Newspaper Reading textbooks

[Luxi]

Many years ago, I bought a probably very useful book to learn to read newspapers from mainland China. I'm sure it was invaluable, but it was so, so boring that I never went beyond Lesson 1. It was published in the early 80s and it was 100% based on articles from the 人民日报. I still read newspapers at a painfully slow speed compared to literature and non-fiction.  I don't know modern textbooks for newspaper reading, maybe others here can give some references,  but I got this today and it looks sort of good. The Table of Contents is a far cry from that 1980s textbook. It seems to be something quite suitable for use in class, but it isn't beyond home use and may be useful as a practice text.

 

Times: Newspaper Reading Course of Advanced Chinese vol.1
时代： 高级汉语报刊阅读教程 （上）. This is actually part of a 2-volumes set, published by BLCU.

 

The reading texts are about current topics, not overtly political or on-your-face Party propaganda, and actually rather interesting. Each lesson has a main article and several shorter texts on the same or related topics. Apart from a short vocabulary (that needs to be complemented with Pleco &/or Baidu searches), it doesn't have much in the way of explanations. On the plus side, though: there are plenty of 练习, and the lessons can be worked out by relatively advanced intermediate self-learners, or students working with a private tutor. Each volume has a handy Appendix booklet with key sentences extracted from the lessons texts.

 

I got mine from Purple Culture (they were on offer). Air mail shipping up to 2kg costs £20.66 (not bad if ordering several books at a time) and takes about 10 days, delivered by your local postman.

https://www.purpleculture.net/times-newspaper-reading-course-of-advanced-chinese-1-p-11009/
 

Other sellers (besides Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, who seem to have got all Chinese book prices wrong?)

 

https://www.cypressbooks.com/proddetail.php?prod=9787561926024

More realistic prices than Amazon UK. The 'Browse Inside' button gives you Table of Contents and a good part of Lesson 1, enough to decide whether you can use the book.

 

http://www.chinabooks.com/shop/advanced-mandarin-ap-sat-hsk/times-newspaper-reading-course-of-advanced-chinese-1/

Reasonably competitive prices for the US.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jannesan]

I think newspaper articles are a great way of moving into more formal Chinese, especially if there are some grammar and vocabulary notes with it.

I have read half of the textbook "All Things Considered" (https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9588.html), which starts out with some dialogues and then moves on to real newspaper articles with somewhat similar themes as the dialogues before. The grammar/word usage notes at the end of each chapter are pretty good in my opinion.

For now I have decided to keep studying a bit more informal language and do more free talking, but I can recommend this one.

[rvw]

Hi Luxi!

 

Some time ago I came across this book in the library:

 

Shen, Helen/ Zhou, Xiaoyuan/ Zhou, Yunong: The Routledge Intermediate Chinese Reader. London 2013. ISBN 978-0415636353.

Routledge writes, that the book uses: „Extracts from newspaper and internet articles“ [ https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Intermediate-Chinese-Reader-1st-Edition/Shen-Yunong-Zhao/p/book/9780415636360 ]

 

I also found a companion website for "The Routledge Intermediate Chinese Reader" here: https://uiowa.edu/intermediatechinesereader/

 

 

And by chance I also found the following book:

 

Li, Wen-Chao/ Tsao, Josephine H.: The Routledge course in Chinese media literacy. London 2016. ISBN 978-1138191136.

[ https://www.routledge.com/product/isbn/9781138191150?source=igodigital ]

 

 

I did not work with the books, but maybe they are of use for you.

[Luxi]

@rvw thank you for those references! 'The Routledge Course in Media Literacy' is quite close to what I was looking for and I like the lessons' topics. It may be helpful to study alongside the 2 newspaper reading volumes I just got.

 

I think the Routledge book may interest others here. It is an Intermediate level and the vocabulary lists in the lessons are much more than just specialised advanced words. There's a lot of good information and a preview on the product page.   

 

The book also has a fabulous companion website wich includes the text audio and pdf transcripts, as well as the full vocabulary list! 

 

[corian]

Not just the transcripts---the entire book (in Traditional Chinese edition) is up for download as a PDF at the companion site.

[Luxi]

49 minutes ago, corian said:

Not just the transcripts---the entire book

 

Amazing! I hadn't noticed, but I'm still glad I found a used one at half prize in Amazon and ordered it.

 

This companion site is a gem, it doesn't require registration or anything. The videos are good too (not sure I like the Taiwan accent much but it is good practice), at least the 1st lesson is. Another good thing, they use the You Tube player so the speed can be varied. 

[Yadang]

Have you considered the Reading Newspapers, Learning Chinese series? It looks as though the new edition is relatively recent (2015-2017).

[Luxi]

Thank you, @Yadang !

 

I saw the "Reading Newspapers, Learning Chinese" series when I ordered the 'Times: 时代' books, but couldn't find a preview. I searched later, but only found a good list of the contents for volume 1, and it wasn't what I was after. Maybe the 'quasi-advanced' volume comes closer, but I still have to find a good contents table, or a preview.

What I found, instead, is a Ximalaya podcast with the audio for all the lessons of Volume 1. They are nice recordings.

https://www.ximalaya.com/waiyu/20843274/  

 

I think I now have enough. Probably more than. The Routledge book adds the complexity of appended videos, which is really nice. I also noticed that the 'Times' lessons have quite a few of typical newspaper/officialeese lingo scattered in each article, hopefully enough to break mental blockages without overwhelming 人民日报 style.

 

[DeanaZimmerman]

On 9/25/2019 at 7:43 PM, Luxi said:

I saw the "Reading Newspapers, Learning Chinese" series when I ordered the 'Times: 时代' books, but couldn't find a preview. I searched later, but only found a good list of the contents for volume 1, and it wasn't what I was after. Maybe the 'quasi-advanced' volume comes closer, but I still have to find a good contents table, or a preview.

What I found, instead, is a Ximalaya podcast with the audio for all the lessons of Volume 1. They are nice recordings.

https://bitcoinwarrior.net/2019/05/beginners-guide-on-how-to-invest-in-cryptocurrencies/

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