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Chinese in a Flash, Vol. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards) | 
| Author: Philip Yungkin Lee
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.01
You Save: $9.94 (40%)
New (28) Used (8) from $15.00
Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 10065
Format: Box Set
Media: Cards
Pages: 16
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0804833613
Dewey Decimal Number: 495
UPC: 676251833614
EAN: 9780804833615
ASIN: 0804833613
Publication Date: November 15, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Absolutely Brand New & In Stock. 100% 30-Day Money Back. Direct from our warehouse. Ships by USPS. 1+ million customers served-In business since 1986. Happy Customers is Our #1 Goal. Toll Free Support
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Product Description
Whether on a train from Beijing to Shanghai or sitting under a tree in Berkeley, you can be practicing your Chinese with this quick and easy-to-use set of flashcards. Chinese in a Flash Volume 1 has a full range of features to help beginners and intermediate learners through character recognition, vocabulary recognition, revision, and testing. It includes indexes by radical, stroke count, and alphabetically by pinyin romanization.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Useful Tool for Memorizing Chinese Characters October 30, 2004
Laura De Giorgio (Canada)
135 out of 147 found this review helpful
Since I have both "Chinese in a Flash" and "Chinese Character Flashcards 888" flashcard sets, I wanted to offer a comparison between the two.
Flashcards 888 are organized in the order of frequency of use of characters; Chinese in a Flash are arranged in the order of frequency and complexity. Someone learning Chinese language is more likely to encounter characters in the order presented in Chinese in a Flash cards.
Flashcards 888 are of a sturdier quality than Chinese in a Flash cards.
Both are approximately the same size.
Both have radicals mentioned. On Flashcards 888, radicals are provided in the upper right corner on the front of the card; on Chinese in a Flash cards, beside the radical is also noted the name of the character as well as character components.
On Flashcards 888, you'll also find a stroke order, helpful to know when you practice writing characters; Chinese in a Flash cards, do not provide a stroke order.
Both sets also mention several character combinations, together with their pronounciation in pinyin and the meaning in English.
Chinese in a Flash also provide a sample sentence where the particular character / word is used; Flashcards 888 don't.
Flashcards come in one set of 888 cards; Chinese in Flash come in two sets of 448 cards.
I am very happy with both sets and enjoy using them both.
As good as it gets October 11, 2005
Kim (Shanghai, China)
103 out of 104 found this review helpful
These are really wonderful aids and do all that a flashcard can be asked to do. Also, they DO provide a very detailed stroke order- I am puzzled why so many reviews comment that there is no stroke order. Perhaps there was an earlier edition? I will take and upload a photo, so other customers can see for themselves.
I find them superior to "Chinese Character Flashcards 888" and wish I would have saved my money as I purchased both sets. There is another review comparing them that is incorrect. These flashcards are more sturdy, have a more detailed stroke order (they break down every single stroke while the 888 set often groups them), provide a sample sentence as well as additional words using the character (888 only has a few sample words), and provide the traditional character along with the simplified when applicable (888 does too, but it's very small). They are superior in every way to the 888 set- I haven't even looked at the other set since the Tuttle set arrived. In fact, this is the first Amazon review I've written, and I do so to correct the misinformation I based my purchasing decision upon.
Another useful feature is that the first 500 flashcards in the set coincide exactly with the two Tuttle Language Library volumes "250 Essential Chinese Characters". So, if you're working your way through these books, these flashcards are the ideal study aid. (The labeling numbers coincide exactly...if learning character number 115 in the book, you can refer to flashcard 115.)
I am very happy with the cards and encourage their use as part of a well-rounded study program. It has been commented that individual characters have no real "meaning", so these cards have limited use. I disagree. Individual characters do have meaning and are used to represent a particular sound and tone. You must learn what sound goes with which character since characters are written individually with equal spacing- when reading Chinese, you need to pronounce each sound as you go along since characters are not grouped together to signal they are being used to build a particular word. Thus, each character needs to be learned individually since it can be used with many different characters to build different words. For example, "pengyou", meaning "friend", is written with two characters: one representing the sound "peng" (which means friend) and one representing "you" (which also means friend). But the character for "you" can also be combined with the character for "yi" which result in "youyi", meaning "friendship".
