Colloquial Chinese: The Complete Course for Beginners

by Qian Kan

Colloquial The Complete Course for Beginners has been carefully developed by an experienced teacher to provide a step-by-step course to Chinese as it is written and spoken today. Combining a clear, practical and accessible style with a methodical and thorough treatment of the language, it equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in Chinese in a broad range of situations. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Colloquial Chinese is exceptional; each unit presents a wealth of grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key, a grammar summary, bilingual glossaries and English translations of dialogues can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary lists throughout. Key features Balanced, comprehensive and rewarding, Colloquial Chinese is an indispensable resource both for independent learners and students taking courses in Chinese. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

386 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2015

Reviews

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed this - skipping over exercises, for example - because I wanted to listen to the audio recordings of the dialogs in order to practice my listening comprehension. The book was fine - I have neither major praise or major criticism. Chinese is so different from English that it must be exceedingly difficult to write an introductory book. As the book focuses on pinyin and does not have much focus on writing characters, it is good for tourists who just need basic vocabulary to get around. I would definitely recommend this to a friend before their first visit to China.

[Linus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro one can come back to every once in a while as it covers the foundations well