Streetwise Mandarin Chinese with MP3 Disc: Speak and Understand Everyday Mandarin Chinese (Streetwise…Series) -

Let me say right off, this is an exceptionally useful book. It really is one for the pros. I hope it doesn’t get lost in the “Speak Chinese in 20 minutes” books usually published by the big commercial publishers like McGraw-Hill.

This book is an excellent tool for high intermediate and advanced students. I say this because I think there is so much in this book that calls for experienced users that first year, and even second year students will have a tough time digesting everything. Just the fact that pinyin is limited to the glossed items for each dialogue will mean that a beginner would spend too much time looking up words to benefit from the content, unless that beginner was able to learn from the cd alone (not too many of those out there). (By the way, it seems the cd must be used via a computer to copy off the mp3 files, rather than used directly in a standard cd player. There are other non-audio materials on the disc.)

But for those who have persevered through/past a second year course in Chinese, this is the breakaway/breakthrough book that moves you beyond conversations about student life. The pitch is quite steep, there are a lot of vocabulary items that I don’t think occur in college student- oriented texts that must be mastered to use this book, though that depends on the individual’s prior experience. But the vocabulary load might include not only the idioms themselves, but also the basics of real everyday human interaction. The authors don’t teach college students, they teach adults (some of them obviously the same age as college students) at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in a course designed to allow students to function and work in society, not in school. So campus life isn’t a big factor here.

But having said that, I don’t think I can praise the book too highly. It is full of really good idioms and examples of current usage that you won’t find anywhere, with the exception of a very, very few books available only in China. And I do mean full. Chapter headings include “Complaining, envy, admiration;” “Grumbling, teasing;” “Making friends with a girl, flattering a girl, self-introduction, expressing love and affection”(got your attention yet?) “Blaming, criticizing, explaining;” fifteen in all. It seems there are more than 500 idioms covered, and used in example sentences or dialogues. And the dialogues in the book are presented in both simplified and non-simplified (traditional) characters; although I think the examples use only simplified, as the trend seems to go nowadays.

This book is one answer to the serious student’s (and teacher’s) call for a way to understand real, contemporary, Chinese, with sufficient explanation and advice to help put that knowledge to work. A jewel. If you really intend to master Chinese, I don’t think you can do without this book.

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F. J. Powell (Chester, SC United States) –

  

If you’re using a wonderful, integrated classroom series like “The New Practical Chinese Reader” (q.v) to learn Chinese you’ve got a great start. But this book (and the cd) cuts across those classroom texts to fill in gaps, offer new ways of stating things and reviewing and recombining what you already know. I’ve studied Chinese for two semesters + of college Mandarin and find this book pushes me like a good piece of gym equipment; sometimes a struggle, but with practice, well achievable.

My recommendation for getting the most out of the book is to…1)learn the vocabulary in the chapter first, 2) read and study the notes for both conversations, and the cultural notes for the chapter, THEN 3) listen to and read the dialogues and 4) write out and read back the exercises. (the answers are included at the end of each chapter)

My only criticism is that I wish that pinyin had been used for all the phrases in the notes section. It would make looking up the unfamiliar characters ever so much simpler, since the point of the book is not so much learning individual characters, but combinations and patterns of speech. It would’ve speeded the learning considerably.

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This book is excellent for someone with already high level in Chinese, but wants to make it seem more natural and fluid. I read bits and pieces in preparation for a trip to China, so that I would not sound so stiff.

The back says “From the edge of the silk road” to the great wall, but that is definitely not the case- the vocab is very much Beijing-y. I went to Luoyang, and everyone remarked on my use of ™X» and said that I talked like a Beijing-er. They did seem entertained, though.

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