Easy Peasy Chinese: Mandarin Chinese for Beginners

If you are a beginner in Mandarin Chinese, then this book is definitely the one for you. EASY PEASY CHINESE is exactly what it says. Don't be fooled by its small size, because this slim volume is packed with all sorts of goodies to get you started. This book is full of photographs, and overall it is bright, fun, modern and very easy to use. It will get you speaking, reading and writing simple but useful Chinese right from the beginning.Each page is full of colourful illustrations and photographs to reinforce your learning, and you get an important insight into Chinese life and culture along the way.The CD provides an indispensible aid to acquiring authentic pronunciation and it ensures you get ample practice in the tones, pronunciation, vocabulary and sentence patterns. All this is achieved in a fun way without being overwhelming.The book comprises 9 Sections with a total of 46 short Units overall, which cover a wide range of subjects including, pronunciation and tones, writing Chinese characters, meeting people, making friends, my family, my body, food and dining out, modes of transport and buying tickets, getting around and asking directions, shopping and how to haggle, Chinese names, hobbies and sports, modern slang, celebrations and festivals, to name but a few.EASY PEASY CHINESE is NOT a glorified phrase book, but an introduction to Mandarin Chinese, which enables the beginner to make up his or her own simple sentences step by step. What I found really useful were the units which help you to recognise the basics of Chinese characters and how they are made up, how to put them together to make new words, how to write characters and the guide to stroke order, how to count from 1-10 and beyond, how to say the days of the week and dates, how Chinese names are given and what they mean.EASY PEASY CHINESE provides a very solid foundation. By the end of this short course, you will be a very competent beginner, who will then be able to move forward and make very quick progress to a more advanced stage of language learning.I give this book + CD full marks. My only regret is that this book was not around 40 years ago when I first attempted to learn Chinese!

I find this book the most helpful basic resource out there for people totally new to Mandarin Chinese.The text inside the book is very colourful and in large simplified Chinese font just so that you can see the complex characters more clearly! Plus it's divided into basic bite size topics for ease of learning. One section that was particularly good was that it showed how to write the order of different strokes to generate a chinese character. Also how they put them together to make a word and understand the meaning behind it. But that was just a tiny section, so if you would like more practice on learning how to write in simplified Chinese, then I would recommend La méthode Assimil writing book 'L'écriture chinoise' - problem is that it's in French, so if you can't understand it then I suggest you use google translate or a French dictionary to get the meaning of the Chinese characters.Another helpful aspect of this resource is the CD. They read all the bits in Chinese in the book making it easy to follow. The only downside is that I find that they speak a bit fast so it helps to repeat the track.Overall I now find Mandarin Chinese less scary and easy to follow more than ever after going through this book. Coming from a Cantonese background, I find that it is also good for those who speak different Chinese dialects and want to learn Mandarin (which is the most spoken national Chinese language), as my mum found this to be very useful when she communicates with others who speak Mandarin, and it was easy to spot the slight differences in both the simplified writing system and pronunciations.So I really do recommend this book to everyone of all ages who are starting out in Mandarin Chinese.

Firstly I'd like to say that I have studied Mandarin before and I bought this because I have recently started studying again, so a lot of what is covered in the earlier stages of this book I already knew.However that takes nothing away from this book, for a complete beginner this book is worth twice what you pay for it!The way it's laid out is good, the illustrations make it fun to read, it gives you characters and PinYin from the start which is essential, the CD is useful and the topics covered are also great for building your "Chinese Language Foundations".My one criticism is that it doesn't cover degree or school subjects and that the vocabularly is still a little thin, sure you could probably go to China for a short stay and knowing all the vocab in this book would probably get you through. But if you're planning on going there for longer, for studying, immigrating or business then this should only be used as a quick start accompanied by other books. In saying that however my sister (who has been studying Mandarin for 7years) learnt one or two words from this book.To round off, this book is exactly what it says in the tin really, an easy-peasy book that teachers you the Chinese you need to be a solid beginner and advance into intermediate territory.

