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primitive
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Post by primitive »

It's nearing the end of another year at school and I wanted to get my latin teacher some gifts. So far, we have gotten him a gift certificate to DeMoulas, and some ovaltine. I'm going to buy him some Zero Bars too. The last thing I want to get him is a Chinese grammar book. Would there be any way that any of you guys know of a good Chinese beginner grammar book? Thanks.

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1%homeless
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Post by 1%homeless »

Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook
by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington

This is in simplified script (Taiwan uses traditional script). Also, there is no index! Also, it's not going to show you how to write chinese characters either... I don't know of any book that combines grammar, workbook excercises, and character writing into one book. But at least two out of three isn't bad. Anyway this book seems better for independent study, even though my textbook Integrated Chinese is pretty good too.

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

I have that book! It's remains unused. It throws characters at you and in each section it wanders off into different information overloads. It does not give any specified vocabulary prior to any exercise and explanations are unclear. It is trying to be a workbook but it's more of a reference grammar. Not ideal to begin. Learn to write chinese characters by Johan Bjorksten is a good book however for the characters. I am still searching a good beginner's course too, and that doesn't include any of the Teach Yourself series (the chinese one is so terrible!)

Democritus
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Post by Democritus »

How about Beginner's Chinese by Yong Ho.

It's a nice little book. It seems to be aimed at readers comfortable with linguistic terminology.

mariek
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Post by mariek »


I like the structure of Beginning Chinese by John de Francis. He reallyspends time to break down and explain the grammar which is something a lot of other books don't do very well. This book won't teach you how to read characters, however, he has another book which does have characters... I think it's called Character Text for Beginning Chinese... and he has a separate Chinese Reader.

Edited to add: BTW, the book mentioned above is for Mandarin. If you're looking for Cantonese, I'd recommend books by Virginia Yip.

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