Chinese in Steps: v. 2: For Speakers of Chinese as a Foreign Language: v. 2
by George Zhang
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List Price: ££13.99
Our Price: ££12.99
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Cypress Book Co. UK Ltd
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9781845700041
ISBN: 184570004X
Label: Cypress Book Co. UK Ltd
Number Of Pages: 160
Publication Date: 2006-04
Publisher: Cypress Book Co. UK Ltd
Studio: Cypress Book Co. UK Ltd
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Too much haste
Comment: To have battled with errors in the first volume and then to only find more in the second says to me there is too much haste and not enough listening to student feedback. I can understand errors in the English to some extent, but there are errors in both the pinyin and Chinese dialogues as well.
The biggest flaw with this series is its inability to incorporate revision. There is no requirement to do the lessons in order, simply because the lessons barely build on each other. The vocabularly and sentence structures seen in one lesson are usually not found in any of the following lessons.
There seems to be a rush to get through all the material, rather than taking the time to make sure the student understands it and is being continually tested and revising the material going forwarded.
You will need to purchase a seperate book on grammar, as the notes in Chinese in Steps sometimes don't even form complete English sentences let alone impart some knowledge on how Chinese grammar might work.
Don't let the link with SOAS fool you. At the time of reviewing, this text is compulsorary at SOAS for Chinese language students. I suspect this is no small coincidence when you realise that the author, George Zhang, is also the Chinese course co-ordinator at SOAS.
Those looking for a reference text book may find this title useful. Those looking for a course that will guide them through the learning process had best look elsewhere.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Some good bits, some bad...
Comment: The good news is, on the CDs accompanying the book, they have separated the tracks this time instead of lumping half the book onto one track as they did in Volume 1. However, they still have not separated them out into separate tracks WITHIN the lessons, i.e. a separate track for 'New Words of lesson 15' and a separate one for 'Speech Patterns of lesson 15' etc. For example, it is difficult to listen to *just* the 'Dialogues' in a loop when it is arranged this way. It is easier to learn mandarin when a small piece of text is listened to in a loop rather than an entire lesson/chapter which comprises of separate sections.
However, I do like that they have included the audio for the 'Reading' section in this volume, which was omitted in Volume 1.
Another good thing is that the font of the chinese text is an improvement over Volume 1.
However, those seem to be the only improvements. Here are the 'disappointments':
It is very obvious that this volume was rushed to press. This volume does not appear to have had much checking done before-hand. There are typos, I found one incorrect tone on a pinyin, but most annoyingly, there have been many cases of words appearing in the exercises (e.g. Grammar Practice) where the reader has not even learnt the word yet. This also happens a number of times in various 'Reading' sections where some of the words that have not been learnt yet do NOT have pinyin on top of them. This 'out-of-order' vocabulary is immensely frustrating for someone who is trying to learn Mandarin at home as a lot of time is wasted flicking back, asking myself 'I can't remember how to read this word... in which chapter did I learn it so I can look it up?'
Another disappointment is in the two audio CDs in the Speech Patterns section. Each Speech Pattern line is now spoken just once instead of twice. It makes 'listen and repeat' that much more difficult as I would have to rewind it a bit to make sure that I'd repeated it correctly. I wonder why they changed it from double (in Volume 1) to single in this volume?
However, I must say that other than the 'disappointments', this book is still useful to learn mandarin from. It is a good series, as the student is able to pick up quite a lot with each chapter as it is all organised in a systematic way. The 'stroke order' of how to write the Chinese words is immensely useful, as is the Grammar and Cultural notes.
I hope that the next volume will be checked by a few people other than the authors before publication to iron out the little annoying bits. It may seem unimportant, but to the student it makes learning mandarin that bit less frustrating. As long as it's a quality product, it's worth waiting for. It is a great series, and I am looking forward to continuing my mandarin studies with Volume 3.
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