First of all I like the layout of this chirpy book - colourful, with samples of large print Chinese script, lots and lots of pictures and not too much on each page..... It looks like a children's book so, at first, I felt mildly self - conscious reading this on the train with the accompanying excellent CD downloaded to my headset.... Then I cheered up with the thought, that I was learning Chinese and (unlike, say French or Spanish) who is going to correct my accent?This is a very good a product for real beginners - it will make any academic's hair curl but perhaps they will speak Mandarin already. There is an accompanying CD with one or two very minor pecadillos e.g. the audio is presented by different speakers, sometimes different gender, for the same sentence depending on whether the translation from or to English(doubtless because native speakers are being used), However I was relieved to read that months of the year are called 'month one' to 'month twelve' - unimaginative but user friendly....I found this book/CD set useful in company with Lonely Planet's 'Mandarin' which also gives the hand signals for numbers but in that book the Chinese characters are too small for (my) easy reading.Finally, I like the 'between the scenes' jingles - certainly makes it fun to listen whilst if you are learning whilst walking.Good fun for a real beginner to get some basics - and it does also help you to choose a flattering Chinese name for yourself.Buy it. You know you want to.

I'd tried learning beginner level Manderin/ simplified Chinese from internet resources - there is a lot out there but it tends to be not tailored, not portable and most of it is poor quality. Out of frustration I decided to try a cheap professional aid and found this book. It is brilliant and has proven to be disproprtionately good value.It follows a step by step approach with a lot of manageable steps which helps to speed up learning. I very quickly passed the level achievable from hours of internet gazing and rapidly progressed further. I can now have basic conversations, read dates/ numbers/ data on business documents (a key reason for learning Manderin) and know a bit about Chinese customs like not to flip fish on a plate and how to behave with Chinese business guests.It comes with a CD which I loaded to on old mobile phone which allows me to listen and learn pronounciation whilst commuting on the train. It has lots of tacks which allows me to repeat tracks to repretitively relisten to and learn small groups of new words.Can I recommend it? Yes.

Cd missing - pity as book excellent

I bought this book and CD to help plan a Chinese language workshop for primary school children. The book is set out in topic-based chapters with lots of clear photographs and illustrations, and the inclusion of cultural notes is very engaging. Although I assume that the book was designed for school age children, it's not patronising and would be equally suitable for an older person who was interested in the Chinese language. There is a reference glossary at the back with the hanzi characters, pinyin transliteration and English words, so it's easy to check words from the book. There is a logical progression through the chapters, starting with sounds and the basics of writing through to words and sentences, so it's probably best to work through rather than dipping in and out at random.I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about the Chinese language or who wants to start to learn to speak Chinese. I am a professional language teacher and I also study languages in my spare time as a hobby, so I have tried out many different types of language learning materials - this is definitely one of the best I have used.

Most people who want to teach themselves Mandarin Chinese will often end up buying a highly rated book or CD and end up losing interest due to a lack of understanding. What I mean is that most books will start off by teaching the basic phrases first and then build on that, but this does not work unless you already have some experience.This book starts off by teaching you the mandarin chinese version of the alphabet (written pinyin and how they sound). Then it teaches you about the different tones and grammar. Then it teaches you how to put words together...This book gives you all the tools you need to start learning HOW to speak chinese, not WHAT to speak. After you have spent a couple of hours reading, you will be excited and confident in what you are doing. Having read this book for 3 hours straight, I can now pronounce any chinese word written in pinyin (even though I won't know what it means, but that all comes later).The perfect book for the absolute beginner!!

Book is very good for beginners but the CD of this book is not there

entusiasta anche perchè col cd incluso free che non mi aspettavo! Ottimo metodo molto efficace.Molto soddisfatto. Rimasto veramente contentograzie saluti

My wife and I have found this book invaluable in helping us communicate with my Son's in-laws, and has helped us with the tones and pronumciation of several words. It enabled us to look after them in the maternity hospital when my grandaughter was born.

Très simple y clair aux couleurs vives. Une excellente introduction à la culture et langue chinoise. Le CD contient tous les phrases présentées dans le livre. Et seulement €10 - What a bargain!

Very simple and clear introduction book in Chinese culture and language.