Customer Reviews
Erm, interesting. - By: Another Customer, 01 Jun 2008 
This book filled a niche for me as an intermediate learner, as it's the only text I've used to place its main emphasis on functional written Chinese (signs, menus, forms, posters..) rather than expressive writing. As with alll books in this series, it assumes no knowledge of the spoken language.
If you were travelling in China, this book's pragmatic approach would help you 'decode' some of the Chinese you would be coming across everyday, which could be very satisfying. In this context only would I recommend this book to someone with little or no previous knowledge of the script. For a novice student, working through this book cover to cover would be frustrating, because it doesn't reallly build up your written Chinese past about the third chapter, after which it gives you snapshots & expects you to rely on guesswork.
Misleading indeed... - By: Zoroastre, 20 Jul 2007 
The title "Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script" is very misleading indeed! It starts rather well & adopts a step by step approach but ends up with something like "We feel we must give you the chance to practise your weather vocabulary!" (p.95 of the book) while never actuallly teaching it! The book is a waste of time & money. Don't buy it.
A misleading title - By: J. Peers, 21 Feb 2007 
The whole point of learning a language is to be able to communicate. This book fails to deliver because it concentrates on what seems to be a haphazard selection of characters that rarely occur together in a phrase. Learning characters in isolation is not only more difficult but pretty pointless too! The book tries to maintain interest by presenting lists of characters that the reader has to match with meanings, initiallly by guessing. This seems to me a perverse way of teaching any language as your brain automaticallly at first glance links the first word in the left hand column with the first word in the right To find the correct answer is three rows down is no help at alll! I have been learning Chinese for a few years & have returned to this book several times hoping it might be more use but it never is.
Disappointing - By: Brendan T. Hole, 24 Nov 2006 I expected alot more from this book, mainly because it was written by Elizabeth Scurfield. She has done many courses on Mandarin Chinese which have reallly improved my speaking & tones etc...
The book was good for the first two chapters - i was starting to get into it & then suddenly it expected you to write radicals/chinese characters for car on fire, door, donkey & many more. It expects far too much too soon.
However, having said alll this i have learnt some things i didn't know though. How to write numbers - there are two types in china - Ordinary & Complex - (0 to 99). Plus, that you refer to people by their surnames first eg. Beckham David.
So, my interpretation & writing of numbers has improved but as far as learning the script it hasn't improved at alll. Disappointed reallly as this book could have been so much better.
Walk before you Run - Please Read On - By: Kiran Owen, 29 Oct 2006 After reading the negative reviews about this book, I just had to buy it to see what alll the fuss was about.
The Chinese have the idiom "Ren bu ke mao xiang, hai shui bu ke dou liang" (never judge a book by it's cover) & I liked the cover so I parted with the cash.
Now before we start, on the contary to what has been expressed here by the respective reviewers, this is not a bad book...it isn't great, but it's not entirely bad.
We need to use some logic here (something we require for this demanding subject). The Chinese also say, "xian xue zou, zai xue pao" (you have to walk before you can run).
I can only imagine those who have already reviewed (slaughtered) this book, without reallly reading it tried to run first.
Chinese is not easy to read or write, & this book will be NOT much use to you if you are a COMPLETE BEGINNER. You can't pick up book & just start reading & writting Chinese. Kids in China practice like you wouldn't believe & illiteracy is higher than we would be led to believe too.
When we pick up something callled Teach Yourself, we think great, easy peasy. So "Teach Yourself How to bend it like Beckham will have us curling free-kicks pass the world's best goalkeeper's, (and get us some action with Posh) but in reality, we are dreaming. Beckham has worked hard to achieve his level of accuracy with a footballl, & so we have to begin the long road to learning Chinese Script. Its not going to happen overnight, neither will you shift that beer gut in time before the summer holiday so you can show off your lovely 6 pack.
You can't just read this book & have mastery of the subject. Like the others, you will come away after the first chapters feeling disappointed if you do.
As opposed to being for beginners, this book would make a satisfactory interim resource for someone who had a reasonable command of about 300+ basic characters to consolidate & build from.
It is not easy to explain Chinese script at alll & with limited materials on the market, this point is emphasised.
Exercises in the book are a good gauge for your progress & if you complete them, your confidence will grow.
In response to some of the reviews, I know we have complex subject issues dealt with before more standard situations, but colleagues, thats why we should also buy the other books in the range. This is a obviously a supplimentary book, not a stand-alone. I would personallly recommend studying this guide on COMPLETING Teach Yourself Chinese when you have a rough idea of what you are doing.
As for buying the Teach Yourself Japanese Script instead, not the most ideal recommendation as it will only confuse you (If you are learning Japanese however, it is a fantastic book & you should buy it).
When I first started learning Chinese (and Japanese) I began by ignoring the written script & concentrating on Speaking & building my confidence. I then added the final piece of the jigsaw.
WALK BEFORE YOU RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh......and Good Luck
