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Complete Chinese (Mandarin): The Basics (BK) (LL(R) Complete Basic Courses) | 
 enlarge | Author: Living Language
Publisher: Living Language
Category: Book
List Price: $10.95
Buy New: $6.52
You Save: $4.43 (40%)
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 1426813
Media: Paperback
Edition: Bilingual
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1400024250
Dewey Decimal Number: 495
EAN: 9781400024254
ASIN: 1400024250
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
Learn Chinese (Mandarin) in 4 Simple Steps.
With Living Language Complete Chinese: The Basics, you’ll start by learning words, and then you’ll progress to phrases, sentences, and conversations. This simple four-step building block approach will have you speaking with confidence right from the beginning, and you’ll be able to learn gradually and effectively. If you’re confident in your pronunciation, then this coursebook includes everything you need - vocabulary, grammar, culture, and practice. But you can also use this book along with the four hours of recordings included in the Living Language Complete Chinese: The Basics compact disc package, which also includes a handy learner’s dictionary.
This comprehensive coursebook includes:
• 40 step-by-step lessons
• Practical vocabulary and authentic everyday usage
• Simple explanations and plenty of examples
• Supplemental sections, including e-mail and internet resources
• A comprehensive grammar reference section
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| Customer Reviews:
Good for absolute beginner, but several faults March 8, 2008
Sunsetlover (NY, NY)
First of all, this is a book completely based on pinyin, if you want to learn to read and write hanzi (Chinese characters) this book is not for you.
The Good:
* Great for an absolute beginner in Mandarin: it goes out of its way to teach you the tones and pronunciation. In fact the first 5 chapters are devoted to this! Yes there is some non-correlation with the CD but this is corrected by chapter 6, and by chapter 10 it's a non-event.
By the way, don't take this for granted, I have a Korean book by another publisher, it assumes on chapter 1 your mother is Korean...
* Up-to-date and complete CONTENT for tourists and business travelers: chapters on computers and internet, and travel and tourism. In fact every possible basic situation is covered, from the weather, to checking in at the airport!
* The Dictionary included: read below why(!)
The bad:
* Typos with the tones throughout! Yes, you read correct, typos! With Chinese being a difficult tonal language, this is inexcusable...tones might be missing, or might be incorrect altogether...you'll just have to research the word to find the correct tone.
* Vocabulary, or lack thereof...there is no vocabulary at the beginning of the lesson for the new words you are learning. There is a vocabulary at the end of each chapter, which is unrelated to what you just learned! I found myself resorting to the provided dictionary every 5 minutes to figure out words and tones, which makes the dictionary invaluable.
I haven't tried other Mandarin sets, so I can't directly compare it...if you are patient with its faults, it's worth it.
 If you know how to use it February 2, 2007
Cameron C. (USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I purchased this book/cd set at a local bookstore, hoping it would teach me some basic Chinese. And I was surprised! If you are a good independent learner, than this book should be great. It is very inexpensive (you might as well just forget the cd if you already can master Chinese sounds), and it covers all the basics, including a few useful characters.
WARNING: If you have trouble with memorization, this book may not be for you.
BUT: It is like Pimsleur because it gives you words, and then puts them into phrases. Example:
zao morning
an good
zaoan good morning!
What I like to do is make flash cards of each word in a coversation, and then after I have learned them, review the conversation.
 They really messed up on this one January 10, 2007
C P (Japan)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Due to the complex pronunciation system in Chinese, getting started in studying Chinese for a beginner can be quite difficult. So, it makes sense that this book/cd starts with practicing the pronunciation. This portion is essential. BUT, as noted in the other review (which I sorely wished I read before buying this), the order of words/phrases in the CD do not correspond to the book.
For those who have already bought this book, you can decipher the order of reading for the first few lessons. The word lists were probably originally printed in a four column format and then moved to a two column format.
Originally:
A 1 D 4
B 2 E 5
C 3 F 6
(letters are the Chinese words, numbers are the English words)
Then moved to:
A 1
D 4
B 2
E 5
C 3
F 6
The people making the audio recording were obviously reading off of the original format, left column then right column. So, if you understand the difference in structure, you can compensate for this mess.
Not what I'd hoped November 10, 2006
B. Hayden (Half Moon Bay, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've been spoiled by Pimsleur, having used Pimsleur materials to study other languages. This approach is light years behind and very cumbersome. I don't recommend it.
 Great intro, but..... September 27, 2006
David Luttmann
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This set provides a great introduction to Mandarin. This otherwise fine intro does have one large problem with it though....in the beginning chapters, the words and phrases are repeated in a different order than as they appear in the book. Because some of the spellings look similar, it is not possible to discern which word you're actually trying to repeat. This is a pretty sloppy error and should have been spotted.
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