutler. She was working on the main cash desk and extremely helpful when I bought a book there recently. In fact my experience of the (French and Russian section) staff is that they know their stuff and are really helpful.

Mike

[kudra]

The ones I used, that seem to do a decent job of graduated difficulty and reinforcement.

Also has a work book.

WRITTEN STANDARD CHINESE, VOLUME ONE

Hugh M. Stimson and Parker Po-fei Huang

An introduction to reading in Chinese. Introduces 300 basic characters in both unsimplified and simplified forms. Pinyin romanization.

Book: $21.95

ISBN 0-88710-129-1 Audio cassettes (set of 7): $63.95

http://www.yale.edu/fep/catalog/standard2.html is a link to all 4 volumes and work books.

Some might consider this series dated, but for the first 300-600, if it's in both simplified and unsimplified, what's to be dated about it?

just surfed over there

http://www.grantandcutler.com/catalogues/oriental/o104.htm

Don't see it.

[Shadowdh]

Thanks for the advice Kudra.... they dont have all there stock on their site for some reason... but they may have it in store... cheers

[elina]

How about these books:

Reading Chinese Through Humorous Stories

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=313313&userid=7912&catid=494056

A Course in Contemporary Chinese: Reading & Writing (Volume 1)

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=318549&userid=7912&catid=494056

Practical Chinese Study Series: Chinese Humorous Stories

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=318598&userid=7912&catid=494056

Practical Chinese Study Series: Chinese For Leisure Life

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=318599&userid=7912&catid=494056

[Shadowdh]

Elina... thanks a few of those look like just what I was after... and that website is brilliant, I see that I will be spending quite a bit of time looking at it... thanks...

[Szechuan]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0071419837/qid=1126639916/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-1387724-7533566?v=glance&s=books

I plan on getting this book soon. Currently I'm using the "Teach yourself: Chinese" by the same company and Author, which has very quickly progressed my skills. Although the book I've got does teach how to write characters pretty well, theres never such thing as learning too much. Both these books are avaliable in England, although I bought them from a mall rather than a specialist, but atleast it gives you something to compare your other choices with.

[Shadowdh]

Thanks for the suggestion Szechuan... but I was looking more for basic readers (sort of like the ones kids use when they start school... kinda like "see spot run... run spot run"... to get me started and used to reading sentances and stuff...)

Cheers

[johnmck]

You could always try the books that chinese kids use at school, eg: http://www.pep.com.cn/200406/ca501731.htm

http://www.pep.com.cn/xy_kbjks/index.htm

The pages are in chinese so if you first go to:

http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx

that site will help you translate some of the text.

[Shadowdh]

Johnmck thanks for that it looks like what I am after... cheers