kelvinzhao Posted July 17, 2007 at 09:33 AM Report Share Posted July 17, 2007 at 09:33 AM Hi everybody, the company Im working for is planning to publish several books for Chinese learnning, so I put the ideas here for voting , could you pls vote for which one you'd be interested in ? thanks everyone. the vote options is the rough name of the books, here is the descriptions. Mandarin lifesaver in 12 hours – the most essential phrases in a simple easy to access format, which can be grasped in 12 hours on the plane- just enough to ease your first step into China Living in Beijing – consisting of beautiful China-unique photos, practical useful Chinese phrases and dialogues, and interesting cultural tips to know China more Wordbook with Post-stickers – a Chinese wordbook which contains the most useful and practical vocabulary going with small size post-stickers Extreme Chinese – very popular and colloquial phrases in authentic everyday Chinese Chin-ease – a fun self-study guide to pinyin and Chinese characters with pinyin exercises and introduction to history and connotations of Chinese characters Chinese Idioms – a guide to 200 Chinese 4-character idioms as a window into Chinese history and culture, containing the situational usage of the idioms Mini-book Series – a book series which applies an easy way to learn different types of Chinese common phrases, basic grammar, essential vocabulary and idioms separately in 7 pocket-sized books Chinese Learning DIY – a crash way of learning to speak and read Chinese language by using very basic Chinese sentence patterns with a systematical pinyin guide and a comprehensive Chinese essential vocabulary to be used in the sentence patterns Crash Oral Chinese – consisting of native Chinese pronunciation guide, and providing different types exercises on pronunciation and tones to imitate and practice with correct and native Chinese audio-aid Essential Chinese Grammar Guide – a practical, detailed, accurate and simple Chinese grammar book, comprehensive and easy to catch up with since the max count of the options is 10, there is another idea here : Sandwich Chinese – a fun and natural way of learning Chinese gradually by substituting components in English sentences (in form of stories, conversations or cartoons) into Chinese step by step Gourmet China – a talking Chinese food menu with an introduction to Chinese cuisine and phrases used in the restaurant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelvinzhao Posted July 23, 2007 at 08:01 AM Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 at 08:01 AM could you guys post the reasons here ? thanks everybody. and anybody is interested in kind of phrase book ? such as for business, travel and so on? maybe like series of lonely plant? I think lonely plant is great series books, but I am not Chinese learner, I don't know if you think it's good enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ipsi() Posted July 23, 2007 at 01:21 PM Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 at 01:21 PM I note that most of these books cater exclusively to beginners. The market is already flooded with those. Have you not considered producing books targeted to intermediate / advanced learners? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelvinzhao Posted July 25, 2007 at 12:45 AM Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2007 at 12:45 AM true, most of these books are target to Chinese Learning beginners, because actually, I don't know every clearly how to define "intermediate" and "advanced", for different propose of different learners, maybe they mean different. but it does be my task in the future. so in your opinion, what the intermediated or advanced learner need in deed ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atitarev Posted July 25, 2007 at 02:01 AM Report Share Posted July 25, 2007 at 02:01 AM Kelvinzhao, why are you asking? Do you have intermediate books? I'll give you some of my ideas about intermediate books: 1. Reader books with short stories, fairy-tales or a novels with 3 or 4 of the following: 1) Chinese character text - simplified or traditional or both 2) Pinyin phonetic guide made as ruby (on top of the characters) or on a separate page. 3) English translation 4) Vocabulary list, grammar points and expressions. 5) Perhaps audio? 2. Lyrics books with popular Chinese songs with romanisation and perhaps translations and explanations. 3. Textbooks teaching characters thoroughly beyond the 1st 1,000 characters - usually textbooks slack off after the most common characters. 4. Learner's comprehensive (at least 3,000 - 4,000 characters) dictionaries with stroke orders and pinyinised examples. Usually, examples don't provide phonetic guides. There are excellent paper dictionaries for Japanese. For Chinese they are yet to be written, IMHO. 5. Just bilingual books (see 1.) would be highly popular, in my opinion - comics, novels, short stories, whatever. 