Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook (The Complete Language Course for Beginning Learners (With Companion Audio))

Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook is a new beginner Mandarin Chinese course which enables you to quickly learn the basics of the language. The 24 lessons in this book are meant to be used in 3 hours per week of class instruction over one academic year. Students will need another 2–3 hours of outside practice and review for every hour of class time, using the materials in the accompanying Elementary Mandarin Chinese Workbook.

These books can also be used by self-study learners due to the extensive explanations and free supplementary materials available — including online audio and video recordings and flash cards.

The entire course can be completed in 25 to 35 weeks and teaches you the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing Mandarin Chinese at a conversational level. Each lesson starts with a dialogue and includes a list of new and supplementary Chinese vocabulary along with questions and grammar notes about the dialogue, a reading section and extensive exercises (that are in the Workbook).

Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook offers the following significant advantages over other similar textbooks:

• Common, everyday Chinese dialogues are used for listening and practice — complete with vocabulary lists and questions and storylines based on actual everyday experiences in China
• Chinese grammar is explained in simple, non-technical terms with useful notes and tips given
• Reading exercises are provided for all new words and phrases in each lesson
• Free online audio recordings by native speakers from various parts of China help you not only acquire correct pronunciation but also to understand Chinese speakers who have different accents
• Illustrations and supplementary video clips add authenticity to the dialogues in the book
• A Chinese-English dictionary is provided at the back for easy reference

Chinese characters and Pinyin Romanized forms are used throughout the book (except for the reading exercises), so this book is usable by learners who wish to focus on learning the spoken language who do not necessarily want to learn to read and write Chinese simultaneously.

This textbook should be used in conjunction with Elementary Mandarin Chinese Workbook and the included audio files, which can be downloaded free directly from the Tuttle website.