New Practical Chinese Reader Vol. 1 (2nd.Ed.): Textbook (SCAN QR CODE) (English and Chinese Edition)

This is a very good book for starting to learn Chinese. It is geared for college students and adults, so each chapter is fairly challenging and includes scenarios such as meeting your professor, going to a party with friends (and buying some wine for the party), etc. My background (relevant because you may have a different experience depending on your existing ability to speak or hear Chinese): I am not ethnically Chinese, and so never lived in a household where Chinese was spoken, although 15 years ago I did take several semesters of Chinese at a midwestern university. I am learning a lot from this book and its companion Workbook. I have put the CD tracks for both books into my iTunes library and play it as "music" in my car and when I am working around the house. They are very useful for hearing/speaking. I do like that there is also an emphasis on reading/writing. It seems to me that a lot of teaching these days is done just so people can speak/hear. Years ago I thought that was what I wanted, but I find a real satisfaction in the writing. Not that my writing is beautiful- far from it. But there is some little dopamine hit when you do all the strokes in the right order. And also it feels great to be able to read a whole paragraph of what would have looked like gibberish only a few months before. Downsides: Sometimes the instruction for writing does not tell you how to write the characters that are in the chapter. So I googled a web page that gives me the stroke order for any character. And sometimes they show you how to write a character that is not in the chapter. Strange. Not sure of why that is. But overall, the learning builds nicely and you gradually get good expertise. I have just ordered the second book in the series. Can't wait to get to it.

The books are of really good quality. There is a lot of information in there and they are easy to use. My only complaint is that it's 2021 and they don't even make CD players anymore lol. We have about 15 different computers/laptops in the house and none of them play CDs. I literally had to buy a separate device to be able to use them. I still give the product 5 stars because they are trying to serve the most people possible.

This whole book is great for really getting the basically of Chinese down. One down side I found when skimming through this book is that I found hand writing on it that I never wrote(I bought it new) Not sure if this is an accident, I don’t mind at all. Other then that amazing book highly recommend.

Highly recommended. Am using it for self study, and I feel like i have accomplished something even though I'm only 6 chapters in. The pace is good - it assumes learners are motivated, and very quickly progresses to language and grammar you can use every day. Each chapter has quite a number of new characters to learn. These aren't necessarily the easiest characters to memorize and write - but they were useful. Better than sticking to 'easy' characters, which don't get used often. I would recommend buying the workbook together. I found it very helpful in practising the characters, and learning to recognise them faster. I have tried other self-study books, but this is one of the best so far.

I am teaching myself Chinese. After 6 weeks of using these books, I can say that I really like them. The included CD of pronunciation practice is very helpful. Get yourself some graph paper to practice the characters that they teach you. I recommend also getting the workbook, you'll need the extra exercises. Each lesson provides a couple of brief dialogues around a theme. They are practical and not too much at once.

Bought this textbook for my Chinese class last semester. It’s a good textbook or workbook. Comes with a CD as well so you can listen to the audio files via laptop. The CD has audio files from every lesson you can also send it to your phone if you know how to.

I needed this book for my Chinese class but didn't want to spend $50 for it by buying it at the school book store. Even though I am using this book in a classroom setting I believe that self-teachers would learn a great deal from this book also. It has so many grammar and culture notes, along with a eide range of vocabulary words.

In terms of content, i think this book is a great source. it teaches over 200 characters i believe last time i checked. i believe it to be a decent source, however, i also feel that there are much better alternatives. to begin, about a 1/3 of the book is teaching you just pinyin, now i know why this is useful. though i suggest just looking up a pinyin chart and learning pinyin that way (plus it’s free). it’s very important that before learning characters, you learn the sounds chinese is comprised of, but being taught to write dialogues in pinyin and fill in the blanks using it, in my opinion is confusing and not needed. chinese can’t use pinyin to write in because a single sound can belong to 10 different characters with different meanings, in my opinion it’s just unneeded, especially for people who don’t even have a CD player as they can’t listen to the audios unless going online, which isn’t a hassle or a negative in my opinion, i just think the overly strong attentiveness to pinyin in a textbook is very unusual. that’s honestly my main complaint, i think that after you finish the pinyin focused lessons, the actual content, though quite boring and very… wordy, for lack of a better word, is definitely useful. I recommend absolute beginners and elementary level learns look elsewhere, the Boya Chinese series, while meant for more intensive learners, is an excellent alternative (and cheaper, being $25-$30 for a textbook AND workbook). Also the standard HSK course books, though now obsolete, are also great sources to begin with.

Alles bestens

Je fais ma première année de chinois avec ce livre qui est très bien organisé

I used this as my beginner book: I had started with many others but found the layout and explanations not nearly as good as NPCR. This books has explanations for grammar (which I ignored to be honest) and has lots to text later on just in Chinese - once you start to remember the characters from the text you will find you can read these basic passages in Chinese no problem. Other books rely too heavily on pinyin which will hold you back if you actually want to progress. Book 2 has no pinyin with the text so it's essential (and fun) to get a grasp of the characters early on. I would highly recommend using something like Skritter along side this book as you will see your reading dramatically increase. The whole NPCR series is on there without you having to input every any characters. I am about to start NPCR book 3 and have already read graded reader books in Chinese thanks to this method.

easy to use

Shandar