Intermediate Written Chinese: Read and Write Mandarin Chinese As the Chinese Do

by Cornelius C. Kubler

This is an intermediate-level course in written Chinese that employs a revolutionary new method designed to have you quickly reading and writing simple, connected Chinese sentences.

The Basic Chinese and Intermediate Chinese books provide separate but integrated "tracks" to help you learn to speak, read, and write Chinese efficiently at your own pace. Some students and teachers wish to emphasize speaking ability first, whereas others wish to focus on learning to speak, read, and write Chinese at the same time.

Intermediate Written Chinese allows you the flexibility to learn the written language and the written Chinese at your own pace.
Learn to use 336 high frequency characters, and over 1,200 common words written with them.
Together with the 288 characters and 700 words introduced in Basic Written Chinese, a total of 624 characters and more than 1,900 words are formally taught in this two-volume course.
In addition, another 199 supplementary characters and over 700 supplementary words are introduced for extra learning, meaning that you will have encountered a grand total of 823 characters and over 2,600 words by the end of this course.
Carefully designed to have you quickly reading and writing connected Chinese sentences.
Each lesson introduces six new characters and a number of words written with them. By dividing the learning into small tasks, you attain a sense of accomplishment rather than getting bogged down.
The structure and etymology of each new character is explained in detail to make the learning of characters easier, and similar characters are compared and contrasted.
Some lessons include realia such as photographs of street signs, name cards, e-mail messages, and handwritten notes.
Both simplified and traditional characters are taught throughout; you may choose to learn one or both.
Features a variety of fonts in both typeset and handwritten styles, to prepare you to use Chinese in many different contexts—from reading signs and newspapers, to computers and mobile phone texts.
The accompanying CD-ROM includes:
Over 6 hours of audio by several native Mandarin speakers.
Recordings of all reading selections.
Recordings with the pronunciations of all new characters and words.
Additional lessons and reading selections.
Available separately, Intermediate Written Chinese Practice Essentials is the companion workbook for Intermediate Written Chinese. This practical guide includes a broad range of drills and exercises designed to dramatically enhance your proficiency in reading and writing Chinese. While designed for use with the companion textbook, it can be used together with any Chinese textbook or teaching program to hone your Chinese reading and writing skills.

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2015

About the author

CORNELIUS C. KUBLER, Stanfield Professor of Asian Studies at Williams College, received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in linguistics from Cornell University. He earned a second M.A. in Chinese literature from National Taiwan University. From 1980-1991 he was employed at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, where he served as Language Training Supervisor in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and Mongolian; as Principal of the advanced Chinese field school in Taiwan; and as Chair of the Department of Asian and African Languages. Since coming to Williams in 1991, he has chaired the former Department of Chinese and Asian Studies Program as well as the Department of Asian Studies, which he was instrumental in founding. He has also taught at Eisenhower College, Portland State University, Middlebury College, National Taiwan Normal University, and Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kubler, who is author or coauthor of 15 books and over 50 articles on Chinese language pedagogy and linguistics, frequently serves as reviewer or consultant for Chinese and Asian Studies programs in the U.S. and overseas. He has served as Chair of the Test Development Committee for the SAT Subject Test™ in Chinese and as member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages of the Modern Language Association. Below are some questions received from users of Dr. Kubler's new BASIC CHINESE series along with his answers to them:

READER QUESTION:
What are the 3 tips you'd give to someone who wants to learn Chinese on their own? I know your books are being used at a lot of top universities, but I'm not sure if I could use them to learn Chinese on my own, at home?

DR. KUBLER ANSWERS:
The Basic Chinese series was designed with the needs of independent learners like yourself in mind. The grammatical and cultural notes in each lesson of the textbook explain in detail everything you need to know, and the copious exercises in the workbook and on the DVD and CDs offer many hours of useful practice. As for my 3 tips, they would be: (1) Start with listening and speaking (at the beginning, Chinese characters tend to slow you down, you can take them up later); (2) Be sure you have not only the textbook (Basic Spoken Chinese), but also the workbook (Basic Spoken Chinese Practice Essentials), since it contains most of the exercises, which are especially important for independent learners; (3) When using the DVD, after you have mastered a Basic Conversation, click "Chinese speaker only" and YOU play the role of the American speaker, and then you can click "American speaker only" and play the role of the Chinese person. In addition, try to meet with a teacher or native-speaking friend for an hour each week for communicative practice using the new material in the lesson. There are many more suggestions for independent learners in the Basic Chinese textbook, workbook, and Instructor's Guide.

READER QUESTION:
I have a background in Romance languages; on the graduate level I studied theoretical linguistics. About a year ago, I began to study Chinese, having never before pursued an Asian language. I made progress, but was disillusioned by the slow pace at which I was learning. Then, several weeks ago, I ran across your Basic Written Chinese and purchased it. Within short order, my acquisition rate accelerated. I'm now awaiting the arrival of the Basic Spoken Chinese book; will I make faster progress using the combination of the two books, Written and Spoken?

DR. KUBLER ANSWERS:
Thank you for your kind words about Basic Written Chinese. Like yourself, I also am a linguist (I started out in German, then studied Latin and several Romance languages, and ended up specializing in East Asian languages). The Basic Chinese books, as you know, take the approach of separating the learning of SPOKEN Chinese from the learning of WRITTEN Chinese, since that helps English speakers learn Chinese more efficiently. That said, I'm gl