Foreigners' Practical Chinese for Daily Life (Part 2)

Author: Wu De'an
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: Practical Chinese for Foreigners (Volumes 1 & 2) is a Chinese language textbook designed specifically for English-speaking foreigners. There are many English speakers in the world, not only in English-speaking countries such as the UK, the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, but also in many European countries where people speak English. English-speaking students represent a large market for teaching Chinese as a foreign language. These students differ from Japanese and Korean students, who have received some level of Chinese character education. In contrast, European students' native writing systems are phonetic scripts, where reading and writing are synchronized: once they learn the alphabet and pronunciation rules, they can read a word by its spelling and understand its meaning based on its pronunciation. Chinese characters are not phonetic scripts, so without learning them, one cannot read. English-speaking students, when they first start learning, quickly realize this. Chinese characters are not phonetic scripts, and without learning them, one cannot read. For English-speaking students in the early stages, Chinese characters are just meaningless shapes. Although some Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds, their phonetic components are inconsistent and irregular, serving only as a reference for pronunciation and not as a substitute for phonetic symbols. They can only recognize the meaning of Chinese characters through pinyin. Exaggeratedly, Chinese seems to be two languages for them: one for listening and speaking, and another for reading and writing. To address this problem, the best solution is to make full use of pinyin. This book is a primary-level Chinese textbook written specifically for short-term study abroad students who speak English, divided into two volumes, each with 10 lessons. Each lesson is divided into the following sections: Key Words: Text; Vocabulary List; English Translation of the Text; Phonetic and Grammatical Notes with Chinese Translation; Sentence Pattern Substitution Exercises; Sentence Substitution Exercises; Exercises; Cultural Insights; Stroke and Radical Practice and Character Practice. The features of this book are: 1. It concisely and systematically teaches the basics of Chinese pronunciation and characters. 2. It is highly practical. The selected lessons are directly related to real-life situations, with the most urgently needed topics and expressions taught first; topics include recognizing numbers in Chinese, exchanging money, going to restaurants, shopping, making phone calls, getting haircuts, and taking transportation. 3. The exercises in the textbook are diverse and cover listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translation in all directions: Sentence Pattern Substitution Exercises are designed in 5 ways; while the Exercise section includes listening exercises, simulation exercises, translation exercises, and situational dialogue exercises. Stroke and Radical Practice and Character Practice help students strengthen vocabulary memory by practicing character writing. It can be used by students with zero prior knowledge for 40–50 hours of study. Each volume includes a vocabulary list for each lesson, a total vocabulary list, and answers to some exercises.