If your goal is to learn Mandarin for business, this is the book for you. Maybe business students are the ones they usually have sign up for the class. It is Atlanta after all, lots of business. Thankfully the instructor did not require the book for the first month. He instead took his time making sure we knew our 拼音 “pinyin”. To keep things interesting he also brought photocopied sheets from other books.
The fateful day came and we started lesson one:
(To see the rest of the lesson text, click here and search inside the book)
In retrospect I suppose it could be worse. But then I got out the CD for lesson one and listened to the dialogue. I've wondered who has used this book and found success with it. I sure didn't. The dialogue is read at a quick clip, the way you and I speak in our mother tongues. This is for beginners? I had to rip the tracks to my computer and use some software to slow it down. This effectively made the dialogue comprehensible and masculine. She was now a he on drugs.
After seven lessons and many complaints (which our instructor was gracious enough to listen to) we have switched to a new text.
I'm glad I've got the book. I did learn a few things from it. There are still words I remember from our lessons in this book. I wouldn't recommend it as starting text though. Unless you're all business.
Anyone else out there used this book?
1 comment:
I am taking this class starting tonight 7/29. They are still using this book.
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