視聽華語一
Practical Audio-Visual Chinese 1
How could a review of Chinese textbooks start with anything else? For better or worse, Practical Audio-Visual Chinese (視聽華語) is the de facto standard Chinese textbook in Taiwan. Shida (師範大學) uses it. 文化大學 uses it. Taida (台灣大學) uses it. Nearly every major Mandarin language school on the island uses this book. Unless you study at TLI, there is a very strong chance that you'll encounter this book. Perhaps the best feature of this book is that almost every experienced Mandarin as a foreign language instructor on the island is familiar with it. Not only that, but quite a few intermediate materials have been specifically designed for students who have studied through the first two books of this series.
The question everybody emails me is this: is Practical Audio-Visual Chinese okay? The answer is yes. It's "okay". There's nothing exceptionally good about this book, but it doesn't have any glaring flaws either. It includes both zhuyin (注音) and standard 拼音. It has supporting CDs, VCDs, and a workbook. This book takes a very methodical approach. Each lesson starts with a reading or dialogue, followed by vocabulary words, and grammar explanations, each with example sentences. The explanations are clear, and there are no glaring errors.
However, there are a few drawbacks. Even though the book was written in 1994, sometimes it seems like it was written in 1954. The accents of the speakers on the accompanying CDs and VCDs are decidedly mainland. While the CDs are useful for review, the workbook doesn't take advantage of them. There are absolutely no listening comprehension exercises. Also, there are a few grammar constructions taught in the book that many Taiwanese people don't understand, such as the double 了 construction. Even worse, is the use of 讓 and 叫 as passive markers. For example, "我讓你給弄糊塗了." Most Taiwanese people under the age of about 50 will say that construction is flat out wrong. In truth, it is standard Mandarin, but it's Mandarin that simply isn't used here anymore. While this book isn't quite ideal, it will get the job done, and many, many people have used it as a stepping stone to the next level.
Pros:
- Comprehensive introduction to Mandarin Grammar
- Well supported by CDs, VCDs, and workbook
- Supports both Pinyin and Zhuyin
- Widely used
- No simplified characters
- Outdated usage
- Not particularly interesting
- No listening excercises in the workbook
- Fragile cover
Level: Absolute Beginner
Comments may only be made from the Textbook Section
posted by Mark @ 11/24/2005 02:04:00 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Excited to see these reviews. What other texts exist? Someone at forumosa.com waxed eloquent about the wonderful materials from Beijing Language and Cultural University Press. PRC books can be found in ROC at an exchange rate of 4.5 or so at some specialized bookstores. I have here A Course in Contemporary Chinese ISBN 7-5619-0595-5 and 7-5619-0662-5, 38 and 41 RMB respectively. There are also the Taiwan Language Institute texts avaiable only to their students. Looking forward to more reviews.
Its not really a textbook but I really liked Mandarin Chinese A Functional Reference Grammar, Li and Thompson, The Crane Publishing Co. There is an English edition and a Chinese edition. I think its the only book I own with no ISBN number in it, but I found, 0520066103. I wonder what they use in Hong Kong to teach Chinese? It oughta be in traditional chinese.
Flashcards for Practical AV Chinese 1:
http://www.jjesse.com/index_files/chinese%20flashcards.htm
These comments are really informational, everyone.
My next review will be on the first book of the Far East Everyday Chinese series, which is the second most commonly used Mandarin textbook used in Taiwan. It's the primary text of National Sun Yat-sen University, as well as several schools in Gaoxiong. It's also used by some classes at both Shida and Taida.
I've heard good things about the BCLU press in the last couple of years. I can't really review any of their materials, though, since I don't have any experience with them. If anyone would like to write a review for any Chinese learning materials, just write it up and send it to doubtingtoshuo.blogspot.com, with a picture and your rating.
I assume that this is only appropriate for someone who hasn't studied Chinese. I have about a year under my belt in the U.S.
I prob. shouldn't use this book.
Is this book a one year course?
The Practical Audio-Visual Chinese series was designed by Shida's language school. Shida uses this book for classes of five to ten students, who attend two hours of class per day. It usually takes them six months to finish the book. Many other language schools use the book under similar circumstances.
Practical Audio-Visual Chinese was used by several U.S. universities in the 90's, but it's not too common now since it uses only traditional characters (with simplified ones appearing only in the appendix). Depending on where you studied, you probably covered about the same amount of material in one year if you met for class an hour a day M-F.
Practical Audio-Visual Chinese, vols. 1-5, is now available in an updated second edition.
It is published by Cheng Chung Book Company, Ltd, Taipei.
The CDs, printing and quality of the cover are excellent.
The woman, Ms. Liu, who is responsible for much of the writing and editing for vols. 2-5, has just come from Shi Da to ICLP, NTU. She is probably one of the most accomplished and innovative teachers of Mandarin as a foreign language in the world. I sat in on a day long class of hers in which she instructed Chinese as a foreign language teachers and came away quite impressed.
I would recommend these texts for anyone who wants to learn Mandarin.
Are we serious about the "Comprehensive Grammar Explainations"? Compared to what?
Coming from one semester at 1 hour a day at the University of Hawaii with it's "Integrated Chinese" series, I find I know all of the Audio-Visual I(2nd ed)'s words and grammar. In fact, while "IC" has about a paragraph or more of explanation per grammar point, as well as syntax help, Audio-Visual has one or two linguistics-laden sentences, often with wrong grammar or misspellings. The workbook/textbook has perhaps half as much to practice, and the pinyin is also wrong in numerous instances!
Each book is deceptively big as it states most everything in Characters, bopomofo, Pinyin, English, AND the Taiwanese romanization - so you get very little practice, examples, or new words for your dollar.
And this is the 2nd edition!
Obviously, Anonymous has not seen the second edition of this text.
To my surprise, when they arrived from Taiwan, volumes 3 - 5, had dispensed with the extensive translations I mentioned. In addition, the PRC and Taiwan romanization and zhu yin fu hao renditions of the main text are absent.
Initially, I was disappointed but with further examination of the texts I realized that this meant that there was even more useful material than otherwise would be the case . The books are the same size as the previous volumes but with even more material.
My local teacher is a native Chinese with a PhD in Chinese Linguistics from PRC. He has found no mistakes in any of the grammar, text, etc. In fact, he says that he prefers it to the PRC materials we used to use.
How could you know all of this text's grammar and vocabulary when you have obviously not even examined it?
As a former ICLP student I can say that the new textbook series is awesome. I absolutely love studying the CD each evening. But in regards to Ms. Liu, I have to say she is the worst language teacher I've ever had -- without a doubt. I have no doubt she is a fantstic trainer of teachers (he knowledge of Chinese is unsurmountable), but he classes for learners of Chinese are useless.
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