A New Chinese Writing Course (review)

[mouse]

This was a book I received as part of the Sinolingua book giveaway. I got A New Chinese Writing Course (English version) 新汉语写作教程 (英语注释)

 

The book is aiming at "intermediate learners" and while of course we all might have different definitions of intermediate, I think they've got it about right. The first few lessons are nice and easy, and the course slowly builds up on the difficulty level, mainly by making texts longer and introducing more new words. I think an advanced beginner could pick up this book and make progress.

 

The lessons are split up into a few sections. There are usually two or three texts with their own (mercifully short) vocabulary lists. Despite this being called the "English version", the only place you'll find English in the book is as translations of vocab in these lists. Also, the vocab lists are the only place where you'll find pinyin. After the texts and vocab lists the contents can vary, but usually they'll be some examples of standard phrases building on a sentence in the text, some explanations of certain sections, and then some exercises. The latter seem better suited to a classroom than individual study, especially the activities, which would feel redundant to do alone. In fact, the book seems designed with a classroom in mind, although an individual learner would not have many problems using it on her own.

 

The content of the texts vary from introductions, email, lost cat notices, letters, etc. This is useful for students who want to learn more about appropriate registers for different contexts.

 

Overall I think this is a nice little book that covers the basics and keeps the contents varied enough to stop you becoming too bored.

 

 

[lechuan]

@mouse, thank you for your review.

 

The description of this book indicates that it's geared toward learning to write in different styles (ie. "Various writing styles are introduced such as the narrative, explanatory and argumentative styles."). However, from your description it sounds more like a textbook or reader. Did you find that to be the case?

[mouse]

It's a textbook, yes. Every lesson has a section going into detail of certain parts of the text, why and where a particular structure is used, etc.