Peter Wu

Surprisingly Practical! And not the Easiest..

Reviewed: 01-18-21

I have friends who want to learn Mandarin, and wanted to check if this would be a good introductory book for them. I consider my level intermediate, and was therefore surprised that there were quite a few useful phrases that I've never heard before. Of course, there are still lots of basic phrases, and the book has an introductory section on pinyin. The book includes the standard sections, but also, "When Someone Is Being Rude", "Apologies", and "Business." It's possible to use this book as a reference book or to listen to it from beginning to end. I wouldn't recommend this for absolute beginners (also because 1500+ phrases can be overwhelming!), but I would recommend this book for beginners-intermediates who are looking to expand their listening or vocabulary.

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Lots of vocab within the stories!

Reviewed: 12-22-20

When I searched around, I could only find a few audiobooks on intermediate-level Mandarin. Not only does this book provide a LOT of vocabulary, but it also keeps things entertaining with stories on Chinese culture and other topics. Unlike the beginner-level books, there's much more Mandarin. Each chapter starts with a story, followed by a summary, vocabulary, and then closing questions and answers. I've been listening to the stories on repeat, and found it very helpful that the PDF has all the vocabulary words bolded in the story section.

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Who knew that conversations can be fun?

Reviewed: 11-17-20

When it comes to language books, I find that dialogues are more fun to listen to than rules or paragraphs. The conversations were more enjoyable, natural, and entertaining than I had expected, and the multiple speakers would vary their inflections and tones. The dialogues are categorized by difficulty: A1, A2, B1. The main downside of the audiobook format is that it's harder to acquire more vocabulary from listening alone, without checking the PDF. There's quite a period of time between when the dialogues are spoken in Chinese and then English, and I might've forgotten the Chinese word by the time I hear the English translation.

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Useful Resource/Supplement

Reviewed: 11-17-20 Listener received this title free

When learning a language, it can be useful to have a frequency dictionary to either find new vocabulary to learn, or to cross-reference to see if the word is common or not. I found this book to be a helpful supplement to other textbooks or learning programs, and it's best used in conjunction with the PDF. Otherwise, it's like listening to a dictionary, which might not be the most effective way to use the audiobook. One item that I found helpful is that groups of words are grouped into chapters, so that it's easier to jump to the desired section. The format includes the Chinese word, an example Chinese sentence, and English translation of the sentence. When listening to the book, the least useful vocabulary for me was "X is a surname," but most other words were helpful.

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For Advanced Beginners and Intermediate Learners

Reviewed: 10-08-20

This book is helpful for advanced beginners and intermediate learners, but would most likely be too overwhelming for absolute and intermediate beginners, unless you also carefully follow along with the PDF. I'm a HSK4 intermediate learner and listened to the stories while driving.

To be honest, I wasn't sure if I would learn much from a "beginner's book." As soon as I heard the title of Chapter 1, however, I realized that there was some advanced vocabulary. I later came to the conclusion, that it's OK to not know all the words and instead to be selective around which words you want to learn.

Initially I also thought that this book would contain the same 20 stories translated from another language, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that there were unique Chinese cultural stories. I would categorize the other stories as either plot-driven stories or inspirational/food-for-thought. I wanted to skip those inspirational stories, but now realize that such stories introduce me to different vocabulary.

The format of each chapter is: story in Chinese, story in Chinese and English, summary, questions (with answers), and vocabulary. The repetition helps with listening comprehension, and the audio is generally clear, although there are some words that could be better translated.

Overall, excellent learning tool, especially if you make supplementary flashcards.

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4 people found this helpful