250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use: Volume 1

by Philip Yungkin Lee and Darell Tibbles

Book Overview

This is an invaluable study guide for learning basic Chinese characters. 250 Essential Chinese Characters Volume 1 is a second edition, completely revised and with 50 percent new material. Featuring a new design; tips for Chinese language mastery throughout; exercises in AP-exam format; progressive review sections; and several indices, this volume is a crucial learning tool for anyone interested in Chinese. Master each character's radical, stroke...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804833591
• ISBN13: 9780804833592
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.2" x 11.1"

Customer Reviews

A fine way to learn Chinese Characters

I love this book. If you're looking to get started on the written Chinese language, I really can't think of a better source of instruction. Each page consists of one single character. For each character every stroke is broken down, the character is explained and half the page is empty squares of practice space. You can also buy flash cards that go along with the book. Writing in Chinese is the best thing ever and if you've wanted a good starting spot then here it is. After you finish this one there is another book of 250 more characters. I like this, it's good and it does me well.

Highly recommended for people at right stage of study.

I love this book. I am learning conversational Chinese and pinyin, and even gaining a basic knowledge of the Hanzi adds a whole new dimension. Not only do I find learning the charaters fun - they really are quite beautiful things - but quite often I have 'penny dropping' moments where something about a character fills a gap in my understanding and things make more sense. As an aside, I am amazed at how logically Chinese works, and am so glad I don't have to learn English. To be clear, I would not recommend this to someone with NO knowledge of Chinese. You need to HEAR the language and pronunciation first and foremost. But even at my basic stage (around a 450 word vocab), starting the Hanzi is wonderful. I had actually picked up the 'first' 100 or so just by studying pinyin and looking at the Hanzi supplied, but being given the stroke order is a major help. One small suggestion for the author or editors if they ever read this: Adding some arrows on the diagrams to make it 100% clear which way some of the smaller strokes should be drawn would make it even more helpful. xiexie Mr Lee.

Absolutely FABULOUS!

As a linguistic slow-learner, I have found this book to be a GODSEND! I LOVE IT!!! The big blank spaces for practicing are awesome! The little mini-tests throughout the book really challenge you to know your stuff! Combine this with the matching flashcards and you can learn your Putonghua in a jiffy! :)

I will buy Volume 2 for sure

2 months ago I had no knowledge of Chinese at all, and now I can recognize more than 150 characters easily. The only material I studied so far was this book, and it has been an excellent start for someone who wants to learn how to read Chinese by himself.I decided that the first step I would take to study Chinese would be to recognize characters and its meanings, and only later to study grammar in detail. To recognize characters is not enough, since most of the Chinese words are formed by 2 characters, but if you know their meanings well, it will be a lot easier to learn the words later.Another plus is that this book is based on the simplified characters, which are used in mainland China. Take care when you select a book, because a lot of them are based on the full form characters, which are used only in Taiwan and Hong Kong.