Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Audiopackage

Rating:
Summary: great on grammar, but weak on practice
Review: The author is quite talented in the presentation of grammatical points. Her explanations of the structure of the language are intuitive and readable without being oversimplified or patronizing. This book contains a wealth of grammatical information, much more than other beginning books I have seen, and always clearly explained.

Unfortunately, the book and tapes together contain only a small fraction of the amount of excercises, conversations, and other reinforcement that would be necessary to support the amount of vocabulary & grammar presented. The tapes are good, with a steadily increasing pace, but you would need more of them to really get practice at listening. The readings are modern, friendly and interesting, but they are lacking in volume. Chapters 7-11 (out of 22) have such a high density of new vocabulary as to make the readings discouragingly difficult.

If used by itself, this book may not be the best for self-study. However, I would recommend it as a supplement to any course. If you are having trouble with technical points of grammar, this book might make it easier for you. If you are taking a self-study program which espouses the "conversation-only" approach and lacks the grammatical information so useful to an intelligent adult, this book will provide it. I plan to keep it close at hand as a reference.