Reading Into a New China: Integrated Skills for Advanced Chinese Vol. 1

by Duanduan Li, Irene Liu, Ruinian Liu

Duanduan Li, Irene Liu

328 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2009

Reviews

[Viktor Nilsson]

Good:
+Real texts, interesting subjects, and somewhat modified to appropriate level.
+Lots of exercises.
+Clear explanations, many examples.
Bad:
-In short: Not very pedagogical (i.e. tedious to work through, acquired knowledge doesn't stick). In detail:
-Vocabulary is only provided for the first text of each chapter. Since each chapter has about 5 texts, that only covered about 1/3 of the new words I had to learn (had to look up the other ones). It also only includes HSK words and thus often doesn't include the hardest ones.
-The examples and exercises are in a language just as hard as the main text.
-No answers for the exercises.
-To many new concepts studied at once.
-Much of the explanations and exercises seem irrelevant.

If you like the Chinese way of studying, e.g. using language books published in China, then this book should be among the better ones. I don't, so compared with other European/American language books, this book didn't impress me.

[Robert Yengo]

plenty of exercises to help improve reading and writing skills. glad it came with audio.

[Mina]

The mark of a good language textbook: diversity, range and quantity - exercises.