Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook: The Complete Language Course for Beginning Learners

by Cornelius C. Kubler

Learn Chinese step by step with a clear, practical beginner course.

Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook is a beginner-friendly course designed to help you learn the basics of Chinese, including speaking, reading and writing. Organized into 24 lessons, it introduces everyday language through practical dialogues and straightforward explanations.

The course can be completed over an academic year or used for self-study at your own pace. Each lesson includes a dialogue, vocabulary, grammar notes, and reading sections, with exercises provided in the companion Elementary Mandarin Chinese Workbook.

Free online audio and video recordings, flash cards, and additional resources support your learning, helping you improve pronunciation and build confidence with real-world Chinese.

This course Everyday Chinese dialogues based on real-life situationsClear, non-technical grammar explanationsVocabulary lists and reading practice in every lessonAudio recordings by native Chinese speakers with a range of accentsSupplementary video clips and learning toolsA Chinese-English dictionary and downloadable flash cards
Chinese characters and Pinyin are used throughout (except in reading exercises), so you can focus on spoken Mandarin, reading and writing, or both. For best results, use this book alongside the Elementary Mandarin Chinese Workbook and the included audio materials available from Tuttle.

Cornelius C. Kubler is Stanfield Professor of Asian Studies at Williams College and a former Language Training Supervisor at the U.S. Department of State's Foreign Service Institute. He has taught Chinese for decades and is the author or coauthor of numerous books on Chinese language learning and linguistics.

288 pages, Paperback

Published March 10, 2020

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

Reviews

[DW]

Great resource. I am sure I will come back to it many times. Good for beginners.