6. Chinese expressions are good, why only 200, why not make a larger and a more serious list? 7. I'd like to read newspapers, magazine in Chinese, would be good to have a textbook teaching to read Chinese newspapers - with lots of articles, vocabulary lists and translations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelvinzhao Posted July 25, 2007 at 05:50 AM Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2007 at 05:50 AM good points, atitarev, thanks. I'd appreciate for your opinion, Im just wondering how do you make sure they are an intermediated learner need, where can I find any standard or rule to confirm that, such as "intermediated" learner should have ability to read a Chinese novel , or he should familiar know about 2000 Chinese characters, whatever. I looked around this forum, all kinds of information rushed to me, I'd a little flood in it.:wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gougou Posted July 25, 2007 at 06:08 AM Report Share Posted July 25, 2007 at 06:08 AM Im just wondering how do you make sure they are an intermediated learner needIdeally, you'd make a series of books, one picking up there where the other left off. I studied with two books written for Germans, where this picking up worked magnificently. Unfortunately, there was only two books to the series, so once I was through, I had to find something new. The problem with the books I used afterwards was that they would explain a lot of vocabulary I already knew, but leave out other words I didn't know yet. Same for grammar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atitarev Posted July 25, 2007 at 06:42 AM Report Share Posted July 25, 2007 at 06:42 AM Kelvinzhao, Gougou explained "how". Another thing, if we talk about intermediates (whatever definition), it means, at least able to pronounce some Chinese sounds, familiar with any basic grammar, no need to explain what Chinese characters are, etc. The definition of an intermediate is really broad but if you target any student from 500 to 3000, you can't go wrong. Actually, I'd say textbooks or detailed character dictionaries teaching the first 1,000 - 1,500 are too numerous. Then if you start a bilingual novel with a phonetic guide and a thorough vocab explanation, even a beginner should be able to cope (with a bit more work). It's one of the methods to learn a language - through reading. You'll find this concept if you search for "Breaking into Japanese literature", "Read Real Japanese" or "Hiragana Times", "Bilingual manga". So, you can borrow it from Japanese, they have already worked out how to teach their language efficiently. I know complaining doesn't help to create those missing things but publishers of Chinese books should ask themselves - what is it that helps foreigners to learn and enjoy Chinese? Chinese kids are less spoiled with phonetic guides when they learn to read compared to Japanese. In Japan, the market is flooded with books supplied with "Furigana" - phonetic hiragana letters written next to "kanji" (漢字). Even books for adolescents have them. It makes so much difference to a learner! Ideally, it should also have a translation and vocab list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ipsi() Posted July 26, 2007 at 02:57 AM Report Share Posted July 26, 2007 at 02:57 AM I'd be interested in most of the book ideas suggested by atitarev, and they all definitely need vocab and grammer explanations (preferably distinct from the main text, so that if you're just reading to improve your reading speed, you won't get distracted by them). If you're publishing a book on Chinese Idioms and Expressions, what I would like to see is an etymology of each of the phrases. In terms of what intermediate actaully means, it's a pretty big area. I'd actually define the ability to read a Chinese Novel as moving more into the advanced area. It does depend on the type of novel though At a minimum, an intermediate learner will understand the basics of pronounciation, the basics of word ordering (e.g. time words at the start of the sentance), and will be comfortable learning characters. One could also assume that they can understand basic characters (i.e. 你,我,他,她,要,看 etc). Probably the easiest way to do this would be to grab a number of introductory textbooks (e.g. NPCR 1, Chinese in a Flash Vol 1, and others that I don't know) and see which characters commonly crop up between them. Take this as a basic grounding for characters intermediate learners should know (or could easily learn by looking in a dictionary). Another thing I would be interested in would be recordings of some form. Perhaps Audio Books, with the audio on CD (I'm not purchasing tapes, no way) and a transcript of the audio, explaining each piece of vocab and the grammer used. You could leave out the basic characters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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