This is the textbook I am using in class. It is the first book in a series of 12. As far as I know, each textbook comes with 2 workbooks to practice what you are learning. We usually do 1 lesson each week (there are 12 lessons in the first book) and I've found that if you do your homework, it's not too hard to keep up. You do need a Chinese person to translate for you though. Each word you learn has the Chinese character, pinyin and a picture. There is no English translation for the words in the books.
This series of textbooks is printed in China specifically for students from other countries.
The textbook teaches reading and writing characters as well as giving the pinyin pronunciation. I'm not totally sure what the title of the book is called but I found an American website that sells it by typing 'zhongwen chinese textbook' into google. The website is http://www.ccdcus.com/id75.html if you're interested.
I guess, from the design, the books are aimed at children, but I find them fantastic even as an adult because they are not too complicated and quite clear. I find that learning to write the characters really helps me to remember them so I can read them and recognise them in amongst Chinese text.
I learn from this textbook, too. I work in the 5th grade one...I don't like it very much...
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear someone else has used these books too! I haven't gotten too far through these books but I have liked them so far. I haven't seen many different textbooks though so I don't have much to compare it to. I think they are more suited to children but I have liked the simplicity and learning 'from scratch'...it has worked well for me. I also like them because I am teaching my son what I learn as he is too young to go to any classes near us and they are perfect for his age. We used these books in conjunction with another book and extra information from the teacher so it worked well for me. :-)
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