Rating: 
Summary: Exceptional Book
Review: All books from Peking University are just one word, exceptional. "Peking University is Havard University in China, and Havard is Peking in U.S." --Clinton
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional Book
Review: Being almost fluent in Spanish (self-taught), I was used to finding good material fairly easily. But with Chinese, it's another story. Why is this so much better than the other stuff out there? First, it recognizes the basic fact that speakers of non-tonal languages will have their biggest problems with the tones, in both the ears & vocal chords. All other materials I have ever seen flatly refuse to cop to this essential problem! They'll start out with the "repeat after the native speaker" routine with full phrases, but without slowly training your ears & throat, it's stupidity. This method systematically breaks it all down into logical components, then slowly builds it up. After so much frustration before, I feel so good about it all now. It made me feel like the first time I read "The Elements of Style" - clear, straightened out, refreshed. Secondly, it integrates the reading and writing of Chinese effortlessly. It's absolutely painless, and adds somethings really practical (for using dictionaries, etc.) and kind of fun. And I myself find it hard to write legibly in English, so it's got to be really simple. The only thing I've found you might want to keep in mind, is to not be put off by their technical descriptions of the basic sounds at the start. Most books cheat a little bit on this stuff (i.e. "sounds like...") and these people don't mess with that. But with the tape it's a no-brainer. And if you feel more comfortable at the start, any little booklet ought to have a more "Englishized" description of the Pinyin romanization.
Rating:
Summary: Best material I've found by far for English speakers like me
Review: Being almost fluent in Spanish (self-taught), I was used to finding good material fairly easily. But with Chinese, it's another story. Why is this so much better than the other stuff out there? First, it recognizes the basic fact that speakers of non-tonal languages will have their biggest problems with the tones, in both the ears & vocal chords. All other materials I have ever seen flatly refuse to cop to this essential problem! They'll start out with the "repeat after the native speaker" routine with full phrases, but without slowly training your ears & throat, it's stupidity. This method systematically breaks it all down into logical components, then slowly builds it up. After so much frustration before, I feel so good about it all now. It made me feel like the first time I read "The Elements of Style" - clear, straightened out, refreshed. Secondly, it integrates the reading and writing of Chinese effortlessly. It's absolutely painless, and adds somethings really practical (for using dictionaries, etc.) and kind of fun. And I myself find it hard to write legibly in English, so it's got to be really simple. The only thing I've found you might want to keep in mind, is to not be put off by their technical descriptions of the basic sounds at the start. Most books cheat a little bit on this stuff (i.e. "sounds like...") and these people don't mess with that. But with the tape it's a no-brainer. And if you feel more comfortable at the start, any little booklet ought to have a more "Englishized" description of the Pinyin romanization.
Rating: 
Summary: Very nice book for beginners
Review: Highly recomended, especially if you also buy the audio cassettes. Exhaustive intonation lessons before introduction to grammar lessons. Pinyin and Chinese letters follow side by side, making it easy to learn. Grammatical explanations are very objective and easy to understand. Although it is a little bit out of date (some Chinese letters were already updated), it still has a great utility.
Rating: 
Summary: Good text, but a little too old
Review: I bought this book because many reviewers here gave highest rates. But since this book was written in 1971, they use some obsolete words (for example, Chinese people don't usually call each other "tongzhi" any more), and some Chinese characters shown in this book have been further simplified ever since, so you need to unlearn and relearn some stuff if you really want to learn "modern Chinese".Also, some grammatical topics which should be covered in a basic course such as comparison are not covered. Overall, this is a good text for beginners, but you will need to supplement it with a more comprehensive and up-to-date text before going on to intermediate level.
Rating:
Summary: Good text, but a little too old
Review: I bought this book because many reviewers here gave highest rates. But since this book was written in 1971, they use some obsolete words (for example, Chinese people don't usually call each other "tongzhi" any more), and some Chinese characters shown in this book have been further simplified ever since, so you need to unlearn and relearn some stuff if you really want to learn "modern Chinese". Also, some grammatical topics which should be covered in a basic course such as comparison are not covered. Overall, this is a good text for beginners, but you will need to supplement it with a more comprehensive and up-to-date text before going on to intermediate level.
Rating:
Summary: Good text, but a little too old
Review: I bought this book because many reviewers here gave highest rates. But since this book was written in 1971, they use some obsolete words (for example, Chinese people don't usually call each other "tongzhi" any more), and some Chinese characters shown in this book have been further simplified ever since, so you need to unlearn and relearn some stuff if you really want to learn "modern Chinese". Also, some grammatical topics which should be covered in a basic course such as comparison are not covered. Overall, this is a good text for beginners, but you will need to supplement it with a more comprehensive and up-to-date text before going on to intermediate level.
Rating:
Summary: Could be better, but not a bad starting point
Review: I think the other reviews are accurate for the most part. For example, as one other reviewer mentions, this book uses a lot of phonetic terms like "affricative" and "labio" that really frustrated me at first. But using a dictionary, I created a little glossary of all the terms used and as I got to know the terms better, I found the descriptions more helpful than any other source for correct pronunciation. (These descriptions alone are, I think, worth the cost of the book.) Another reviewer mentions that this book doesn't compare any of these sounds to English equivalents. I think this is done to help the student begin the process of "thinking in Chinese" which, while frustrating at first, probably pays off down the road. I've used two other books and several Web sites to help me learn Chinese. I don't know if I'd recommend this book by itself, but together with other sources, I think it's invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: Could be better, but not a bad starting point
Review: I think the other reviews are accurate for the most part. For example, as one other reviewer mentions, this book uses a lot of phonetic terms like "affricative" and "labio" that really frustrated me at first. But using a dictionary, I created a little glossary of all the terms used and as I got to know the terms better, I found the descriptions more helpful than any other source for correct pronunciation. (These descriptions alone are, I think, worth the cost of the book.) Another reviewer mentions that this book doesn't compare any of these sounds to English equivalents. I think this is done to help the student begin the process of "thinking in Chinese" which, while frustrating at first, probably pays off down the road. I've used two other books and several Web sites to help me learn Chinese. I don't know if I'd recommend this book by itself, but together with other sources, I think it's invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: Best product out there if you are a serious begginer
Review: If you are just beginning and truly want to speak it correctly, then you have to get this book and tape series. I used this course for one week and then went to a tutor who was blown away by my pronunciation. You won't find a better product out there if you want correct pronunciation. It could use work on teaching how to write the characters, but otherwise it is great for the beginner.
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