Integrated Chinese: Simplified Characters Textbook, Level 1, Part 1

Integrated Chinese: Simplified Characters Textbook, Level 1, Part 1 (English and Chinese Edition) 3rd Edition is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to learn Chinese, especially for modern students and heritage families. As someone who wanted to teach my children how to read and write Chinese, I found this book to be incredibly helpful and engaging. The textbook focuses on everyday use Chinese, making it highly relevant for practical communication. It covers a wide range of topics, from greetings and daily routines to shopping and dining, ensuring that learners will be well-equipped to navigate daily life in a Chinese-speaking environment. The 3rd edition has been thoughtfully updated to reflect modern language use and cultural practices. The authors have done an excellent job at presenting the material in a clear and structured manner, breaking down complex concepts into manageable parts. The lessons are organized in such a way that they build upon each other, allowing students to progress naturally as they gain confidence in their language abilities. One of the standout features of this textbook is the inclusion of both simplified and traditional characters, catering to various learning preferences. The ample exercises, engaging dialogues, and relatable illustrations make the learning process enjoyable and effective. The book also contains a wealth of supplementary materials, such as audio recordings and online resources, which aid in reinforcing the material covered in the textbook. These additional tools make it easier for learners to practice their listening and speaking skills, further enhancing their overall language proficiency. As a heritage family, I found the cultural notes to be particularly valuable. These sections provide fascinating insights into Chinese customs and traditions, fostering a deeper appreciation for the language and culture. In conclusion, Integrated Chinese: Simplified Characters Textbook, Level 1, Part 1 (English and Chinese Edition) 3rd Edition is a highly recommended resource for anyone looking to learn Chinese. Its up-to-date content, clear structure, and engaging materials make it an indispensable tool for teaching and learning this beautiful language.

This is a great book for complete beginnings who want to learn Chinese (Mandarin). First, a little about me. I'm a first-year student of Chinese, and this is the book used by my class. I've learned a couple romance languages, but never any language as dissimilar to English as Chinese. This book has been my main tool for study at home. I won't say that this book makes learning Chinese easy. Whenever you see a book or a piece of software promising that you'll "learn with ease" or "gain fluency in 8 weeks or less!" you should have alarms going off in your head. Language learning does not have to be painful or burdensome, but it takes time. It can be fun, but it is never easy. You have to put in the hours, you have to open your mouth, and you have to learn effective ways to memorize vocabulary. Daily conversations with a native speaker are the best answer to all of these. Unfortunately, most of us don't have access to such a person. While nothing can make you fluent in Chinese without effort (short of being born in Bejing), this book does make the experience more enjoyable, and less frustrating. Lessons start out slowly, with manageable topics. The first chapters contain almost no grammar rules. This allows students to focus on learning about the four tones and reading pinyin (Chinese spelled out with letters instead of characters), which are prerequisites for all further learning. The lessons then walk students through basic conversations. There are vocabulary lists in each chapter, but the book focuses on conversation usage, starting with dialogs, and then progressing to exercises that invite students to create original conversations. Cultural sections along the way provide a lot of genuinely useful information about how people in China live and interact. Everything is written in Chinese characters (simplified), pinyin, and English. This makes it possible to focus as much or as little on writing as you like. I'm focusing on my conversational skills, but I've been able to pick up some of the more common characters just by paying attention as I read the dialogs. If you are all about the written language, you'll find information of stroke order, radicals, and more. Naturally, there is also a glossary in the back, alphabetized by pinyin spelling. Will you be able to speak Chinese after going through this book? Not without a lot of time and practice. The same is true of any book or language learning software. The book won't do the work for you. But this book provides you with a lot of the tools you'll need to get started, and I highly recommend it for beginners.

I love the Integrated Series! As some reviewers have pointed out, the textbook has a modern layout with many colorful graphics and photos, as well as a cast of engaging characters. The cast are Wang Peng, a Chinese freshman from Beijing; Li You, an American student from New York; Gao Wenzhong, an English student; Gao XiaoYin, his older sister who is a school librarian; Bai Ying Ai, a student from Seoul and Chang Laoshi who is from China and teaches Chinese in the United States. These wonderful characters star in all the various dialogues throughout the book.They teach us about hobbies,family, Chinese greetings,making appointments, transportation, shopping and school life, among other things. There are ten chapters in all. Each chapter has two dialogues with vocabulary sections . These vocabulary windows have the traditional characters, pinyin and English translations printed clearly. I really appreciated this as some other books I have used have their characters too small to see the fine strokes clearly. The grammar sections explain everything very well , with explanatory sentences in traditional characters , pinyin and English translations. Again, the layout is neat and logical. This book may not completely meet the needs of English learners, I understand. I speak both Chinese and English; my recommendation for English learners is to supplement with other textbooks if possible. Even though this is Level 1, Part 1 , it assumes a lot. The first is probably that he/she who buys this book has a tutor or is being taught by someone knowledgeable in the language , whether in school or college.At the very least, one should probably have knowledge on how to properly pronounce the four tones. In my opinion, the book assumes fundamental knowledge of very basic Chinese; yes, it does start with simple Chinese words, but if you are looking for very basic words like 'gou' (dog), 'mao' (cat), 'cao' (grass), 'qiu' (ball) etc, you won't find it in a predominant context in this book.That is not to say that this book contains no basic words at all; it does, but leaves out many other basic type words like the ones I mentioned. For English speaking self-learners, I recommend simpler grammar and reading books to start before jumping to these excellent Integrated books. These can be found at [...] and other online retailers.

