Talk Mandarin Chinese (Book/CD Pack): The ideal Chinese course for absolute beginners
£8.60£15.20 (-43%)
Talk Mandarin Chinese (Book and CD) has already inspired thousands of people to learn Mandarin Chinese from scratch and find the confidence to give it a go.
This pack includes a 144-page, full-colour course book and 2 x 60-minute audio CDs.
Whether you’re learning for business, travel or just for fun, its straightforward, step-by-step approach will ensure you’re soon able to speak Mandarin Chinese in a range of everyday situations.
With its specially designed activities and clear, jargon-free grammar explanations you’ll quickly develop your language skills and make genuine progress right from the start.
- Make real progress using the successful, proven Talk method.
- Develop your language skills with tips and strategies to help you learn.
- Practise and learn with interactive activities to support every topic.
Other languages in the series: Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
www.bbcactivelanguages.com
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by Coldnight
I was going to give this book 5 stars but then my eye caught the title of an existing review and seeing a comment from its headline made me realise a limitation to the book: as was said – there is very little in the way of assisting the reader to learn how to produce the sounds of the Chinese syllables. McGraw-Hill = Chinese Pronunciation is very good in that respect. Although I should point out that I had trouble making their DVD run on my relatively new computer.
My advice to anyone buying Talk Mandarin would be to play number 1 audio CD without looking at the book or paying too much attention to what is being said on the CD. Now put both the book and CD away until the next day. Play the CD again – yes, all the way through. After having done that start studying the book whilst listening to the CD lessons. Please be aware that the book has additional information and therefore you will need to keep stopping the CD in order to synchronize the two activities. The next step being to do the same with the number 2 CD etc.,
I found the female voice easier to understand than the male voice. Although having said that, I did understand some 90% of what the male voice said on 1st hearing.
The book is small enough to fit into a man’s pocket. The back cover’s claim that the course covers all the basic language you’ll need in everyday situations is a very fair comment.
The narrator, ‘Jackie’, female – needs to be told that there is no such number as ‘twenny’ – it is twenty.
In summing up, a low price book which is more than worth its cost.
by Jeremy
Just what I needed for my course.
by Giuliana De Angelis
super useful for my homework
by Amazon Customer
I’ve used the BBC “Talk” series of language courses to study basic Italian, French and now Mandarin. They all follow an identical pattern and are designed to give you a basic grounding in a language, a little above that required for a holiday. In general they work very well. The ordering of the material is a little odd in my opinion. For example, chapter two is all about talking about yourself when in my view it would be more useful to deal with asking for food and drink sooner in the course. This doesn’t matter with an easier language, but in a language which is rather alien to a westerner progress is slow, and you may never get as far as how to order that beer. The approach of this series of courses is to provide a minimum of explanation, instead giving the user a number of set phrases to learn parrot fashion, so don’t expect great insights into the language. The Collins Easy Learning Mandarin gives a little more detail about the real meaning and construction of the phrases you are learning. Both this and the Collins course are good for learning some of the language (and both are far better than the “BBC Active – Get by in Chinese”, which is really just a phrase book plus a CD). I’m using this(Talk Madarin Chinese)and the Collins course in parallel to help stop boredom setting in. This is not an easy language, and is very different from European languages, so don’t blame the materials if you can’t crack it quickly.
by dhumphries
Ok
by Amazon Customer
Well-presented and motivating study book
by Trevor
Enjoyable way to learn Mandarin
by Lindy
Excellent service. Ordered one day and delivered the very next day. Fantastic. Item was perfect. Thanks.