遠東生活華語一Far East Everyday Chinese: Book 1

Background
Far East Everyday Chinese 1 (遠東生活華語一) is the second most commonly used introductory textbook in Taiwan. While the Practical Audio-Visual Chinese series has been the undisputed leader amongst textbooks in language schools across Taiwan for the past decade, the Far East series has been steadily making inroads ever since being published in 2001. A few schools such as Gaoxiong Shida (高雄師大) favor the newer series. At the time of this writing, even Taiwan Shida (臺灣師大), the school that publishes the Practical Audio-Visual series, offers classes that make use of the Far East series. Most other schools have followed suit and started offering a few Far East classes as well. Interestingly enough, the author of Far East Everyday Chinese 1 is none other than Yeh Teh-ming (葉德明), the former director of Taiwan Shida's language program in the 90's. Also, of note is that while few American colleges use this book, it is available in many Chinatowns across the states, as well as other Chinatowns in Vancouver and Sydney.

Overview
This book was written with the goal of making a book for a classroom focused on communicative, rather than audio-lingual or translation teaching. This is readily apparent from the very beginning. In stark contrast with every other beginning Chinese language textbook I've seen, the first dialogue in this book is NOT 你好. It's 多少錢. The first chapter in the book teaches students how to ask how much things cost and how to order basic foods sold at local shops, while the second deals with going to traditional markets. In short it gives students the tools to handle their very first and most common communicative needs upon moving to a Chinese speaking environment, or even visiting a Chinatown. I can't even begin to tell you how much more useful this is for an absolute beginner than the chapter one dialogues dealing with introductions and professions that appear in most Chinese books are. Unfortunately, the book is decidedly on the thin side for an introductory text. With only twelve chapters, and only about 30-40 new words per chapter, it just isn't enough material for a full first year at most universities.

Besides a text book, there are also a workbook, a character workbook, CDs for the textbook and a CD for the workbook. The CDs to be excellent. The textbook CDs are clear and slow, but not overly so. The workbook CD is also very useful. Unlike the Practical Audio-Visual Series which includes no listening homework, the Far East series includes listening comprehension drills in every chapter of the workbook. This listening homework is vital because without it, many beginning students get stuck and don't develop enough listening skills to feel comfortable enough to start engaging in conversations. The textbook, workbook, and character workbook are available in both simplified and traditional character versions. The textbooks of each version also include characters of the other type in the the glossary and dialogue appendix. The covers of all of the books are flimsy and quickly destroyed in backpacks.

Pros:

• Communicative introduction to Mandarin that teaches the most useful things first
  
• Extremely well suited to students living in a Chinese environment
• Very useful for students who have access to China towns
• A full CD of listening comprehension drills
• Relatively widely used
  
• Colorful and interesting text
  

Cons:

• Not enough material for a full year college course
• Grammar is introduced only when necessary for a communicative goal; many students feel that its introduction is haphazard
• Even in the traditional character version, no zhù yīn is used
  
• Flimsy covers

Rating: 4/5
Level: Absolute Beginner

Comments may only be made from the Textbook Section

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
  

Cons:

• No simplified characters
• Outdated usage
• Not particularly interesting
• No listening excercises in the workbook
  
• Fragile cover
  

Rating: 3/5
Level: Absolute Beginner

Comments may only be made from the Textbook Section

Welcome to the Chinese Textbook Review!

I hope to make this into a useful resource for others learning Chinese, particularly those who wish to learn traditional characters. If you would like to review a Chinese textbook, email it to doubtingtoshuo@gmail.com, preferably with photos of the book.

Comments may only be made from the Textbook Section