As far as the samples sentences go, they may potentially be confusing since they do not provide an exact word-for-word translation, but for someone with moderate experience (I've been studying Mandarin for 3 months now) they are very easy to understand. An exact translation wouldn't be very comprehensible anyway. I rarely find myself confused over which word represents which meaning, and if uncertain, it's easy enough to look up a troublesome word in the dictionary. It's all part of the learning process.
 Good for memorizing, but serious shortcomings May 1, 2005
M. Beise-Zee (Bangkok)
32 out of 40 found this review helpful
I love flash cards for chinese characters and I have used the Japanese kanji sets by the same publisher before. They are a great way for me to memorising. The cards are compact engough to carry them around and practise on the way, in trains, waiting time, etc. The good thing about these two Chinese sets is that traditional and simplified characters are displayed together. However, the problem with these cards is that single characters often have no real meaning, because they are used in combination with one or two other characters and then the meaning can be very different. (My Chinese wife often cannot tell what a separate character "means"). These flash cards make this characteristic very confusing, because one particular meaning is picked as a kind of "main meaning" which is fine (albeit not always correct), but the example sentences sometime uses a totally different meaning. It is even hard to figure out what the character means in the sentence. (For instance, one card explains "according to" as the "meaning" and the example sentence reads "How come you just walked in without ringing the doorbell?" got it?) A couple of cards further, the same character is used in an example sentences for a different character and this time it has a third meaning. Because of this flexibility of meanings, chinese characters are difficult to learn, but these cards do not make it easy but leave the reader guessing what it "means". One way to learn with these cards is to focus on the 4 example compounds for each character on the bottom of each card.
a good tool for busy students October 26, 2004
S. Willson (NYC)
26 out of 26 found this review helpful
When I bought this set, I didn't know my level, but as it turns out, the flash cards would probably benefit all but the most advanced students of Chinese. I've been working with only one-quarter of the set so far, and I've found that I already knew all the characters from my college Chinese class. However, each card has up to four vocabulary words on it, each one including the character on the front of the card. This way, I have been learning the supplemental vocabulary rather than using the cards for their (presumably) intended use.
That's not to say that they wouldn't be useful for beginners. Even without a textbook or a tutor, these cards are a good start to learning Chinese. However, without instruction, these cards cannot teach you stroke order or pronunciation, unless you know pinyin. On the other hand, they're much easier to use in a bus or a waiting room than a textbook or a tutor.
I can also picture these cards being very useful for teaching fluent speakers of Chinese to read simplified characters. The main character of each card is depicted in both simplified and traditional form, but the example phrases and sentences are only written in simplified characters--probably my only real complaint about the set. In all, it's a useful, comprehensive tool for Chinese students of most levels.
 Do not buy these cards from this publisher - they may be defective February 7, 2006
New World Order
24 out of 29 found this review helpful
I bought volume one of Chinese in a Flash, and - what can I say? - I was impressed. The cards were well made (I don't have the problems with sturdiness that other customers have) and well-put together. The only problem I had with Volume One was that I needed more - more characters, more information, more flashcards.
Many basic characters are missing from this volume, but it's called Volume One for a reason. Volume one leads quickly to Volume Two and Volume Two to the soon-to-be-published Volume Three. Any review of this product has to bear in mind that Volume Two (and possibly Three) are necessary for even the most casual learner.
This is where my trouble began. The set of cards I bought for Volume Two were defective. They were printed upside down on the back of the card. A defect that meant I couldn't use volumes One and Two together (as Volume One were printed one way and Volume Two the other). Not thinking that Tuttle (the publisher) would object, I emailed and asked them about their returns policy - and they promised a speedy resolution if I would only mail my cards in.
A problem, considering that I'm an international customer, but not insurmountable. Expensive, though, as mailing them cost about half the price of the cards as new! Once the cards were mailed, I was informed that they had arrived at the destination, but I would not get any cards for a few months.
Then I cracked and asked for a refund. I have not received a reply from the publisher regarding the refund. The email address I've been using to correspond with them has stopped working. I am left out of pocket for both the cost of an international packet and a set of cards and without even the defective cards!
Before you buy any products from this publisher, ask yourself what you will do if they're defective. Would you even know? Will your Chinese hosts be subjected to senseless or offensive gibberish? Will you be eating what you ordered at your local restaurant? I'll tell you one thing - you won't be getting your money back.
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