Beginner's Chinese Script (Teach Yourself)

The title "Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script" is very misleading indeed! It starts rather well and adopts a step by step approach but ends up with something like "We feel we must give you the chance to practise your weather vocabulary!" (p.95 of the book) while never actually teaching it! The book is a waste of time and money. Don't buy it.

A misleading title (0/0 people found this helpful)

The whole point of learning a language is to be able to communicate. This book fails to deliver because it concentrates on what seems to be a haphazard selection of characters that rarely occur together in a phrase. Learning characters in isolation is not only more difficult but pretty pointless too! The book tries to maintain interest by presenting lists of characters that the reader has to match with meanings, initially by guessing. This seems to me a perverse way of teaching any language as your brain automatically at first glance links the first word in the left hand column with the first word in the right To find the correct answer is three rows down is no help at all! I have been learning Chinese for a few years and have returned to this book several times hoping it might be more use but it never is.

Disappointing (0/0 people found this helpful)

I expected alot more from this book, mainly because it was written by Elizabeth Scurfield. She has done many courses on Mandarin Chinese which have really improved my speaking and tones etc...
The book was good for the first two chapters - i was starting to get into it and then suddenly it expected you to write radicals/chinese characters for car on fire, door, donkey and many more. It expects far too much too soon.
However, having said all this i have learnt some things i didn't know though. How to write numbers - there are two types in china - Ordinary & Complex - (0 to 99). Plus, that you refer to people by their surnames first eg. Beckham David.
So, my interpretation and writing of numbers has improved but as far as learning the script it hasn't improved at all. Disappointed really as this book could have been so much better.

Walk before you Run - Please Read On (9/10 people found this helpful)

After reading the negative reviews about this book, I just had to buy it to see what all the fuss was about.

The Chinese have the idiom "Ren bu ke mao xiang, hai shui bu ke dou liang" (never judge a book by it's cover) and I liked the cover so I parted with the cash.

Now before we start, on the contary to what has been expressed here by the respective reviewers, this is not a bad book...it isn't great, but it's not entirely bad.

We need to use some logic here (something we require for this demanding subject). The Chinese also say, "xian xue zou, zai xue pao" (you have to walk before you can run).

I can only imagine those who have already reviewed (slaughtered) this book, without really reading it tried to run first.

Chinese is not easy to read or write, and this book will be NOT much use to you if you are a COMPLETE BEGINNER. You can't pick up book and just start reading and writting Chinese. Kids in China practice like you wouldn't believe and illiteracy is higher than we would be led to believe too.

When we pick up something called Teach Yourself, we think great, easy peasy. So "Teach Yourself How to bend it like Beckham will have us curling free-kicks pass the world's best goalkeeper's, (and get us some action with Posh) but in reality, we are dreaming. Beckham has worked hard to achieve his level of accuracy with a football, and so we have to begin the long road to learning Chinese Script. Its not going to happen overnight, neither will you shift that beer gut in time before the summer holiday so you can show off your lovely 6 pack.

You can't just read this book and have mastery of the subject. Like the others, you will come away after the first chapters feeling disappointed if you do.

As opposed to being for beginners, this book would make a satisfactory interim resource for someone who had a reasonable command of about 300+ basic characters to consolidate and build from.

It is not easy to explain Chinese script at all and with limited materials on the market, this point is emphasised.

Exercises in the book are a good gauge for your progress and if you complete them, your confidence will grow.

In response to some of the reviews, I know we have complex subject issues dealt with before more standard situations, but colleagues, thats why we should also buy the other books in the range. This is a obviously a supplimentary book, not a stand-alone. I would personally recommend studying this guide on COMPLETING Teach Yourself Chinese when you have a rough idea of what you are doing.

As for buying the Teach Yourself Japanese Script instead, not the most ideal recommendation as it will only confuse you (If you are learning Japanese however, it is a fantastic book and you should buy it).

When I first started learning Chinese (and Japanese) I began by ignoring the written script and concentrating on Speaking and building my confidence. I then added the final piece of the jigsaw.

WALK BEFORE YOU RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh......and Good Luck

Recomendation (7/8 people found this helpful)

I have not read the above book and after reading the reviews below i am loathe to do so; however i would like to recomend an alternative as no one here can. I would recomend: Write chinese with betty, it is a very good way to learn to write characters as the book itself provides space for practice (just like starter books when you learn to write english when you are little). The book helps with booth cantonese and mandarin writing. Hope this was helpfull

Elizabeth Scurfield, Lianyi Song

Reader Reviews:

Misleading indeed... (0/0 people found this helpful)

A misleading title (0/0 people found this helpful)

Disappointing (0/0 people found this helpful)

Walk before you Run - Please Read On (9/10 people found this helpful)

Recomendation (7/8 people found this helpful)

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