Learning Chinese Measure Words - REVIEW

[Hilde-07]

I got this book through the second round of the Singolingua giveaway action,  therefore many thanks  !

 

My choice :

 

 

Learning Chinese Measure Words

Author : Jiao Fan

Press : SINOLINGUA – Beijing

ISBN : 9787513800372

 

My review :

 

I am studying Chinese, therefore I’ll write my review from this point of view and not from the point of view of a teacher.

 

My first impression of this book is that it’s a nice size for reading. It’s length and width (around 11 ¼ inches by 8 ¼ inches) fits with most other study books.

 

The large font makes it easy to read, especially with regards to Chinese characters.

The vocabulary in this book is HSK4-HSK5 level. The preface gives a good view of the different sorts measure words.

 

After the preface there is a Phonetic Index where you can find an alphabetical overview of the 192 most used measure words which you can all find in the book. The list gives us the pinyin, the corresponding character and the page number where you can find the explanation of this measure word.

 

A schematic representation of the different types of measure words follows after the phonetic index.

 

The discussion of the measure words happened in order of the alphabetical list which is mentioned before.

 

For each measure word, the writer has written one or more example sentences which shows the measure word in his context. Most examples feature an image that helps clarify the situation. The example sentences are written in Chinese characters and also in pinyin.  Maybe an English translation of the examples sentences would have helped to understand it even better, but it isn’t given.

In addition to the example sentences, you can always find a few short example phrases which gives a clear view of the use.

To complete the explanation of the measure word, an overview of the most difficult vocabulary, which is used in the explanation context , is given in Chinese Characters, accompanied with pinyin and an English translation.

 

The back of the book contains a list of similar measure words. This list is also equipped with the page numbers so you can find the page, which contains the explanation, very easily.

When you can use similar measure words, the explanation is mentioned in a separate frame so the slightly difference between the different measure words becomes very obvious. Which measure word you must use is explained by the use of examples.

 

Also in the back of the book you can find a list of collocations for commonly used nominal measure words and a list of collocations for commonly used verbal measure words. Both these list are alphabetical and contains the nouns,  verbs and adjectives in Chinese characters, the corresponding pinyin and there corresponding measure word. No English translation is mentioned.

 

My opinion :

This is a great book for students who have already gained a certain knowledge of the Chinese language and who are tired of using the common measure word “个”. I’m sure it is more fun to use the proper corresponding measure word and I’m convinced, when we foreigners,  use the proper measure words, the level of our Chinese sentences increases a lot.  I think the book will be a great help to pass my HSK 4.