A Compendium of the Usage of Complex Chinese Words - Review

[li3wei1]

Thanks to the Sinolingua giveaway for this. This is an incomplete review based on a quick look-through; as I read it I'll supply more detail.

 

A Compendium of the Usage of Complex Chinese Words

汉语疑难词解析与活用

黄为之

2011 Sinolingua

ISBN 978-7-80200-648-5

 

paperback, 364 pages, 26cm x 18.5cm

 

'Complex words' means, in some cases, words that are commonly confused with other words, which are sometimes referred to as 近义词 or synonyms. For instance, this book will tell you when to use 穿 and when to use 戴 (and, in this case, why). So this will go on my shelf alongside:

• Grace Qiao Zhang's Using Chinese Synonyms (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010)

• 刘乃叔， Collocation and Differentiation of the Chinese Near-Synonyms (BLCUP 2004)

• Yang Jizhou, 1700 Groups of Frequently Used Chinese Synonyms (BLCUP 2005)

There may well be more, but these are the ones I have to hand.

 

However, in some cases, the 'complex words' are just words that are frequently used incorrectly (by foreign learners); i.e. one entry explains exactly when you can use 多 without an adverb of degree. So in that respect it might sit alongside 李大忠's 外国人学汉语语法偏误分析 and similar books.

 

This book has 216 words and expressions grouped in 101 entries, against 刘's ~300 words, Zhang's 1700 words, and Yang's 2842 words.

 

Each entry has:

• A title, consisting of the character(s), pinyin, and English definition;

• Example sentences illustrating common mistakes (Chinese only);

• Explanatory notes, with a paragraph of Chinese followed by the same paragraph in English;

• Exercises, usually correcting the example sentences and fill-in-the-blanks, with answers later in the book.

 

The paper and printing are good quality, and two colours are used throughout. Some of the Chinese is unnecessarily bolded, making it slightly more difficult to read, especially for those of us approaching reading glasses age. Coupled with the proximity of the English, it makes it very unlikely that I'll read the Chinese explanations. Fortunately the English appears to be well-translated. One minor problem: example sentences are left untranslated, as they should be, but occasionally there are lists of words, for instance words containing 口 vs. words containing 嘴. If you read the Chinese, you get the words by themselves, with some defined in Chinese, while if you read the English, you get the pinyin and definitions, but not the characters.

 

In the example sentences and exercises, certain vocabulary is glossed, with pinyin and English on the same line. These vocabulary items (around 1200) have their own index, by pinyin, in the back. There is also an index of headwords, and a list of entries in the front, making it pretty easy to find anything you're looking for.

 

The book is pitched (according to the preface) at students moving from beginner to intermediate level, but at a casual glance, I'd say there are things I could benefit from, and I'd put myself somewhere between intermediate and advanced. As I read it, I'll be able to comment on that more fully.

[roddy]

Thanks, great to see these reviews starting to come in!

[li3wei1]

I've figured out why the explanatory notes are in both languages: the Chinese is for teachers. This would be a good book for someone teaching Chinese, just as Swan's Practical English Usage is invaluable for native English speakers teaching English. We know when to use 'say' and when to use 'tell', but we don't know how to explain it to our students who keep saying "Please say me how you tell 'machine for making holes in wood' in English".

 

Each of these 101 entries could be the basis of a lesson, or part of one, complete with exercises. So that's one market for the book, the other is the student at the beginner-intermediate level or higher, who may or may not want to wade through technical linguistic Chinese to get to the answer to his question. A glossary of technical terms in the front of the book, for things like 'adverbial', 'predicate', etc. would have been helpful.

 

Also, for some reason, the example sentences within the explanatory notes are not glossed the same way as the exercises and common mistake sentences.

 

From what I've read, I would say that the explanations are neither too long nor too short, and while sometimes you have to read them again carefully, they are quite accurate and useful. There is some basic stuff in here, like an entry on the differences between 不 and  没 that you'd think would be sorted out already, but there's also stuff that's new to me. I may be untypical, but I've got quite far without realising that there are two different bìxū's that mean almost the same thing but are different parts of speech. I will enjoy reading through this book from end to end, but then also keeping it around as a reference. It's a sort of hybrid between a synonym dictionary and a supplementary grammar book.

[sinosplice]

That sounds really interesting to me.  I just placed an order for one.

 

(Sinolingua, your nefarious promotional scheme is working!)

[PBolchover]

How does this book compare to the similar books that you mention that you already have?  Which books would you recommend to people in different levels of learning?

[li3wei1]

That's a tough one, I'll try to get to it at some point, but I'd like to get something up about the other book I was sent, and I have a few other time-sensitive tasks on my plate.