Cost-effective Mandarin Courses

I'm a complete newbie to speaking Mandarin. I have access to the Pimsleur I-III CDs from my library and am only on lesson 7 in the first course. But I've been wondering if it would be better to do something with some written materials instead (or in addition). Or would it be good to finish the Pimsleur series and then move on to something else? I mainly want to achieve fluency in speaking/conversing, but I do want to learn to read too.

I've read about several courses, like New Standard Chinese, New Practical Chinese Reader, China Panorama, Communicate in Chinese by CCTV, and the DLI Chinese (although I don't know if this is a good one because it seems to focus on military use). I know of FSI but I can't afford it. I know of Chineseon.net and the free DLI online learning course, which seems pretty short (but maybe I'm missing something). I have no clue which courses are most effective and cost-efficient. Cost is a bit of a factor since I'm in my last semester of college and getting married and moving this June.

I've searched the forums and am still unsure.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for so many questions.

I've kind of narrowed it down now. I'm leaning toward the China Panorama series, but could definitely use some help because you guys obviously know more about these things than I do.

I can get the full six-volume series of New Practical Chinese Reader, with DVDs and CDs, for $180 shipped. That seems to be a pretty standard course, and I'm sure most people here are familiar with it, so I won't bore with details. Vols 1-3 come with DVDs and Vols 4-6 come with CDs. I haven't seen it like this anywhere (I've only seen it with CDs), but this guy bought them in Beijing and said this is how they come there. Can anyone verify that, or does it not sound right?

The China Panorama course is $220 for both the beginning and intermediate courses, and includes 25 VCDs for a total of 64 hours of video. The beginner's course teaches 1000 words, 200 sentence patterns, and 3000 sentences, and the intermediate picks up from there. I think it only has a small amount of info on reading characters, but I'm not sure. That's fine with me though, because I want to learn to speak first. It's compiled by teachers at BLCU.

http://learn_chinese.ckungfu.com/beginner/Panorama1.htm

http://learn_chinese.ckungfu.com/beginner/Panorama2.htm

There's also an advanced course, called Chinese for Tourism, that assumes knowledge of 2,500 words, and comes with 25 VCDs. I wouldn't get that now, but if I go with these courses, I'd get it once I got to that point.

http://learn_chinese.ckungfu.com/beginner/Panorama3.htm

The reason I'm leaning towards China Panorama over the other is that it seems more geared toward speaking in everyday situations and the NPCR seems to be more geared towards reading and writing. Am I right about that?

I can't afford the Communicate in Chinese series, so it isn't an option anymore. Same with DLI, I think. New Standard Chinese doesn't seem as good as the two I'm deciding between, although it is cheaper.

Any help or other suggestions I could get would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

I don't know about the costs where you are but here in Melbourne you can get the old Practical Chinese Reader with tapes (maybe CD's as well, not sure) for a much cheaper price. Why don't you buy them as you go - one volume at a time?

I personally like the old version of Practical Chinese Reader. By the way, there are audio recordings you can download off the web for this course (I know for sure for volume 1), I don't have a link handy, let me know if you can't find anything (hush, don't tell anyone )

EDIT:

I am no longer sending this file as it is large and I pay for downloads/uploads but if someone can offer a storage of about 11mb, I can share the file and give it for everyone to download.

Apologies to people who requested and I haven't answered.

Man they are charging outrageous prices on that website. Maybe you could find someone to buy some stuff for you in China and mail it to you. Believe it or not it will still be cheaper and you'll get more for your money. I paid $5-6 per course tape set, 3-6 tapes each, (maybe $8 per set if you went with cds) and $3-5 for a good book for nearly any course... And VCDs in China are typically pretty cheap. If I was living there right now I'd offer to do it myself -- too bad you can't wait until the summer!

Looky, looky - "Practical Chinese Reader" audio all 3 parts, freebie!!! (sh)

Audio: (3 parts)

http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/pcr/textrecording/recording.htm

Vocabulary:

http://ktmatu.com/chinese/practical-chinese-reader/

PM me, I'll find you the PDF file with the full scan of the book #1.

Do a google search on Pàlánkă (帕兰卡） - one of the female characters in PCR.

Wow! Thanks very much for those links! I can't use PMs yet because I'm a brand new member (I assume that's the reason), but XXXXXXXXXX is my email addy. Thanks for your help.

EDIT: It looks like the PM function is working for me now so I removed my email address.

That is the reason, but you should be able to already - use the contact form to let me know if not.

Thanks, roddy.

No problem, it usually only takes a couple of posts - I don't want to keep people in pre-moderation any longer than necessary, just adds to my work . . .

Back on topic, if money is tight dont' forget to take a close look at free stuff - there's a lot of stuff available online, you just need to organise it all.

I can get the full six-volume series of New Practical Chinese Reader' date=' with DVDs and CDs,

Vols 1-3 come with DVDs and Vols 4-6 come with CDs.

Can anyone verify that, or does it not sound right?[/quote']

We are in Beijing, and can make sure it’s not true. We directly get the information from the BEIJING LANGUAGE & CULTURE UNIVERSITY PRESS. The following is correct:

New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (6) is still not published yet. Only New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (1) and (2) have DVD, but (3) has not yet.

New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (1) + DVD

USD 11.00

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=470593&userid=7912&catid=662814

Additional DVD: New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (1)

USD 5.63

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=470594&userid=7912&catid=662814

New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (2) + DVD

USD 12.25

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=470595&userid=7912&catid=662814

Additional DVD: New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook (2)

USD 5.63

http://shop.aaawww.net/mod8/detail.php?gid=470596&userid=7912&catid=662814

By the way, we also have the total 4 volumes of the old Practical Chinese Reader on our site.

In addition, if money is tight, do not forget to have a look at: http://www.chinese-forums.com/links/, I think, there are many free ones.

Thanks for the links! They're very helpful!

I bought the intermediate course "China panorama" in a highstreet Shanghai bookshop. Though I may come back to it later, I've stopped using it for one main reason: the dialogues are drenched in strong background, soap opera like music. Some lines are hardly audible. Had the designers of this course some mozart effect in mind or was drowing the speech in music their idea of a good TV programme (the course was initially a TV programme)?

Some fresh programming is needed to bring this course up to the required audio standards. I hope, of course, that I was not sold some pirated version, you never know.

Thanks xxl_male... was just about to buy it but stopped when I heard that. Seems like alot of courses like to use the heavy background music :wtf: