- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (Jan 30 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0415135354
- ISBN-13: 978-0415135351
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.5 x 1.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 422 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#858,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #49 in Books > Children's Books > Educational > Multilingual > Chinese
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"A much needed addition to the collection of books on Chinese grammar." - China Review International
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Book Description
Chinese: An Essential Grammar is a clear and concise reference guide to modern Mandarin grammar. It presents a fresh and accessible description of the language, focusing on the real patterns of use in today's Chinese.
The ideal reference source for the learner and user of Chinese, the grammar is suitable for either independent study or for students in schools. Setting out the complexities of Chinese in short, readable sections, its explanations are clear and free from jargon. The volume also features copious examples to illustrate language points; a detailed contents list and index for easy access to information; and two glossaries: one of grammatical terms and one of Chinese characters.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
In this section we discuss noun and pronouns in Chinese. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
In this section we discuss noun and pronouns in Chinese. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strongly recommended,
By
This review is from: Chinese: An Essential Grammar (Paperback)
I strongly recommend this book as a main grammar book in the learning of Chinese.The characters and vocabulary used seem to reflect those that appear in the Beijing University Press books - the Practical Chinese Reader and the Modern Chinese Beginner's Course. Examples of grammar are succint in expressing the point. A grammar book like this is especially useful in breaking down verbs, adverbs and prepositions. After getting this book, it helped me past a difficult period where I couldn't understand why some characters and verbs acted liked they did. Combined with Beijing Uni's Modern Chinese Beginner's Course, a suitable workbook (again, if it is from Beijing University Press it is likely to pull characters from those featured in PCR, et al), an exercise book (the same authors have created a basic and advanced workbook and, although I haven't had a good look, it's likely to be a wise buy), a good dictionary (I recommend Oxford's Pocket Chinese Dictionary) and maybe a secondary course, with tapes/CDs to listen to (Kan Qian's Colloquial Chinese is pretty good), then you have a pretty good collection of Chinese language learning resources to cover most bases. Then you just need a native speaker or two...
4.0 out of 5 stars
A little more..,
By
This review is from: Chinese: An Essential Grammar (Paperback)
So far this is the only decent Mandarin grammar book I have encountered. To add to the above review, this book also has the advantage of having both word-for-word-literal and natural translations, so that you can see the exact structure of the sentence, as well as the more natural meaning. The small "dictionary" at the end of the book is not really intended as a dictionary, but rather as a helpful list of all the words used in the examples, along with their corresponding characters. One of the drawbacks of this book is that there are no chinese characters except in the reference at the end. Maybe in a future addition they could add characters? The main difference between this book and the authors other two books (Basic Chinese and Intermediate Chinese) is that the other two are meant more as workbooks, with grammar lessons followed by exercises. Also, the other two books use chinese characters throughout with parallel pinyin. This book would make a good companion to the other two.. they're all somewhat expensive though! But there are really no other options for easy to understand, though thourough, grammars.
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent book: lots of info, clearly explained,
By Jeremy Boulton (boultonj@ugcs.caltech.edu) (Pasadena, California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Chinese: An Essential Grammar (Paperback)
I've bought a number of books to try to learn Chinese on my own (well... with some help from friends, too). This is the first one I've made it all the way through. I plan to read it a couple more times so that I can try to learn everything in it. Part of what I like is that it is written clearly but concisely. The book has just about the right number of examples per point - not so many that you get bored, not so few that you are left confused (except for a very small number of places where I would have liked an additional example to clarify some particular detail.) The book is well organized. It flowed smoothly so that I did not often feel the need to jump around between sections. Finally, although the vocabulary list at the end of the book is reasonably lengthy, it never seemed like the vocabulary was introduced at such a rate as to bog down the learning of grammar. I'm not sure if a revised edition has come out since the edition I have was published, but my copy has a few typos and incorrect tone markings which can occasionally provide a moment of puzzlement. However, I did not find these to be a significant problem.
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