Chinese in a Flash, Vol. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)These are really wonderful aids and do all that a flashcard can be asked to do. Also, they DO provide a very detailed stroke order- I am puzzled why so many reviews comment that there is no stroke order. Perhaps there was an earlier edition? I will take and upload a photo, so other customers can see for themselves.
I find them superior to "Chinese Character Flashcards 888" and wish I would have saved my money as I purchased both sets. There is another review comparing them that is incorrect. These flashcards are more sturdy, have a more detailed stroke order (they break down every single stroke while the 888 set often groups them), provide a sample sentence as well as additional words using the character (888 only has a few sample words), and provide the traditional character along with the simplified when applicable (888 does too, but it's very small). They are superior in every way to the 888 set- I haven't even looked at the other set since the Tuttle set arrived. In fact, this is the first Amazon review I've written, and I do so to correct the misinformation I based my purchasing decision upon.
Another useful feature is that the first 500 flashcards in the set coincide exactly with the two Tuttle Language Library volumes "250 Essential Chinese Characters". So, if you're working your way through these books, these flashcards are the ideal study aid. (The labeling numbers coincide exactly...if learning character number 115 in the book, you can refer to flashcard 115.)
I am very happy with the cards and encourage their use as part of a well-rounded study program. It has been commented that individual characters have no real "meaning", so these cards have limited use. I disagree. Individual characters do have meaning and are used to represent a particular sound and tone. You must learn what sound goes with which character since characters are written individually with equal spacing- when reading Chinese, you need to pronounce each sound as you go along since characters are not grouped together to signal they are being used to build a particular word. Thus, each character needs to be learned individually since it can be used with many different characters to build different words. For example, "pengyou", meaning "friend", is written with two characters: one representing the sound "peng" (which means friend) and one representing "you" (which also means friend). But the character for "you" can also be combined with the character for "yi" which result in "youyi", meaning "friendship".
As far as the samples sentences go, they may potentially be confusing since they do not provide an exact word-for-word translation, but for someone with moderate experience (I've been studying Mandarin for 3 months now) they are very easy to understand. An exact translation wouldn't be very comprehensible anyway. I rarely find myself confused over which word represents which meaning, and if uncertain, it's easy enough to look up a troublesome word in the dictionary. It's all part of the learning process.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Chinese in a Flash, Vol. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards)

Whether on a train from Beijing to Shanghai or sitting under a tree in Berkeley, you can be practicing your Chinese with this quick and easy-to-use set of flashcards. Chinese in a Flash Volume 1 has a full range of features to help beginners and intermediate learners through character recognition, vocabulary recognition, revision, and testing.It includes indexes by radical, stroke count, and alphabetically by pinyin romanization.

Click here for more information about Chinese in a Flash, Vol. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards)

Read More...

Learn to Write Chinese Characters (Yale Language Series) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This book teaches the principles of sound and beautiful writing - the names of the strokes, the order in which they are written, aesthetic principles, and the common radicals. Then it provides a famous poem to practice with, and a list of a hundred common characters, sorted by frequency of usage. When the simplified character differs from the traditional, both are given. Transliterations are in pin-yin. This is far and away the best book I've found for learning to write the characters. I regretted the transition away from this book to other resources, principally because other resources usually use the printed form that ignores the aesthetic principles and turns beauty into ugliness. That sounds harsh, doesn't it? But it's true! If you're going to learn to write, start with this book, so you won't have to go back later to correct bad habits.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Learn to Write Chinese Characters (Yale Language Series)

An introductory manual for writing Chinese characters specifically designed for English-speaking readers. The author guides the reader through the fundamentals of writing, introduces the various scripts used in China and demonstrates how to write with a fountain pen rather than a brush.

Click here for more information about Learn to Write Chinese Characters (Yale Language Series)

Read More...

Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is absolutely brilliant. The stories are interesting and captivating, and never too long to overtly intimidate or tire the reader. You start with really short stories, and as your confidence with reading literary Japanese increases, the stories get longer and more complicated. I have learned and cemented more from reading this novel than by any other method but emersion experiences in Japan. I have a huge collection of modern Japanese literature and, though it was inaccessible before, this novel has made reading, guessing, and understanding Japanese fiction a blast. Note: it won't stop being difficult, even after this. But the satisfaction of reading and comprehending a story in it's original language, and being able to find fault in translations and such, is a really remarkable experience.
Highly recommended, and I hope to see a volume 2! I would buy it in a heartbeat!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text

Reading great books in the original should be the culmination of language study, but reading Japanese literature unassisted is a daunting task that can defeat even the most able of students. Breaking into Japanese Literature is specially designed to help you bypass all the frustration and actually enjoy classics of Japanese literature. Breaking into Japanese Literature features seven graded stories covering a variety of genres: whether it's the spellbinding surrealism of Natsume Soseki's Ten Nights of Dreams, the humor of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's fable of temple life ("The Nose"), or the excitement of his historic thrillers ("In a Grove" and "Rashomon"), you are sure to find a story that appeals to you in this collection. The unique layout-with the original Japanese story in large print, an easy-to-follow English translation and a custom dictionary-was created for maximum clarity and ease of use. There's no need to spend time consulting reference books when everything you need to know is right there in front of your nose. To make Japanese literature fun, Breaking into Japanese Literature also has some unique extra features: mini-biographies to tell you about the authors' lives and works, individual story prefaces to alert you to related works of literature or film, and original illustrations to fire your imagination. Best of all, MP3 sound files of all the stories have been made available for FREE on the Internet. Breaking into Japanese Literature provides all the backup you need to break through to a new and undiscovered world-the world of great Japanese fiction. All the hard work has been taken care of so you can enjoy the pleasures of the mind. Why not take advantage? Learn o 50% of all common-use kanji covered o Kanji entry numbers given for follow-up study o Japanese + English translation + custom dictionary on the same page o Every single kanji word explained Listen o Free download of sound files from the Net Look o 7 original atmospheric illustrations Link o Original stories for Kurosawa's Rashomon and DreamsAll the stories in this book are available on the Internet as MP3 sound files read by professional Japanese actors. For students who want to consolidate their understanding of kanji, the entry numbers for any of the 2,230 characters in The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary have been provided when those characters feature in Breaking into Japanese Literature. This makes cross-referencing a matter of seconds.

Click here for more information about Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text

Read More...

The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition: The Quick and Easy Method to Learn the 100 Most Basic Chinese Characters (Tuttle Language Library) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I am learning to speak Mandarin but felt I needed more knowledge of the written language to get a more comprehensive feel for the language. I looked around and settled on this one and it was a good choice. It has just enough information for me to learn the character and its meaning as well as some commonly used phrases in which each character appears. It gives ample space to practice the strokes of the character. The characters are also in a type size that makes it easier to read than some other books I've looked at.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition: The Quick and Easy Method to Learn the 100 Most Basic Chinese Characters (Tuttle Language Library)

The major struggle facing all beginning Chinese language students is to learn to recognize, read and write hundreds of Chinese characters. This book adopt a structural approach that helps students overcome this initial difficulty and quickly master the basic Chinese characters fundamental to this language. Intended for beginning students, The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition contains carefully selected and sequenced characters for rapid and effective learning. Each Chinese character is shown separately on a single page, along with its English definitions, hanyu pinyin romanization, alternate form, a stroke-order guide and ample writing space.Two indexes--alphabetical by the English meanings and by pinyin romanizationùare provided at the back of each book for quick and easy reference, along with extra sheets of blank boxes for writing practice.

Click here for more information about The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition: The Quick and Easy Method to Learn the 100 Most Basic Chinese Characters (Tuttle Language Library)

Read More...