Reviews

Once again Lingo Mastery has come to the rescue, allowing us to make Chinese more accessible to a wider population. In the Introductory Note the goal is stated well: 'Chinese (Mandarin) is a fascinating, unique, and extremely rich language....China's rapid rise as a global superpower is making it an increasingly significant means of communication for people in Asia and beyond...The study of the Chinese language opens the way to different important fields such as Chinese politics, economy, history, and archeology...China boasts one of the world's oldest civilizations, richest continuous cultures and an interesting history of over 5,000 years...By learning Chinese, you can take one of the most culturally enriching adventures - exploring the populous cities and traditional villages, enjoying delicious foods, and absorb new traditions throughout the country without barriers!'

After their success teaching Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Russian now they turn to teaching Chinese! And it works. To make the Chinese characters accessible, transcriptions are provided in the form of transliteration and conventional signs used for transcription. Taking it slowly, step by step with practice, Chinese words become accessible! And one of the very successful features of this book is the depth of discussion about the symbols, grammar, and the importance of the intonation of words - a feature that makes this a quality textbook!

The technique is solid and the lessons well taught. This is a very fine introduction to Chinese vocabulary that may arise when you visit China or simply conversing and understand the Chinese population here at home. This book is appropriate for all age levels, and a book much needed at this time in our national status! Grady Harp, December 19- Grady Harp In order to learn a language efficiently beyond the beginning grammar, you should focus on learning the words most commonly used. This is a technique I've learned successfully as you won't need to expand your vocabulary greatly when you are just building, and this book is a great way to get you started. Filled with great word selection and context to go with it, it's a hard offer to pass up when looking for a book that isn't a dictionary but will help build the parts you should be working on when beginning.

Having the pinyin along with the characters is a boon to the book. I'm creating flashcards for myself with the characters and pinyin with a thematic picture, leaving out the English. While a little more laborious, it certainly feels more efficient. This book is great in helping me save a few steps and the contextual sentences that help fill out the vocabulary is amazing.

Looking forward to the next 2000 words if they continue it!- Veltaine There may not be a more intimidating language than Chinese. From the tonal system to the thousands of characters, it can be enough to send many people running for the hills.

However, 2000 Most Common Chinese Words in Context helps remove a lot of that fear. Based off the simple assumption that the word "nation" (word number 20, by the way) is more common than the word "docket," for example, it attempts to build the reader's knowledge of the 2000 or so words that make up the vast majority of the corpus of the language in actual use. Each word is followed by a sample sentence in Chinese characters, pinyin, and finally in English.

You won't get fluent from this book alone, but that is not the point. Instead, if you want to have a clear path on what characters to prioritize, this is it.- Kevin Newton