I recently bought the first book in the practical audio-visual chinese series and was looking for some advice.
As I’m not attending classes and I plan to study by myself, do you think i need to buy the tapes/VCD’s to accompany the book? Also, I hear there is a workbook too - is this worth buying?
Hello Phil,
I bought the vcd’s and I really enjoyed them. They made the book a little more interesting. However, the actors can speak too quickly at times. The workbook is okay if you are serious about reading and writing. This is just my past experience, yours may vary. Best of luck. 
Hi!
I have vcd and I study on University in the same time. Vcd are almost useless, even my teachers are smiling when we watch it in the class . Good idea, but unfortunatelly done in very bad way. And of course that book don’t have audio, how to practise tones. If you want start learn chinese, especially on the beginning, buy Pimsleur Mandarin Course (amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de … ce&s=books) (If you contact with me I can help you to get all 3 parts (1 part have about 30 half-hour lessons) audio very,very cheap) . They have Beijin accent but it is little difference, and of course everybody understand you. And you will learn in fast and easy way learn to speak and understand chinese. It is propobly the best course audio to learn chinese.
Generally the best is use both. I use and Audio - visual Chinese, especially for learning characters and grammar, and Pimsleur to learn speak and understand.
Cheers,
Hans
Anyone else have experience with Pimsleur? I checked it out at amazon.com and, my god, it’s US$185 (marked down from $295) for 30 cassettes. But it got very good reviews.
After 5 years in Taiwan and just 3 months of Mandarin lessons (at Shi Da), I’ve decided it’s time to start up again. I don’t really have time for classes (well, maybe twice a week tops, but even that might be pushing it), so I just pulled out my old Practical A-V Chinese part 1, but I thought, hmmm… . cassette tapes, that sounds better, or maybe it would be a good supplement.
Any thoughts?
Anyone else have experience with Pimsleur? I checked it out at amazon.com and, my god, it’s US$185 (marked down from $295) for 30 cassettes. But it got very good reviews.
After 5 years in Taiwan and just 3 months of Mandarin lessons (at Shi-Da), I’ve decided it’s time to start up again. I don’t really have time for classes (well, maybe twice a week tops, but even that might be pushing it), so I just pulled out my old Practical A-V Chinese part 1, but I thought, hmmm… . cassette tapes, that sounds better, or maybe it would be a good supplement.
Any thoughts?[/quote]
I have Pimsleur (it seems these days I have a virtual library of Mandarin Chinese stuff). I’m not sure what your level is like, but I’m guessing if you use the language at all, after five years here Pimsleur may be too easy for you from a speaking and listening standpoint. I find most of it to be very basic. Oh yeah, and the accent they model is very much a mainland, Beijing one.
My very personal, and non-offensive thoughts are that the Practicle Audio and Visual Chinese books are worthless outside the classroom. I am the type of person that refuses to pay anyone to teach me anything, and I have a few other books that have worked wonders for me…most noteably, a book called “Intermediate Chinese” , and it’s companion “Basic Chinese”. Those are totally structured for independent study, and in my opinion, are the best around.
I’d check ebay for that Pimsleur if I were you. I bought their Japanese course on ebay for about US $15.
The VCD’s are cheesy, but probably worth buying if you have the spare time to study them. Unlike the VCD’s, the audio CD’s reading of the main text (keben) is unbelievably slow (zhen…de…ma…tai…bang…le) but at least the pronunciation is excellent.
The second book’s VCD is marginally more interesting of course, seeing as the things being discussed become more sophisticated.