Easy Peasy Chinese: Mandarin Chinese for Beginners
£8.70£9.50 (-8%)
Do you want to learn the world’s most spoken language? This easy-to-use beginner’s guide and audio app will get you speaking basic Mandarin in no time.
With useful tips, practice exercises, and fascinating insights into Chinese culture, Easy Peasy Chinese teaches you how to read, write, and speak Mandarin Chinese step by step. The accompanying audio app will help you perfect your pronunciation and quickly get to grips with the Mandarin tones. Aimed at children aged 8+, but of appeal to beginners of all ages, it will teach you all the words and phrases you’ll need to get by in China, so you can introduce yourself, read and write numbers, and chat about the weather, food, and interests. What’s more, you can give yourself a Chinese name, haggle over shop prices, and learn all about the national culture.
The book covers Pinyin, the system used to spell out Chinese characters using Roman letters, and introduces the Chinese writing system, including more than 200 of the most frequently used Chinese characters. Bold illustrations and photographs, and a compact, super-stylish design help make the process of learning fun and accessible. There is no Great Wall stopping you from learning now.
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Additional information
| Publisher | DK Children (11 Nov. 2021) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 128 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0241513278 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0241513279 |
| Reading age | 9 – 12 years |
| Dimensions | 14.9 x 0.9 x 21.1 cm |
by Kindle Customer
If you’re serious about learning Mandarin, get the “Hello Chinese” app from Google Play. It’s FABULOUS, and loads better than those awful “official” HSK materials and apps. This book is a nice addition to the app. It’s worth buying just for the pages where they describe how to sound out the words. I just had an aha moment thanks to those lists and now my confidence in sounding out new words has greatly increased. This book is packed with information, and some fascinating (and rather disturbing) facts about Chinese culture. It can easily overwhelm beginners, which is why you should use the Hello Chinese app as your main tool, as it will pace things nicely and help you feel a sense of progress. When you’re ready for more tools and to dig into the all important grammar rules, get “A Practical Chinese Grammar” by Hung-nin Samuel Cheung. It’s an invaluable aid for this language that is surprisingly lacking in good tools for English speakers (or anyone else it seems). If you’re a flashcard learner like me, Tuttle has some fabulous sets of “Chinese Flash Cards”, organised by HSK levels. So helpful, and they come with great audio that you can get online. My goal is to speak and read Mandarin, which will take many years to accomplish. I don’t care about being able to write it, yet I find writing it is essential for helping my brain memorize the complex characters, so you should plan on doing some writing as well, and you can find special grid paper for that (which really helps in the beginning). The flashcards I mentioned show you how to write each character, so you don’t need extra books for that (I have some which I have yet to use bc the flashcards are sufficient). This is a radically different language than English, due to its use of tones and a ton of unique pictorial characters instead of just 26 letters. After years of studying Spanish and Latin, I find Mandarin refreshingly different. The key to any project of this magnitude is to go in with a can do attitude, then seriously pace yourself. Any language takes years to master, and those who promise shortcuts are lying to you. If you try to take on too much at once, you’ll burnout, so go slow and celebrate your progress. I’m studying Traditional Chinese Medicine, so Mandarin has an extra level of relevance for me, plus I love languages in general. There’s no such thing as an unintelligent human, so if you want to learn Mandarin, you absolutely can, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Good luck!
by Samantha Jones
Brought this as a Christmas Present for my brother in law. It arrived quickly and in time for Christmas. He was very happy with it and is starting to use it already to prepare for his travels. Can’t give 5 star review as not personally using it myself, but seems to do the job he needs it for. Will update is any problems.
by susan donnelly
Simple way of learning to write and speak basic mandarin