Request for textbook recommendation given my position, goals, and circumstances.

[Maxim]

I've been learning Traditional characters in Guilin, Guangxi, and I'm right about to complete the Integrated Chinese series after 8 months of study. The Integrated Chinese books are often used up to the 202 level in American universities, so that may serve as a point of reference. I've been going through the books with a tutor for 4 hours a day during the weekends these last eight months.

My goal is to be conversationally fluent and be able to understand people easily, if you're wondering why I'm learning traditional characters in mainland china, my main goal is to be eventually be able to read Classical Chinese, and the schools in China are more affordable than in Taiwan. I'm planning on continuing studying in Mainland China for prehaps the next year and a half? I'd like to avoid any language that is only used in written especially formal Chinese and focus on having a foundation in spoken everyday Chinese first since it's easier to immerse myself whilst living in China.

I'm wondering if anyone had any recommendations for any books after this level.

 

Some books I'm considering

A Course In Contemporary Chinese: there's a second edition available but I'm a bit confused on what the differences are between it and the first edition, it seems newly released. 

Across The Straits: the format of this book seems very useful. I like that its just a transcript of two people (beijing, and taipei) speaking to each other unscripted, and that vocabulary lists are provided. The problem is that the books seems out of print and its difficult to buy books online here. If anyone has recommendations for a book similar to this I would appreciate it.

Taiwan Today

Beyond the Basics

NTLU Materials: A lot of these seem to be similar to the format of Across The Straits but quite advanced in level, I don't know which of them is the most fitting for my level

Expressive Chinese

The Routledge Advanced Chinese Multimedia Course Crossing Cultural Boundaries

Books from the Princeton series, not too sure which ones though, they seem to have been gradually switching away from supporting Traditional Characters as well.

 

I've also just been considering exhaustively listening to DuChinese? Making sure I know everything out of the advanced readers, and then move on to one of these or a harder book

Thank you.

[cncorrect]

If your ultimate goal is to be able to read Classical Chinese, I would recommend studying the classic textbook《千字文》. This textbook was traditionaly used in ancient China to teach Chinese characters to children and foreigners. What a coincidence! You asked the question on the day when we commemorate the invention of the Chinese characters. We celebrate this day as '谷雨'. Therefore, I believe 《千字文》is the right book for you to start with. A book: https://item.jd.com/10050791437300.html.

[Maxim]

I actually have a few copies of it! Thank you for the suggestion.

[PerpetualChange]

If you've been through the first two levels of IC, I'd recommend starting to dive into some native materials in addition to continuing to study textbook with a tutor. You're not going to study textbooks until one day you are fluent, it's time to jump in to the deep end!

[Guest realmayo]

I studied textbooks until one day I was fluent.

[Guest realmayo]

I would add that limiting yourself to traditional characters appears unnecessary (but not wrong), assuming your goal of reading Classical Chinese is a fairly long-term one and you wish first to be conversationally fluent while living in Mainland China.

 

It's also a little hard to unpick your situation: a lot depends on your studying style and your tutor's teaching style, as well as your opportunities for speaking Chinese outside of formal study time. I haven't used A Course In Contemporary Chinese but I believe it's at least as solid and well-regarded as its Mainland equivalents. I would add that you want to be confident you have mastered each chapter of these books as you move through them, meaning you are at least 99% on top of their contents: you can understand the relevant audio perfectly whenever you listen to it (for me this is the most important of all), you can read all the texts at a reasonable speed, and you can discuss the contents of the texts confidently while using the vocabulary and grammar patterns each lesson contains. And you maintain that mastery of older chapters via regular review and tests.

 

Obviously you want to try to pair this form of intensive study with extensive exposure too, in terms of just reading and listening to material that you don't find very difficult at all. But it used to be hard to find that kind of material at earlier levels, which I think is one reason why learning Chinese can be so difficult.

 

Also, this might not be good advice for your particular situation, it's hard to say, but there's no obvious reason why you can't start studying Classical Chinese now as well as studying Modern Chinese, unless you are limited by time constraints or don't have anyone able to teach you. Just be prepared to take it very slow and very steady and aim to nail the basics of the Classical language in, say, 2 years as opposed to the 6 months that you might be aiming for if you waited for your Modern Chinese to get good first. Spend a month (yes!) on each chapter of the Rouzer book NPPLC (here: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/50653-a-new-practical-primer-of-literary-chinese-by-paul-rouzer-all-chapter-links/?tab=comments#comment-388170) supplemented by Introduction to Classical Chinese by Kai Vogelsang.

 

 

[Tomsima]

I did Rouzer alongside the Boya textbooks, learning classical gives you an excellent basis to unpick modern spoken Chinese, the two aren't as distinct as might first appear. There is A LOT of classical, even in modern spoken, chengyu being the obvious example. Later, I did a bit of the 王力 classical series while I was in guilin, using it as the basis for discussion of social topics in speaking class.

[cncorrect]

The language we use every day is often too informal for a textbook. However, the textbook language is often not formal enough for use in a book or newspaper. This is a common problem with textbooks. I have found that after learning English from textbooks, I struggled to understand spoken English .