Chinese magazine for beginners?

[Daan]

大家好！

I have recently come across a magazine called Think Spanish. It contains articles in Spanish with a list of key vocabulary. Thus, even beginners can read real-life articles. Here's an example.

I am wondering if similar magazines exist to accommodate learners who already have a basic comprehension of Chinese (like me). The magazine would, preferably, have to be delivered to the Netherlands. Please let me know if you have any recommendations

谢谢你！

[elina]

Beijing Language & Culture University Press has a bimonthly magazine: learning Chinese, not sure if it is the one that you want.

On the site: http://www.blcup.com.cn/web/web/xhynew/, there are their contact methods. I have no idea how long they will give you a reply, if you email them. When needing to know something, we have never tried to contact the publishing companies’ emails. Because we are impatient, and want to know things real time instead of waiting for email reply, so we always use telephone contact method, and get a quick answer, then reply our customers within one day.

[snarfer]

Well pretty much every Chinese textbook is organized this way. Text, New words, grammar notes, some exercies. There are advanced textbooks available too. They also come with audio CDs and/or tapes. I'm not sure what, if any, value a magazine format as opposed to a book format has, at least for the reader. I'm sure the publisher is quite pleased about the consistent revenue stream though.

[kudra]

dmoser had some comments on comparing his ability to read "real life articles" in Mandarin versus romance languages from the point of view of a Westerner, and how many years of study is needed in each case.

http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/1991Moser.pdf which was recently hashed

in this forum.

My exposure to "real life articles" for adults are selections from the book

A New Text for Modern China

http://www.cheng-tsui.com/sb_catalog-csm.asp?grp=PC++&item=++++++++0887273122

It's used as a 3rd year text at Columbia I think. I think there are samples at the link above.

Other "real life articles" may be found at

http://faculty.virginia.edu/cll/chinese_reading/

The first selection from the intermediate page is from

人民日報海外版﹐1998年2月14日﹐8版, 作者﹕許逸菊 (韓國) I gather that the author is Korean. If that matters to you, let me know when you have an article published in

人民日報.

[roddy]

I've seen that magazine before, it's on sale at the BLCU bookstore at least. I seem to remember it being suited for beginner, maybe low intermediate students (obviously anyone more advanced could read it, but in language terms it would be very simple), and I wouldn't describe the articles as 'real life' - very much designed for learners, and with quite typical 'learner' content - here's the story behind an idiom, there's the article on a traditional Chinese festival, etc.

[yingguoguy]

I have a copy of the Learn Chinese magazine from about a year ago. To give you an idea it has some nice articles on the Suzhou gardens, the Lusu ethnic group, the Laba festival and so on. It's quite glossy and provides good photos to go with the articles.

I don't know what your level is, but I'd say the magazine is pretty firmly at the intermediate level, there's not a whole lot for beginners except a couple of pages of buying a train ticket and some jokes.

I think the advantage of a magazine is that it tends to have more detailed stuff about rare bits of Chinese culture, instead of the typical "China has an area of 9,600,000km" essays you get in text books. That said there are probably some good intermediate level text books which cover the same ground cheaper.

If you were in China then I'd say by all means pick up a copy, but it's probably not worth the effort of getting it shipped to Holland.

[Daan]

谢谢　：）

我现在看YuWenBao. 你们认识吗？ ：）

[elina]

Recently as requested by one of our Australian customers:

Can you arrange a subscription to The World of Chinese? It's a magazine published by the Commercial Press. Chinese name seems to be 汉语世界.

Also, I don't know how many years the magazine has been going - probably not very many - but I'd also like to get back issues if they are available...

As long as all the back issues already had the cd-rom... then I think I'd want all of them...

I have one issue and it looks pretty good and the cd-rom is superb! I recommend that if possible, you add this to your catalogue. I think many learners would like this sort of material.

We have added 10 issues of The World of Chinese + CD-ROM from the start publication to our site, for example:

http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=4636

http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=4637

[dreamon]

So, what is the consensus now, about "The World of Chinese" - is it worth the money, for an adult learner? The above links produce a ScriptTimeOut error.

[elina]

The above links produce a ScriptTimeOut error.

The above two books were sold out, so we deleted them from our site. Currently there’s only one magazine left in our stock:

http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=4631

Maybe you could try these reading series:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/17182-chinese-breeze-%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E9%A3%8E%EF%BC%89-graded-readers/

The newest book of Chinese Breeze is 一张旧画, the book was already printed out, the accompanied CD will be out this month, then it will be ready to sell.

[Xiwang]

I have older issues of The World of Chinese as well as the new 2010 issues that have been redesigned by a new creative team. The new issues and the articles in them are excellent and have great photography to go with the text. Key Chinese vocabulary is also summarized and explained at the end of each article. (Unfortunately, they seem to have done away with the CDs.)

The World of Chinese has recently also been made available on the Amazon Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/World-Chinese-Shanghai-Special-ebook/dp/B00422LH22/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287131774&sr=1-1

The magazine's website, with some of the articles, is here:

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/

[langxia]

While I really love to read a world of chinese I don't think that it is a good magazine to learn chinese. The articles are all in english with some words translated into chinese and then some vocabulary and 2 usefull sentences at the end of the text. It would be great if there was a magazine for foreigners where all the texts are in chinese with then some translations of the more difficult words. preferably ranging from easy to intermediate as I think that after intermediate you can also read chinese magazines and newspapers.

[-葛亚辉-]

Hi everyone! I'm a member of the aforementioned "new creative team" at The World of Chinese, and just wanted to let you know about a few changes we're making to the magazine to try to make it more useful to students. It is not, and never will be, a good replacement for a textbook; it's meant to be a fun way to learn more about Chinese culture and pick up some Chinese along the way.

We have just added a new column to the magazine that's great for Chinese learners, though. It's a simple story, written in characters, with a few grammar points and vocabulary listed after the text. Consider it a little challenge. Also, every issue of the magazine has at least one or two articles that are very focused on language; specifically, giving you the language you need to navigate specific social situations in China:

For example:

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/business/business-chinese/784--nooooooooo-you-cant-say-that.html -- how to say No in Chinese without making people angry or lose face.

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/business/business-chinese/637-excuses-excuses.html -- how to quit your job without (again) causing people to lose face and burning bridges

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/travel/travel-tips/808-getting-connected-in-china.html -- how to get a mobile phone set up in China and get the plan options you need

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/travel/travel-tips/382-the-art-of-bargaining.html?start=1 -- how to bargain (this link is to the second page of the article, which has a GREAT script in Chinese and pinyin to follow if you, like me, are terrible at 讲价).

Those are just a few examples; in the next issue we've got an article about how to ace your next job interview in Chinese, etc. etc. And now that we've got our shiny new website (see above), we'll be adding videos and audio recordings that should help reenforce the language learning component, too!

That said, the magazine isn't designed to teach beginners Chinese, or to substitute for a good textbook and a teacher. We think it's a great auxilary learning material; something that allows you to learn a LOT more about Chinese culture than you would from any textbook and pick up some language along the way.

I really do recommend picking up the November issue when it comes out. Obviously, I'm biased, but many of us think that it contains the best article we've ever published, plus some great language content and some cultural stuff you'll never find in a textbook (for example, what Chinese language text is going to tell you about the history of Heavy Metal music in China)?

Anyway, sorry for the sales pitch! Thanks for mentioning our magazine, we're very flattered and happy that people are finding it and enjoying it!

[xiaotao]

The magazine looks interesting. I would definitely buy a copy if my local Chinese bookstore carried it. I see that there is only the Shanghai issue on Kindle. I am hoping that the latest issues will be available on Kindle soon.