Chinese Complete Course: Beginner to Advanced

I was recommended to try Assimil until i heard their Chinese books are not of great quality. So i found Living Language and so far it has proven to be indispensable in teaching me the basics of CHINESE. I use it everyday!

I love the 'Living language' style. So easy to use and really engaging. Great way to pass the time on the bus!

Excellent!

It's a very thorough and systematic introduction to the language. The CDs are clear. I like the method used, consisting in recorded short sentences, translated into English. In this way you learn effortlessy, the phrases just sink in only by listening and after some time you don't need the translations. All recordings are written down in Chinese characters and pinyin. Curiously enough, the pinyin is not explained until at the end of book one so you will remain bewildered as for the rules of pronuciation unless you already know pinyin. There is also a book to practice some of the basic characters. And now, why only two stars? In the description is says "beginner through advanced level", which isn't true. Some may call it a marketing trick, I call it simply cheating. The full set of books and CDs only covers the basics, some 900 words, so it's by no means advanced. That's why I'm very disappointed, although generally I like this course. It gives you a solid grounding and the ability of uttering and understanging some simple sentences and that's about all. I'm about intermediate, I bought this course to polish the essentials (this part is OK) and then proceed smoothly through the intermediate upto the advanced level. Two stars off because of that. Another issue is that out of the nine CDs only three play correctly. On the remaining ones aparently some irrelevant music was recorded (at least such information appears on the screen) and they won't start. Some reviewers on Amazon.com had the same problem. One more star off.

I bought this book for my cousin. Erhan Horozoglu. He said that " I'm surprised. How can a book and CD's can be so helpful.Even after the first lesson I realised that I had no difficulty in learning 'pinyin's and pronunciation."Thanks.

With this Chinese course I am steadily building up my Mandarin vocabulary. It gives me the confidence to progress through the levels. This course helps me to keep on aiming to be advanced.