Best book to study Chinese with bopomofo,pinyin,english

My friend says he is using a white book with an orange village on the front and 20 or so chapters and it includes bopomofo.

We discuss this while mountain biking so he never has the book to confirm what its name is.

Questions:

1.Is the book with white cover audiovisual Chinese, it seems to be mentioned here a bit for better or worse?.

2.Is it the best one.?

3.Where can I go to buy it without venturing to 101?

4.Why is my Chinese so crappy after 3 years?

5.Why won’t my Chinese wife help me learn?

Thanks for help with at least the first 3 questions.

Mike.

  1. Because you are HER free English teacher.

I tried to learn from my translator for a while but it was a waste of time. I was free when she was working, she was free when I was working… Also you need a bit of structure. I am just begining but have a set time twice a week when I go to chinese class and that really gives me the structure I need to keep progressing. It’s too easy to miss a few classes if they are informal, and they will be if your translator is teaching you. It also helps if you pay for something - your motivation levels go up a supprising amount. Pay for a month up front so you have the incentive to go to all the classes and not drop out.

I think the book you are talking about is Audio visual chinese. I got mine in a caves bookstore in Tainan. My teacher suggested I get it, though we don’t use it in class. I use it to study during the week, to back up my class work. This is where your wife comes in handy as she can help you when you come across specific problems.

Hope this helps. back to plodding away slowy slowy at my writing (the gfs friend said my chinese figures were cute (like a 5 year olds) :blush: )

[quote=“mikeg”]My friend says he is using a white book with an orange village on the front and 20 or so chapters and it includes bopomofo.

We discuss this while mountain biking so he never has the book to confirm what its name is.

Questions:

1.Is the book with white cover audiovisual Chinese, it seems to be mentioned here a bit for better or worse?.

2.Is it the best one.?

3.Where can I go to buy it without venturing to 101?

4.Why is my Chinese so crappy after 3 years?

5.Why won’t my Chinese wife help me learn?

Thanks for help with at least the first 3 questions.

Mike.[/quote]

  1. Yes it is (I never noticed the village, had to check).

  2. I don’t really think there is a “best” book to use. I’ve used that book, Integrated Chinese (back in the states) and various other books I’ve picked up here and there.

  3. Where are you located? Outside of Taipei I’m assuming. I think most bookstores selling Chinese language books will carry them. A lot of schools use those books (Practical Audio-Visual Chinese).

  4. Because you don’t study enough, don’t use it enough or something. Try different methods. I memorized a lot of vocabulary and a little grammar and did pretty well that way. My grammar is still pretty whack, but I can hold conversations with anyone. Unless you have a lot of drive to learn (self study style) I think you either need a steady class or a situation where you NEED to use Mandarin.

  5. Even if she did, would you want her to teach you?

Make sure you get some tapes/Cd’s to listen to along with the books. The Practical A/V has tapes or VCD’s you can use. The VCD’s are ok, I went through them all (for book 1). When you do get some tapes listen to them as often as you can. And if you don’t know how to already, learn how to do all your daily things in Chinese (order food, give directions in a taxi, amounts of money, etc.) and build up from there.

Hope that helps.

  1. What was the question again?

  2. I had it but it was so goddamed boring.

  3. Yes it is the best one.

  4. I don’t know.

  5. Crappy is a relative term.

  6. Probably because it is an immensely painful experience for her. Ever listen to an opera being run through a garbage disposal?

Hope this helps.

First you have to identify what part of Chinese mastery you want to improve.

Conversation skills - means find some one other than your wife to talk to in Chinese.

Reading skills - I always recommend a Japanese Comic book for adult beginners. Pictures, words and interesting story to keep people motivated.

Penmenship - Stop using the computer and write memos instead

Pay for a month up front so you have the incentive to go to all the classes and not drop out.

I think the book you are talking about is Audio visual Chinese. I got mine in a caves bookstore in Tainan.

Thanks for advice. Re paying, I was thinking that. Its like gym, if you pay, maybe you go.

I got to Windance in Hsin Chu yesterday. Got starbucks coffee and Rockport boots but the Hess book store had nothing good and did not have Audio visual chinese

I will try a Caves store.

Mike.

I bought the “Practical Audio and Visual Chinese” book a few weeks ago. I honestly think it’s the worst one I have. It seems it’s set up for a classroom environment. So, perhaps it’s the best to have in a classroom, but if you’re looking to learn by yourself, I find it useless. The best books I have (and remember, this is all personal choice, as these books either do or don’t fit well with my own personal learning style) are “Basic Chinese, A Grammar and Workbook” and “Intermidiate Chinese, A Grammar and Workbook” both by Yip-po Ching and Don Rimmington. Using these books, and having a chinese wife to speak to, should improve your skills greatly. These books, however, are only useful in Taiwan as a speaking tool. Two major downfall to these books are, they use the Simplified Characters when writing all words…but, if you’re just interested in speaking that’s not much of a problem…and, they assume knowledge of the pin-yin system.

I picked up a copy of the “Oxford Starter Chinese Dictionary” at Eslite a couple of weeks ago. First published in 2000 so everything seems up to date. I love the fact that it has loads of example sentences for every meaning of every word you will want to translate to Chinese. I think it is interesting to focus on homonyminity (is that a word?). Anyway any dictionary that comes with loads of useful example sentences is a great book IMHO.

I have this one as well Bob. I had high hopes of including bopomofo on each page where the pin yin is less than ideal.

I started 2 months ago and have now completed half the a’s. I was just thinking yesterday that a page a day is no big deal and why had it not been happening…anyway, yes its damn good…

I suspect part or your problem may be that you are wasting too much time on bopomofo. To learn a language you need to expose yourself to as much comprehensible, concievably useful input as possible. Why not hunt down the useful sentnces from that dictionary. Underline them, repeat them and then go and try to use them. Get your wife to correct your pronuciation and grammar mistakes. Anyway this is what I am doing and it seems to be working pretty well.

Practical Audio-visual Chinese 1 or 《實用視聽華語 1》

More or less. TLI doesn’t sell theirs to non-students, so yes.

Shida, Zhengzhong (on Bookstore Street), Lucky Bookstore, Caves.

I once asked my dentist why my teeth are so yellow and filled with cavities. Know what he said?

I won’t dare anwser as my sarcasm will get me in trouble. Find someone else to teach you though.

The best book is as much as anything the book you USE. Start and go at it systematically (ie work through the whole book and then go to vols 2A and 2B – which are filled with stupid transaltions – and 3)

There’s also Mandarin Primer, by Y. R. Chao,
though its out of print, and uses Gwoyeu Romatzyh.
It has a mandarin version, and there are audio tapes.
Covers an amazing amount in 24 chapters.