Recommended by 2 different Chinese tutors., May 16, 2001
　

In preparing to go to China, this book was recommended by two different tutors - one from China (and his wife) and one from Malaysia. It is sure to give you a very strong foundation in the language. Make sure you get the version that comes with the tapes.

Not for a complete beginner., November 18, 2002
　

I had this book before I started taking college Chinese and it was too big a bite to chew. Ten credit hours and two trips to China later it excellently serves as a supplementary classroom material. This book is well organized. Chapter one starts out with standard, Hello, How are you? My name is so and so. I come from so and so. Then it progresses to telling more about yourself and your family, ordering food (very important when you travel to China.), making hotel reservation, ... etc. This book is the best overall. That means, there are better books on Chiness reading out there if you are concentrated solely on reading. (Try John DeFrancis's Beginning Chinese Reader) If you want an absolute beginner then try Berlitz's.

Excellent and very affordable language Course, December 26, 2005
　

I own this precious guide with its two tape cassettes. And various other materials. They do HELP in learning Chinese. They do HELP!... Help is simply a term. Make it alive. YOU actually have to do the very HARD WORK of Teaching YOUrself and welcome other people to teach YOU. Do YOU allow people to correct YOUr pronunciation, YOUr own made-up sentences? Ask for it, welcome it and enjoy YOUr new language. The serious and passionate learner seeks any opportunity to practice -even for a few seconds. Waiting for the elevator,... during the ride,... YOU know this. Native speakers and advanced non-native helpers are great. In the absence of these live people, TV, Radio, various recordings, comics, newspapers, etc... are mandatory, not optional. Even if YOU are lucky to have tutors, friends or a spouse, YOU still need these accessories. A language cannot be acquired with a fist of dollars. Put YOUr heart into YOUr hard work. Language = Love in action. It's all about what YOU intend to do with it. It's all about YOU. CHARGE YOUr plastic for this EXCELLENT course NOW!

For the chinese student, November 27, 2005
　

I am a student of multiple languages and have recently purchased this book. Now there are divided opinions about the "teach yourself (insert language)" series of books. Well, I like some of them, especially this one. One must realize that each of these books is written by a different person and that the entire serires is not written by the same people. This particuliar book is invaluable to me in my study of chinese. The one bit of advice I have is this: if you are not good at picking up foreign pronunciation, especially non enlgish/non romance languages, then this is not for you. THis book has a very small section on pronunciation so this is your book only f you can grasp the sound of Chinese easily. OVerall, I REALLY reccomend this bok for the beginnin Mandarin student.

What I should have known..., November 16, 2005
　

Is that though this book is good... it has some major flaws, which make it close to useless when working on pronunciation. As stated in a previous review there is no direct correlation between the pronunciations on the CD and the guide in the text. Also it has no Chinese reference of sound, which I had to learn from my tutor and is much easier and more logical when starting to speak, read and write. With that Chinese reference you can sound out a word, write the sounds out and be able to communicate even if you do not know the Chinese character. That would be incredibly useful for a beginner who may know the word but not yet the character. I hope the revision is written with the absolute beginner in mind.

the book (only, not the tapes) is wonderful, August 11, 2005
　

this is a wonderful book. note that i did not buy the tapes, and cannot comment on them; however, my experience with other TY books is that the tapes and CD's associated with them are not well-connected to the book and tend to really suck. for audio learning, i'd recommend the pimsleur course. (in general, for self-study of a language you really need *both* an audio-focused course like pimsleur and a book to explain the grammar.)

another reader said there is not enough grammar, which is totally untrue. this book has a lot of grammatical explanations; they are very well-done and well-paced, not too technical but extremely clear, whether you are linguistics-savvy or not. the book also does a generally good job with its presentation of vocabulary.

the main complaints are those of all TY books: the binding is poor and the books are shorter than they should be.

beware: TY books are completely rewritten from time by time. there does in fact appear to be a newer TY-Chinese book, so don't assume it's the same as this one.