I got this book for a college class and it's pretty good for beginners to learn from. Most of the vocabulary is very helpful since applicable to everyday life. They are essential to every language and everyday use. The dialogues are pretty helpful in understanding how words are used, but the main problem I found was the grammar. Basic grammar and sentence structure was good, but my professor told me that the certain use of words in the book is used incorrectly. It creates sentences that are "awkward" in Chinese. Other than that, I would suggest to pick up this book as a review or even a first time learner.

The Integrated Chinese series is a good starting place for Mandarin study. The series name is a little bit of a misnomer, because you might think all of the parts are integrated into one book, and that is not the case. The workbook, character workbook, and audio CDs are all separate purchases (or your college/university might have some of those components in the language lab or on reserve in the library-- Check before you buy, you can easily save fifty dollars or more that way). This textbook spans, depending on your instructor(s), somewhere between one semester to one year of study. There are 10 lessons introduced as conversations, then a list of vocabulary words, then a breakdown of the grammar. I think it is easier on students if textbooks would list the new vocabulary *before* the conversation and not after, but Integrated Chinese follows the conventions of many other textbooks in giving first the dialogue, then the vocabulary. When you look at the next level, they slowly ween you off of the larger type-set text and the pinyin. This is nice because I have looked through other series which might start with no characters, and then suddenly in the next level book, there is no pinyin and only characters! The Integrated Chinese approach is well thought out in that respect. There are some problems with the books. There are places where my professors have frowned and said, "Well, I suppose that's correct, but no one says it that way." I think that will be true of any language textbook. Language is fluid and changes over time so you can never have one perfect written account. Another minor problem with the book is that the conversations are meant to tell a story, but sometimes the order of events don't flow well from one chapter to the next... It's really not a big deal, but if you are in a classroom setting, expect someone to derail your class for a period of time while the professor has to explain, "Yes, Bai Ying Ai went to dinner with Wang Peng in last week's lesson, and now suddenly she is jealous of Li You for being friends with him. It happened when the authors re-did the order of the lessons." Overall I am very pleased that this is the standard textbook for the colleges and universities in my area. I would not recommend trying to use this book series without an instructor. With an instructor, this gives you a really solid beginning to the language.

I am no stranger to language learning books. Mandarin is my fifth language, so I have been through my fair share. I have had this book for four months now, and I have gone through half of it in class. I have purposefully waited to write the review until I knew the book(s) well. Overall I am very happy with it, and I cannot really identify with many of the negative aspects that other reviewers have expressed. Unfortunately, it is always difficult for a student to review a textbook. Especially if done at a first glance. Although I am a student of Chinese, I have also worked as a language instructor, so I see both sides of the coin. One of my classmate’s complaints about the book, for example, was that it didn’t have the English translation for the chapter texts. Well, two things are wrong with that complaint: one, it does actually have the translation, but at the back of the chapter. Two, language learning is much more difficult when you can use English as a crutch. It is nice to be able to look the meaning up if in doubt (which you can), but you will learn more if the English text is not displayed below. Most students will be frustrated that it is not displayed, not realizing the textbook is actually better for their learning that way. The same can be said for the frustration that the textbook and the workbook are not completely “in sync”. They are in fact in sync, but by complementing each other as opposed to covering exactly the same material, which won’t get you very far. Additionally I also had the character workbook which helped me with character writing and memorization. The books invite a deeper understanding of the language without being technical, which I appreciate. I have never been the type to enjoy things like “conjunctive”, “article”, “preposition” and so forth. For some that is helpful, less so for me. This book, as far as I have seen, uses very little of the technical grammar. Instead, as I prefer, you learn by doing. In all, I am very happy with this book and I look forward to more advanced levels. I will suggest to my professors that they continue to use the book in class.

This textbook is an excellent resource that makes learning Chinese so much easier! The pace is just right: not too slow or too fast, and vocabulary and grammar points are delivered in very digestible chunks. The dialogues are level-appropriate, and both pinyin and English translations of the characters are provided separately, so you can refer to them if you need to but they do not distract you if you want to challenge yourself to read just the characters. Grammar points are explained very clearly. This book would easily suit both people studying on their own and people learning in a classroom environment. Everything is clear enough that no further explanation is needed, just some exposure to Chinese pronunciation - which is abundant on the web for free. The Simplified and Traditional Character Workbook is an excellent companion book for practicing writing the characters you learn in the textbook. There is also a Simplified Character Workbook that is not character writing practice but different kinds of exercises for pinyin and characters. The latter I think would be less useful for the independent learner, but it's still a good resource. These books take all of the "intimidation" factor OUT of learning Chinese!

This is a good Chinese textbook. That is, if you are a young college student or someone who is perhaps studying Chinese for the intention of dating a Chinese. Haha. I don't know. I'm currently on Lesson 5 in the book and I just got that impression so far. I purchased this book for a beginner Chinese course I'm taking in a university, but I'm not a traditional college student, i.e. older. For some reason, the dialogues, that the grammar lessons in this book are build upon, are centered around the theme of dating or inviting the opposite sex to a dinner or to see a movie or things like that. Maybe it's cultural or maybe it's just me. Other than that, it's a pretty informative book.

Good Book in perfect condition! Delivery took a couple of days from France to Belgium. The material itself is outstanding! I have been studying languages for years and this some of the best learning material I have ever seen. Fair price.

Excellent text book. Together with a Character Work Book it makes an excellent tool for learning Chinese characters. Highly recommended.

C'est du grand n'importe quoi! Certe c'est de l'occasion mais un manuel dans un tel état ne devrais pas être vendu à presque 28 euro! des manuel neuf a 28 euro on en trouve pleins. C'est inadmisible.

My daughter is very pleased with this book and was more impressed by the fact it was delivered earlier than stated. A good quality book.

Good textbook. As advertised.