|
|
|
|
|
|
HomeShop at BookSurgeFictionScience FictionAdventureAdventures in Mandarin Chinese: The Fox and The Goat (Volume 1) |
|
|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Great way to build a foundation... Sep 20, 2009
I've tried quite a few of the ### Chinese characters books and while I did everything I was supposed to, they didn't really stick. I'm studying on my own, so opportunities to use the written language are hard to come by. This book really makes up for that.
I got through this book after about three weeks and I learned not only the characters, but now have a much better feel for sentence structure and phrasing. It may not be 100% useful in conversation, but it's a huge help.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Amazing book! May 22, 2009
This book is entertaining and a fun read!
It shows that we could learn mandarin Chinese and enjoy reading excellent stories the same time.
This book is an amazing book.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
More Than A Language Study Course May 09, 2009
For those who have enjoyed Sam Song's previous books introducing his manner of instructing Western readers on the discovery of ADVENTURES IN MANDARIN CHINESE Volume 1 (The Fox and the Goat) may be no surprise. Sam Song has polished his skills for communicating the visual development of Chinese characters so that not only may the serious reader begin to learn to read Mandarin Chinese be the end of this book, but will also have enjoyed the journey through which Song take us. His asides are clever, smart, amusing and maintain the readers attention throughout.
What makes Song's technique enjoyable in addition to being instructive is the choices he makes in explaining the development of each Chinese character. Each stroke of the brush that creates these little 'art works' has a developmental history drawn out by Song in a way that is informative while making remembering that character a surety.
Song's final guidance through the story gives the reader a sense of achievement, and while this may not serve to prepare the reader for a comprehensive course in Chinese, it is a healthy beginning! Grady Harp, May 09
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Highly Effective Technique to Successfully Learn to Read Chinese Apr 07, 2009
This book will enable the motivated reader to master about 125 Chinese characters. With this knowledge, the person will be able to read the tale about the Fox and the Goat written entirely in Chinese characters at the end of the book. This book is an excellent beginning text for anyone who desires to learn and read Chinese and will improve their overall knowledge of Chinese culture. Essentially, the cultural ideas related to Chinese life and experience serve as the basis for the Chinese characters themselves. The following example from the book will illustrate this point. The word "escape" is pictured as a runner with a trail of dust following behind him. Through progression the author literally provides a visual picture of how the main idea of a word is converted into a Chinese character. This technique reinforces the meaning of the character and provides the idea which the character represents.
Another theme in this book is that practice is the key to learning and retaining the meaning of each character. As someone who has benefited from reading this book and who has mastered the ability to read the story about the Fox and Goat in Chinese I can attest that this learning technique is effective and will lead to a successful outcome. Each time I learned a new character, I also repeated the previous lessons and reinforced learning and recalling the meaning of the characters. Rereading the passages provides new insights with each reading. Keep in mind, this is not a book to be read like a novel. It is a resource and reference book, a book of lessons, which needs to be read more than once to achieve maximum benefits. Book reviewed by T.J. Borsos and Erika Borsos [pepper flower]
|
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
