Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition | 
| Author: William Mcnaughton
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $13.94
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Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 44452
Media: Paperback
Edition: Bilingual
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0804835098
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.182421
UPC: 676251835090
EAN: 9780804835091
ASIN: 0804835098
Publication Date: July 15, 2005
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Product Description
This is a revised third edition of Tuttle's Reading & Writing Chinese.
This new edition focuses on the internationally recognized test of proficiency in Chinese, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK). All 800 characters prescribed for Level A are covered here, and the 1400+ Levels B and C characters are covered concisely.
All of the prescribed vocabulary for Levels A-C of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi is included among the example compounds. Knowledge of the 2,200+ characters and 5,253+ vocabulary items covered will equip students to take the test at either the Basic or the Elementary-Intermediate standard. Success in the top band of the Basic standard is sufficient to enter college in China.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 A good list of characters, not a good standalone resource January 29, 2007
Steven Grimm (Sunnyvale, CA USA)
42 out of 43 found this review helpful
I started learning to write Chinese by working my way through this book, memorizing the characters, pronunciation, and definitions. Now I sort of regret it. The list of characters is reasonable enough. If your goal is to memorize a bunch of characters, these are good ones to concentrate on, and they're generally presented in a reasonable order. The stroke order diagrams are helpful when you're first starting out, and it isn't a problem that they're only present for the first half of the list of characters; by the time you finish the part of the book with the diagrams, you will have long since developed a good intuitive sense of the stroke order rules.
Unfortunately, beyond the selection of characters and the diagrams, it kind of falls short.
My biggest complaint is that the definitions are often not good. When a character has multiple meanings (as most of them do) you can't count on the most common meaning being first in the list, and in some cases common meanings aren't listed at all. If you're using the definitions to make flashcards, you'll be frustrated by the number of times two characters are given exactly the same English definition, even though in reality they differ in connotation or in usage.
There is never any distinction made between characters that stand as words on their own and characters that only ever appear as parts of compound words, which will definitely trip you up a lot if you're using this as a source of vocabulary. And the compound words are sometimes obscure or very old-fashioned terms that, if you say them to a Chinese speaker, will cause them to give you a puzzled look and ask where the heck you learned THAT old word.
The font used for the characters is a typewritten one. If you learn to write the characters as printed in this book, you will end up writing in a very precise but somewhat mechanical-looking style rather than a more artistic handwritten style. Whether that's a plus or a minus is up to your sense of aesthetics. The traditional character edition of this book uses a handwritten font; even though I'm primarily learning simplified characters, if I had it to do over again I'd have picked up that edition instead. (Both editions actually contain both character forms; the difference is mostly the font and the order of the entries.)
If you get this book, use it as a list of characters to learn and a large collection of stroke order diagrams. Keep a real dictionary handy and it'll be a worthwhile learning resource.
Same problems as traditional version: Index riddled with errors August 9, 2005
K. Buckshi (Hong Kong China)
34 out of 46 found this review helpful
The first entry I looked up in the index, 'xiang(1,4)', was listed as being on p 368 but in reality was on p 386. Pretty bad for a reference book, where being able to look things up is kind of important. Looks like they learned nothing from publishing the original, traditional characters, version. That index was also error-ridden.
This could've been a very useful book if they had hired an editor or even a proofreader. Shameful job.
 A Beautiful Picture of Chinese Characters September 15, 2005
William T. Knipe (New York, NY)
24 out of 28 found this review helpful
Forget the other character books ! This is the one that
will get you over this hurdle ! Clear and sharp pictures of
every character, together with stroke order, pronunciation and
relation to other characters. Go after the big first thousand,
and then you will be ready to tackle the following 2000. This
book points out all the dangers and traps you'll run into in
your quest for mastery. You'll love it and keep it under your
pillow ! Bill K.
Invaluable June 20, 2006
Matthew D. Stidle (Pittsburgh)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book has been the single most important resource in developing my budding ability to read and write Chinese. The concept of introducing the most fundamental radicals before even the very common characters that employ them is wonderful...I took a year of Chinese in college and struggled to learn the characters with almost nothing to grasp on to, struggling to memorize what seemed like totally arbitrary pictures.
This book first introduces the building blocks of each character -- the radicals -- and then explains to you how their sounds and meanings combine to form new, complex characters. Now every time I come upon a new character in a textbook I am learning from, I look it up in this book to see if there is a clever mnemonic or phonetic element that will help me remember it more easily. A great help.
 Mediocre Job December 9, 2006
IreneR (US)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book is not very useful apart from checking the stroke order. Apart from the stroke order, each Hanzi is accompanied by several combinations in which it appears. BUT: it has poor and inconsistent information about the origins and meanings of characters, doesn't give you mnemonics or any suggestions on remebering a character, or doesn't even tell you what radicals/components a certain hanzi consists of and where you can find them in the book. Don't waste your money.
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