Skip to main content

The books I have been using to study Chinese

My experience with the GoChinese books 

I have been studying Chinese for 2 years and a half, an up to this moment I have been using the same books, which are: The GoChinese series. I have completed all the beginner books, and I'm currently about to finish the first intermediate book. 

So, full disclosure, I don't self-study with these books. I take Chinese classes and these are the books that are used in my language school; in my case they have been a great resource to learn Chinese. Also, it's important to mention that there are two versions: one is in simplified characters and the other is in traditional characters. In theory, they are supposed to have the same content and only the writing system changes. The version I have been using is in traditional characters, so this review will be based on those. 

The beginner series

I have finished the beginner series, both the textbooks and workbooks; the beginner series is from the Go100 to the Go400. Each book has 10 lessons and each lesson is about a different topic, per lesson you'll learn new vocabulary and three to four grammar structures depending on the level, also in the beginners books each lesson has 4 short reading, and usually they have 2 or 3 simple questions, and at the end of each lesson there are two more readings (one-page each), they also introduce new vocabulary in those readings. 

The intermediate books

I'm about to finish the first intermediate book (Go500) but the structure in all of this series is the same, just like the beginner series, these books also have 10 lessons, but the format is quite different; the vocabulary is much more and in a way I think it's a bit more helpful for daily life; also in this series you go more in depth into some topic that were previously seen in the beginner series, for example: in the beginner series there's a lesson about school clubs and subjects, and in the intermediate series there's also a lesson about school, but the vocabulary is much more specific, and  it introduces words like: :做實驗 (to make an experiment)  小組討論 (to have a group discussion) 校園(campus) 貼 (to paste) and much more. 

Another thing is that in these books instead of short readings they have one large story (around 2 pages) and apart from that at the end it also has another reading and a listening exercise. In the intermediate series, you learn 3 grammar structures per lesson, but the structures are a lot more complex than in the beginner series. In the grammar structures, you'll see a lot of modal particles and some rhetorical questions. 

My opinion on these books

I think the structure and the topics they covered are quite useful; also the stories are easy to understand, they have been a great resource, and they are the basis of my Chinese language skills. Something that is great about these books is that they don't have a lot of “text book phrases” there are only a few times when my teacher has said that a sentence was weird or simply not used by natives. 

I also really like the way the books are distributed because since the beginning of my Chinese language path I constantly felt like I was improving, because the books gave me the right amount of grammar and vocabulary, so I didn't feel stuck like it had happened to me with other languages in which I had too much vocabulary but little to no grammar, so I was not able to create sentences. 

How I use this books

As I mentioned earlier, I go to a language school, so I follow that structure. Per module apart from what we see in the books, my teacher also introduces us to more vocabulary, structures, etc. The way we use them might also be one of the reasons my skills have really improved, for each series we had a different approach which I'm going to share with you: 

In the beginner series we practically used the books as they are: my teacher added some extra content, but it was not a lot, and we used to complete three lessons per two months, and at the end of each lesson we used to complete the same lesson in the workbook. 

 In the intermediate series, things changed quite a lot. We no longer use Spanish for the classes, and my teacher teaches everything in Chinese for the grammar she gives examples and situations where the structure would be used and to understand the vocabulary we use definitions in Chinese or images, and we create sentences for each new word, so that she can check whether we understand it.

Can you self study with them? 

I think it's quite possible to self-study with these books, mainly in the beginner series, that series would give you some great basis, and you can use them similarly as I did. You should also take into consideration that these books are quite different to the HSK; they'll give you a lot of knowledge and your Chinese skills will improve, but if in the future you want to take the HSK you'll have to use other resources. 

In my opinion, the only disadvantage about these books is that sometimes the grammar explanations are a bit short, but you can solve these by looking up the grammar structures in ChineseGrammarWiki or feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the grammar, and I'll share my notes with you. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Manhuas, a game changer for improving your reading

How to use Manhuas to practice Chinese Improving your reading skills There are many ways to improve your Chinese skills, but when it comes to reading it's all about practice and constant immersion in the Chinese language, there are a lot of different resources that you can try like: books, articles, newspapers but the one I'm going to be focusing on this blog is practicing your reading through Manhuas (which are basically comics). Where can you find Manhuas? So there are a lot of different places where you can find them, for example if you want a physical copy you can find some on Amazon, but there's not a lot of variety, so the best options will be to read them online: there are some platforms that you can use for example: bilibili 漫画  or Webtoon , these two are both web platforms and Apps, so you can use them in the format that you prefer.  They are both free and quite easy to use, they quite similar, but the content in each one is quite different, another thing that is...
Post a Comment
Read more

What is going on with the 把 structure ?

The 把 structure The reason behind why you need he 把 structure The 把 structure is mostly used to add emphasis, the emphasis is added in the verb/result as it changes their usual position. This structure can be quite confusing, because in most western languages we don't have a structure that is remotely similar, so there is not a direct translation.  Even though this structure is quite hard, it's also really important, in my opinion it is fundamental. In addition, you will encounter this structure early on in your language journey. In my case I learned this structure in the GoChinese 400, and I'm also I'm pretty sure it's part of the HSK 3 coursework. What is the infamous 把 structure?  This structure is quite strict, from what I have learned up to now, the 把 structure never changes. It always follows its original pattern, which is : Subject+把+Object+Verb+ Result   The main uses of the 把 structure: 1)To emphasize that an action has finished Subject+把+Object+Verb+好了/忘了 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Small victories youll encounter in your Chinese Journey

Your language journey Everybody has its own path when it comes to language learning, they are all beautiful but completely different, but there are some victories that will happen in most people's language journey. It's important to care about these victories and appreciate it them because these will help you to stay motivated. My experience Up to this point I have been studying Chinese for more than 2 years and a half and I honestly love this language, but I have had my rough patch, mainly when I first started to learn Chinese. I remember that there was a moment I really wanted to quit and this happened on my third module, which was around my 4th month studying Chinese, I was feeling quite frustrated because I was not able to understand a lot of things and I felt like I was not as good as my classmates and to be honest I was not enjoying it; but one on these small victories helped me to stay motivated, and I'm so glad that I was able ...
Post a Comment
Read more