Practical Chinese Reader: Book 1 (Set of 7 Cassettes)

Rating:
Summary: PRC Series
Review: Basically, all that you really need to know is that the grammar in this book is excellent. It is simple and the exercises are useful. The problem is that the vocabulary is somewhat random and out of date. It was written in 1979 and is loaded with communist vocabulary and tapics that have fallen out of use. Recommended with some sort of companion for vocabulary.

Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: I have found this set of cassettes for the book Practical Chinese Reader 1 very helpful - given the fact that I am learning Chinese on my own. This particular book and a set of tapes are only one among many other books, recordings and computer programs for learning Chinese that I have acquired and I have found this particular book easy to follow and have found these recording very valuable in my study. In other words, they have helped me to make further progress comfortably.
I don't think that anyone should expect to learn the language by reading only one book, or listening to only one set of tapes - and exposure to many different books and programs makes learning much easier. Even by repeating what you already know, in many different contexts will help that information to stay with you and you can easily expand on the knowledge you have acquired.

Rating:
Summary: PRC Series
Review: In conjunction with the Practical Chinese Reader lesson book, the character exercise book is very helpful. It shows exact stroke orders of each character and has you practice every stroke so that when you build up to actually writing the full character, you do it the correct way (since the strokes go in a specific order). It has work spaces in the book for you to practice in and is very helpful in absorbing many characters in a single sitting. The only problem I have with the Character Exercise book is that it does not necessarily tell you how to pronounce Chinese using English words, which would be very helpful to a Western student learning Chinese for the first time. There are four tones that are all different and though it provides illustrations for pronunciating using a mouth/tongue diagram, it is still not exactly clear how it should sound.--Maybe others learning Chinese for the first time could relate to me? :) Overall, though, I think this is really a good series, is compact, can fit in almost anything and is packed with the basics as well as additional cultural information. Language tapes (probably the Pimsleur Mandarin edition) would be very helpful to supplement the books.