Rating: 
Summary: Very Good Program
Review: Perhaps the greatest strength of this program is that it provides a solid explanation of essential Chinese grammar. It really helps with the learning process.For absolute beginner who'd like to develop conversational proficiency, I'd recommend Pimsleur's Chinese. It will help you to step into the waters of learning Chinese joyfully and effortlessly. Yes, Ultimate Chinese Mandarin does have cassettes, but it's much more challenging to master speaking Chinese with those cassettes than with Pimsleur's program. While this program does teach you how to read and write few Chinese characters, you may find learning to read and write Chinese easier and more enjoyable with Easy Chinese Tutor CDs, which also provides practice sheets. You can take colorful pens and have hours of fun learning to write Chinese characters, easily and effortlessly. Rosetta Stone program is very helpful as far as memorizing new words through visual associations. While no single program is all-encompassing and perfect in and of itself - the above selection of programs can turn learning Chinese from difficult or even impossible task, into enjoyable process that requires much less effort and strugle.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Program
Review: Perhaps the greatest strength of this program is that it provides a solid explanation of essential Chinese grammar. It really helps with the learning process. For absolute beginner who'd like to develop conversational proficiency, I'd recommend Pimsleur's Chinese. It will help you to step into the waters of learning Chinese joyfully and effortlessly. Yes, Ultimate Chinese Mandarin does have cassettes, but it's much more challenging to master speaking Chinese with those cassettes than with Pimsleur's program. While this program does teach you how to read and write few Chinese characters, you may find learning to read and write Chinese easier and more enjoyable with Easy Chinese Tutor CDs, which also provides practice sheets. You can take colorful pens and have hours of fun learning to write Chinese characters, easily and effortlessly. Rosetta Stone program is very helpful as far as memorizing new words through visual associations. While no single program is all-encompassing and perfect in and of itself - the above selection of programs can turn learning Chinese from difficult or even impossible task, into enjoyable process that requires much less effort and strugle.
Rating: 
Summary: Great intro for English speakers
Review: The layout of this is excellent. The only reason I gave 4 instead of 5 stars is that the Chinese on the tapes is too quickly pronounced. More time on the tapes should be given to pronounciation of the dialogues. If you don't mind rewinding constantly, it is an A++ course. (FYI, I transferred the audio to MD disks, and set tracks to the beginnings of the "Duihua" (dialogues) to make it easier)
Rating:
Summary: Great intro for English speakers
Review: The layout of this is excellent. The only reason I gave 4 instead of 5 stars is that the Chinese on the tapes is too quickly pronounced. More time on the tapes should be given to pronounciation of the dialogues. If you don't mind rewinding constantly, it is an A++ course. (FYI, I transferred the audio to MD disks, and set tracks to the beginnings of the "Duihua" (dialogues) to make it easier)
Rating:
Summary: Mandarin Fun
Review: The lively format of Ultimate Mandarin Chinese provides a useful and easy to understand introduction to the basics of Mandarin Chinese. It presents a wide range of useful vocabulary, model phrases and short dialogues which will help the learner get started communicating in China, Taiwan, or Singapore. A really great package for those who don't have the money to spend two years in a foreign country.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Value
Review: This course is one of the few modern Chinese instructional guides available on the market today. The material seems to be up to date and easy to follow. Furthermore, the conversational sketches are interesting and lively. If there is a way to improve on the dialog offerings I would say that there should be more drill work. Some practice drills are offered in the " Learn On The Go " tapes. However, they require several playings to commit the phrases to memory. But this is only a small matter. In the final analysis though, I applaud Living Language for producing tapes and a study guide on Chinese, a language that few language companies are apparently willing to tackle. It is my hope that they will publish a more advanced course in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Supurb.
Review: This instruction set is supurb! It consists of two sets of tapes. The first set follows the included text book and is to be used in conjunction. The second set is for driving, or anywhere the book isn't or can't be used. Unlike other instruction sets, the tapes are mirrors of each other and use different constructions, phrases, and/or speakers. This gives you some variability, so you don't just pick up a pattern of the tape. The book walks you through serveral practical chapters, "at the office" or "eating dumplings", etc. The focus of each chapter is used in some context to introduce not only vocabulary, but also struture notes and grammar. So much better than simply providing catch phrases. In little time (by the third lesson), a user can construct simple sentances and understand speakers. At the end of each chapter, it introduces some hanzi (characters) but focuses more so on pin-ing romanization. Learning to speak and learing to read are really two seperate tasks, but its good of this set not to completely ignore reading. The book is available without the tapes, but would not be recommended as Chinese tonal pronunciation is near impossible without them. Living Language claims the college equivilant of two years of study...which seems about right given the depth of excellent coverage this set provides.
Rating:
Summary: Supurb.
Review: This instruction set is supurb! It consists of two sets of tapes. The first set follows the included text book and is to be used in conjunction. The second set is for driving, or anywhere the book isn't or can't be used. Unlike other instruction sets, the tapes are mirrors of each other and use different constructions, phrases, and/or speakers. This gives you some variability, so you don't just pick up a pattern of the tape. The book walks you through serveral practical chapters, "at the office" or "eating dumplings", etc. The focus of each chapter is used in some context to introduce not only vocabulary, but also struture notes and grammar. So much better than simply providing catch phrases. In little time (by the third lesson), a user can construct simple sentances and understand speakers. At the end of each chapter, it introduces some hanzi (characters) but focuses more so on pin-ing romanization. Learning to speak and learing to read are really two seperate tasks, but its good of this set not to completely ignore reading. The book is available without the tapes, but would not be recommended as Chinese tonal pronunciation is near impossible without them. Living Language claims the college equivilant of two years of study...which seems about right given the depth of excellent coverage this set provides.
Rating:
Summary: For Mandarin Intermediate only
Review: When I first started on this book/tape course, I was very disappointed. I was thinking about giving this book a one star rating. Now, after having one year of Mandarin conversation under my belt, I am still struggled to get through this book. This is NOT a beginner book. I wish the author speaks slowly and repeats twice for each phrases. I have been searching for more than a year, but this is the best intermediate mandarin out there. Quite frankly, I could not find any other intermediate mandarin book&tapes alternative out there. Oh, I don't have any complains regarding there isn't any chinese characters in this book. To get to intermediate level, it took me one year just to learn conversation. Believe me, my colleages learned both characters and conversation for two years, and they can not even order a simple hamburger in China. I know, without knowing chinese characters you are consider illiterate, but I want to learn mandarin fast so I have to give up something. Oh, one good thing about this book is they have tapes version to study in your car. This book has 4 tapes to study at home, and 4 tapes to study in your car. The on-the-go conversations tapes are great. It's very interesting.
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