beginning chinese reader part I

While continuing to stress the basic importance of the traditional usages, such as the regular characters to be found in all materials published before the adoption of the simplified forms in 1956 and still in use in some areas, the present revision goes further in contrasting variant usages and in providing additional material relevant to the PRC.

Closely related with the author’s Beginning Chinese and its companion volume, Character Text for Beginning Chinese, this text is based on a new approach which not only takes into account the advantages of the oral-aural method but gets the student more quickly into material that he is likely to encounter in actual written Chinese. Unique features are the emphasis on compounds and their extensive use in various types of exercises. The 1,200 combinations are based on 400 characters; in all, the book contains 120,000 characters of running text. All compounds appear in illustrative sentences accompanied by English translations, in dialogues as a means of audio-lingual reinforcement, and in narrative or expository form