Intermediate Chinese Reader, Part I

by John DeFrancis

The general approach in writing this text is the same as that in Beginning Chinese Reader . It is discussed in some detail in the introduction to that work. Salient features Selection of characters on the basis of frequency;2) Provision of a large number of compounds and a large amount of reading matter relative to the number of characters;3) Inclusion of dialogue material in order to provide students with audiolingual support of what they read;4) Close correlation with Beginning Chinese , Advanced Chinese , and the character versions of these two texts.The present volume contains 400 characters, some 2,500 compounds, and about 200,000 characters of running text.

Published for Seton Hall University. With the assistance of Ten Chia-yee and Yung Chih-Sheng.

740 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of the appeal of the previous books applies here. Lessons only contain 16 new characters apiece but dozens of words and combinations. The gradual buildup from phrases to dialogues to monologues also keeps a steady upward momentum.

The only thing I’d critique are the Excerpts from Actual Publications. Not only were these excerpts decades old even when the book was written, they are sporadic, disconnected, and provide little in the way of pedagogically designed lesson.

As someone who has been learning Mandarin for the past 7 years exclusively with Traditional characters, I appreciate that this book dominates with 繁體字。 Although they do have 殘體字 at the back of the book, I skip those.

[Björn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's embarrassing how long it took me to work through this tome - let's just say that finishing it was something of an emotional occasion. But now I've hit my stride, I've nailed down my habit of daily Chinese study, and I'm on track to finish part II by mid 2016.

DeDrancis' Chinese readers still seem to be some of the best academic character texts on the shelf: it's my understanding that there are newer materials becoming available as far as Chinese readers for Western audiences, but many use simplified characters, and few are as comprehensive or carefully planned. DeFrancis' texts carefully shepherd you through the colossal task of learning to read Chinese: characters from previous lessons recur in subsequent readings at fixed rates so that your mind is jogged just as it was on the verge of forgetting; character review is accomplished while growing your vocabulary and memorizing "sheng ci." Other reviewers have commented that DeFrancis' texts are heavily weighted towards the vocabulary of academia, politics, and language that was generally in use during the late 1960's. This is all likely true, however what I can say is that if you put in the time and the brute force involved in memorizing 15 characters a lesson, including all of the associated vocabulary combinations, when you finish one of these 600 page tomes, you'll be reading the selections with an exhilarating fluidity... Is it good enough to read the Chinese newspaper yet? No, not necessarily, and then there're the above issues with simplified v. traditional characters, but I still believe that this sort of work is a rock solid foundation for Westerners who are tired of being illiterate in written Chinese. I remind myself that these texts are a means to an end, and seem to be a very effective means at that. My ends? Reading Li Bai, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin Tales in the original...

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Assumes you already know all the characters from Beginning Chinese Reader Vol 1 & 2. The lessons continue in the same style as those first two books, with a couple of exceptions. Instead of 10 new characters per lesson (beginner volumes), this intermediate reader has 15 new characters per lesson. Also, the initial presentation differs slightly. In the beginning readers, all the new characters are first accompanied with their English definitions, then character compounds (new vocabulary) are introduced, then examples sentences using the characters and character compounds followed. In this intermediate reader, each new character definition is immediately followed by its character compounds and example sentences. To note, a decent amount of the vocabuluary introduced is academia-related. Also, some small errors in editting: sometimes characters that are not yet introduced (but do show up eventually in a later lesson) are used in the current lesson. This only happened in a few instances though; otherwise, it would have been annoying. Overall, a decent reader.