суббота, 30 марта 2013 г.

Reading & Writing Chinese.





This is a revised third edition of Tuttle's Reading & Writing Chinese.

This new edition focuses on the internationally recognized test of proficiency in Chinese, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK). All 800 characters prescribed for Level A are covered here, and the 1400+ Levels B and C characters are covered concisely.

All of the prescribed vocabulary for Levels A-C of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi is included among the example compounds. 

Knowledge of the 2,200+ characters and 5,253+ vocabulary items covered will equip students to take the test at either the Basic or the Elementary-Intermediate standard.

 Success in the top band of the Basic standard is sufficient to enter college in China.







A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners 外国人实用汉语语法 (bilingual Chinese-English, revised edition)



Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners was first published in 1988 and has been reprinted for many times and has achieved widespread influence. This book is the revised edition which makes important and valuable modification to the original edition based on the suggestions and comments of the teachers and students.

This book gives concise, detailed and explicit explanations of the grammar points. In the aspect of content, besides introducing the most basic and practical grammatical rules, it also has more practical chapters such as “How to make comparisons” and “How to emphasize”. In the aspect of style, each chapter has a part entitled “Attention should be paid to…” which deals with a particular issue. Detailed and practical tables and sample sentences including the erroneous sentences for contrast are provided.

All explanations are provided with English translation. Each chapter is supplemented with exercises. This book can both be used as a grammar textbook for Chinese learners and grammar handbook for daily reference.


Say It Right in Chinese - your guide to right pronunciation in Chinese!


Based on the revolutionary Easily Pronounced Language Systems approach, Say It Right in Chinese makes mastering correct Chinese pronunciation simple. With Say It Right you'll learn how to use hundreds of Chinese words and phrases in everyday conversation.

This amazing guide gives you easy-to-read vowel symbols that, when combined with consonants, make pronunciation easy.

With Say It Right in Chinese you will:
* Learn more than 500 essential Chinese words and phrases.
* Easily create sentences using "Phrasemakers".
* Get a quick reference to more than 500 word pronunciations in the Say It Right travel dictionary.



A very nice guide for travelers to China!


This book provides all the key words and phrases you are likely to need in everyday situations. It is grouped into themes, and key phrases are broken down into short sections, to help you build a wide variety of sentences. A lot of the vocabulary is illustrated to make it easy to remember, and “You may hear” boxes feature questions that you are likely to hear. 

At the back of the book there is a menu guide, listing about 300 food terms, and a 2,000-word dictionary. Numbers and the most useful phrases are listed on the inside covers for quick reference.

*Note that tones (for correct pronunciation) are not included in "pinyin" (the latin transcription) of the words. It's a practical guide for travelers and beginners.


среда, 27 марта 2013 г.


Some of the BEST books to start learning Chinese the right way!

(the list will be updating continuously) 

*all the files are free to download


1. New Approaches to Learning Chinese - The Most Common Chinese Radicals edited by Zhang Pengpeng.

This is an innovative new text using a modular approach to learning beginning Chinese. The three book set may be used as part of a comprehensive course, or as individual books that teach a specific aspect of the language. It is suggested that Intensive Spoken Chinese and Most Common Chinese Radicals be taught first, and then go on to Rapid Literacy in Chinese.




2. The funniest handbook to learn Chinese: Chinese Phrases for Dummies by Wendy Abraham




3. Chinese flashcards: front side - the character; back side - the translation; one of the quickest ways to learn Chinese words



*Note: this is Volume 1; V.2-4 will be posted later.

4. One of the greatest series of books from Beginners to Advanced users.

Boya Chinese is compiled by a group of experienced teachers who teach Chinese as second language. It is divided into four levels: elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate and advanced. There are altogether 9 books in the set which suits the four-year college study or any short-term and long-term classes. The elementary level is in two volumes of 50 lessons for beginners and covers about 1,000 words. Finishing it will ensure the students to reach level 3 of HSK (International Exam of Chinese for foreigners).



*will be available soon


All about Chinese radicals:
Very useful links

These links/online dictionaries will help you better understand the important meaning and the evolution of Chinese characters! 

Radicals: Intro


The radical (Chinese部首) is an essential element of the Chinese dictionary. The list of Chinese radicals is a rough equivalent of a Chinese "alphabet". Every Chinese character is classified under a radical and characters with the same radical are sorted by the number of strokes (Simplified ChineseTraditional Chinese) used in writing them. The number of strokes varies between 1 and 17. Characters belonging to a particular radical are in turn listed on the basis of the number of additional strokes. Note that the number of strokes is not always clear to the untrained eye.
There have been several systems of radicals in use at various times during the history of the Chinese language. The following describes the Unicode system of radicals, which is based on the traditional 214 radicals of the Kangxi dictionary. The main difference between the Unicode and the Kangxi radicals is that the Unicode system has been extended to classify both simplified and traditional Chinese characters, as well as characters which are used only in Japanese or Korean.