Chinese Study Materials

Learning Chinese is getting popular every year. My freshman year Chinese 101 class (which started in Fall 2005) had a little over one hundred students–up from nine students in 1990.  At Princeton, Chinese is the most studied language after French.

This massive explosion of interest in Chinese might be exaggerated by Princeton student’s tendency towards working in the finance industry–for the unfamiliar, some disgusting percentage (Around 70%) of Princeton students go on to work in finance or on Wall Street–which is getting super-excited by China’s economic growth. However, this exaggeration can’t be too great, because I’ve read about high schools and universities across America and the UK providing Mandarin language courses.

I was fortunate enough to attend Princeton’s intensive summer study abroad program, Princeton in Beijing, last summer. The program is an 8-week course that counts as two semesters of university credit. It is the most respected intensive summer Chinese language program in the world. The program is hosted by Beijing Normal University, where students live in foreign student apartments. The rooms are great—way better than the rooms at Princeton University in America. The courses are Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., followed by Chinese language tables for lunch, and then a one-hour one-on-session with a teacher. Last year, there were 72 students in second-year Chinese and 24 teachers. We were tested over each week’s material every Friday.

On the weekends, you’re free to do whatever you want. Explore Beijing, eat at restaurants, la duzi, whatever your heart’s content.

I had a blast, so much so, in fact, that I’m going back again this summer for big, scary 4th-year Chinese.

Anyway, since I seem to be on the crest of this learn-Mandarin tidal wave, I ought to help both those frolicking around with me, and those who want to find a way to join us. I’ll post reviews of text books that I’ve used–I’m not going to try other text books; I have enough work as it is–useful study materials, and my favorite study methods.

Recommended Text Books:

All Things Considered:事事关心－－现代汉语高级读本

by Chih-p’ing Chou, Yan Xia, Mcow Hui Goh

Here’s the book’s official description:

“This modern Chinese language textbook bridges the gap between intermediate and advanced Chinese. It is ideal for students who have completed intermediate courses but need more language practice to prepare them for the complexity of advanced Chinese.

The text is divided into two parts. The first section consists of twelve dialogues; the second is a selection of recent newspaper articles about contemporary Chinese society. A novel feature of All Things Considered is that several topics appear in both dialogue and essay forms. This repetition is designed to improve students’ retention of grammar and vocabulary as well as to highlight differences between spoken and written Chinese.

All of the articles and dialogues center on everyday issues in contemporary China. Several of the topics featured are controversial in the hope that they will spark students’ interest and promote participation in class discussions.”

I’ve found the book to be exactly what the authors promise it to be.

Pros:
1) The book is hilarious. Topics run from “The President has a girlfriend” (总统有了女朋友）to Hangzhou’s corner-side condom vending machines attract controversy (杭州街头设置安全套自售机引起争议). One thing to point out: the topics are controversial from a Chinese point of view–not from a college student’s .

2) The vocab and grammar points. The vocab lists and grammar points are built into each lesson so smoothly that you come away reading a hilarious passage, only to realize that you’ve picked up quite useful vocabulary. The grammar points are all accompanied by examples and English explanations.

Cons:

1) I don’t like the all-in-one format. My second-year book, which I’ll review later, is actually two physical books. The first contains all of the passages, with each vocab word footnoted on the same page, and the second contains all of the the lessons’ grammar points. Sentences with grammar points end with a number in parentheses, which you then look up in the grammar book. This allows you to read a passage in book 1, with book 2 open, looking at vocab, grammar and the passage, rather than flipping back and forth like you do in “All Things Considered.” This isn’t really a big deal, though.

2) The book is due for an update–the current edition was published in 2001, and has very little on recent developments or the internet (oddly enough).

Newspaper Readings: The U.S.A in the People’s Daily

by Chih-p’ing Chou and Xuedong Wang

Official description:

“This book is a newspaper reader for the American student who has completed one and a half to two years of modern Chinese. The fourteen selections included in the reader show how the U.S. was depicted in commentaries and essays in The People’s Daily from 1990 through 1991. Covering the education crisis, social injustice, human rights violations, and racial discrimination, the articles are generally critical of, and even hostile to, American society as a whole: their controversial nature will elicit student interest and classroom participation.”

This book is formatted in exactly the same way as “All Things Considered.” Therefore, the same cons hold for this book. One the pros’ side: the book’s main merit is that it highlights how outrageous the People’s Daily was from 90-91. It’s worth a read merely from a media studies point of view.

Recommended Podcasts:
iMandarinPod–see my review here