Will soon finish NPCR 1, need different textbook to continue- recommendations?

[Lou]

Hello!

I just realised that the NPCR 1 has far fewer lessons that I thought and I'll probably be through it in three weeks or so. For a number of reasons, I don't want to continue with the NPCR 2, the main one being te grammar explanations. The grammar explanations in the NPCR 1 are...let's call it...limited. They just definitely aren't enough. I always needed to look up stuff online because the book just didn't explain anything about it. This really bugs me, since grammar always is my weak point in languages until I am advanced enough to start watching movies/reading books in them, only then it becomes natural.

Therefor, I'd like to continue with a different book.

I consider myself fluent in English and German, so these are the two languages the book can be written in. Important criteria would be good grammar explanaitions, a focus on characters rather than pinyin (I really liked the NPCRs attitude here), good and many exercises to train the vocab and grammar, and of course, that it fits as seamlessly as possible with the NPCR 1. Obviously, whatever book I choose, as long as it isn't the NPCR 2, it won't fit perfectly and seamlessly, but I'd like for the gap/overlap to be as small as possible :-).

Absolutely amazing would be if the book worked with both traditional and simplified characters. I have, so far, always learned both even though the NPCR is written in simplified only, but to actually get learning material in both systems would be great. Integrated Chinese seems to have versions that have this dual approach, but does IC fit my criteria, and if yes, which level should I choose?

Has anyone been in a similar situation as mine and can offer any recommendations?

[Shelley]

Why not continue with NPCR 2 but add a more specific grammar book. I would suggest Schaum's outline Chinese Grammar or if you don't mind a more technical approach Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar and workbook.

 

I use NPCR and apart from the scanty grammar I really like it so I have added Schaums to my lessons. Chinese grammar wiki is also very helpful.

 

In my experience it is difficult to find one book that does it all, and as NPCR does most of it well I am happy to just add more grammar texts.I plan to use all 6 books in the series.

 

I have also seen NPCR 2 with traditional characters, it has a word list in both traditional and simplified, I only flipped through it in the book shop so I am not sure exactly what the contents were but it seemed just the same but with both forms. I have only seen book 2 in traditional characters.

 

I suppose you could carry on learning both forms side by side yourself, if you use a dictionary or flashcards, I use Pleco and it shows both (would recommend Pleco for any student of Chinese)

 

 

 

[wushucrab20]

I thought integrated Chinese was great, but I'm not sure what the equivalent level would be for you. I felt the content in the most recent edition of integrated Chinese was really good, and my only complaint is that the audio files for the dialogues of the final book in the four part series are slower than Level 2 Part 1, which made practicing listening comprehension somewhat frustrating. This wouldn't be so bad, but the speed of the dialogues in the last book are really painfully slow.