Spotlight on China - old textbook

[suMMit]

I was at a shop in BJ and they were giving away old books, mostly English books. I saw this "Spotlight on China - book 2" textbook and it looked kind of interesting, so I took it. I was browsing through it, and it looked interesting enough to see if I could find the "book 1", which I did on TaoBao for 60Rmb, pristine condition(the one that was given to me has been well studied and written on. Anyway, it's an intermediate textbook from 1999, each unit has a text and new vocab, a cultural info section, and 5 more related readings from easy to difficult, grammar explanations, and exercises, discussion questions. I don't know if I'll do the exercises, but I think the texts will make good reading practice and it's basically my level. Anyone seen this book before?

 

 

[TheBigZaboon]

Look around for the cassettes, no CDs in those days... Cassettes were always sold separately in little plastic folders that would crack and fall apart if you sneezed within 6 or 7 meters of their location. From the looks of the photos, there should be some very good listening practice using those books, in addition to reading practice...

 

TBZ

[suMMit]

On 8/7/2023 at 12:56 PM, TheBigZaboon said:

Look around for the cassettes

Took a look on TB and couldn't find anything. I might try to get the wife to record them for me one at a time as I go through the book.

[TheBigZaboon]

I looked for the cassettes, too, but I didn't have any luck either... If your wife will record them for you willingly that's a tremendous advantage.

 

I envy you finding that level of varied, graded, and verified native material from before the laser focus on HSK. I might start trolling in Chinese bookshops in Japan, as they often have similar boxes of "out-of-date" teaching materials, free for the taking. College and university libraries often throw away things like this, too. Maybe I'll get lucky... If you run into any more copies, let me know. I tried outside of China, but I had no luck. I'll continue looking, but I think this is an "only in China" situation...

 

TBZ

[Flickserve]

I think have seen these books before in the university of Hong Kong library. I don’t have my access anymore. I remember flicking through and thinking these were hard for intermediate.

 

 I should try to get my access again. I once found a book there some years ago for learning Chinese written in the early 1900s. It didn’t occur to me to take and post photos 
 

 

[suMMit]

On 11/15/2023 at 3:15 PM, Flickserve said:

thinking these were hard for intermediate.

They feel like Hsk 4/5 ish. I'm 恐怕 I have too many pokers in the fire at the moment, so those are going to sit on the shelf for a while.

 

Under your Avatar you say "old hsk3/4", what does that mean? old, old like pre-2010 or whatever?