Here are some books I recommend. You may still have time to buy some of these for others (or persuade others to buy for you) before Christmas.
In a departure from my usual practice, all of the images below are linked to Amazon — in part to make things easier for most readers of this site but also because I’m a bit curious to see if the potential kickbacks from that site would ever add up to enough to buy myself some books I’ve been wanting. Mainly, though, I’d like to see these books make it into the hands of more readers. This isn’t meant to be a complete list; but it’s a good start.
One of these days I’ll post about the works below I haven’t written about previously.
Dictionaries
ABC English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary, edited by John DeFrancis and Zhang Yanyin. This is the Mandarin-English/English-Mandarin dictionary that every student needs. Suitable for all ages and levels. It’s small enough to carry with you. And at US$20 or even less it’s a bargain too. For an e-edition, get Wenlin (see below). Description. Excerpt from Mandarin –> English half. Excerpt from English –> Mandarin half.
ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, edited by John DeFrancis. The best large Mandarin-English dictionary. Entries are arranged alphabetically, by words, rather than head Chinese characters. Note: This is a Mandarin –> English dictionary and does not offer an English –> Mandarin section. For an e-edition (which does allow for the lookup of English words), get Wenlin (see below). Sample of what entries in this dictionary look like.
Readers
Chinese Biographies: Lang Lang, by Grace Wu. Pinyin-annotated biography of pianist Lang Lang, with English notes. There’s also a helpful Web site with additional resources. Ideal for beginning and intermediate students.
Chinese Biographies: Yao Ming, by Grace Wu. Pinyin-annotated biography of basketball star Yao Ming, with English notes. There’s also a helpful Web site with additional resources. Ideal for beginning and intermediate students.
The Besieged City (Abridged Chinese Classic Series), by Qian Zhongshu. Pinyin-annotated abridged version of a terrific Chinese novel
. With notes in English, proper word-parsed Hanyu Pinyin for the entire text, simplified Chinese characters, and a CD with MP3 files of the entire book being read aloud. Excerpt.
Family (abridged and annotated edition, with full Hanyu Pinyin), by Ba Jin. With notes in English, proper word-parsed Hanyu Pinyin for the entire text, simplified Chinese characters, and a CD with MP3 files of the entire book being read aloud. Excerpt.
Spring (abridged and annotated edition, with full Hanyu Pinyin), by Ba Jin. With notes in English, proper word-parsed Hanyu Pinyin for the entire text, simplified Chinese characters, and a CD with MP3 files of the entire book being read aloud. Excerpt.
Autumn, (abridged and annotated edition, with full Hanyu Pinyin), by Ba Jin. With notes in English, proper word-parsed Hanyu Pinyin for the entire text, simplified Chinese characters, and a CD with MP3 files of the entire book being read aloud. Excerpts.Textbooks
Basic Spoken Chinese: An Introduction to Speaking and Listening for Beginners, by Cornelius C. Kubler. Although this book is not in orthographically standard Pinyin, it’s nonetheless strong. A practical, real-world textbook that focuses on learning the language, not getting beginners bogged down memorizing character after character.
Fundamental Spoken Chinese, by Robert Sanders. Another excellent textbook. Audio files are available online. Excerpt.Background
The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, by John DeFrancis. Essential reading. This book will inoculate you against the absolute nonsense that many people — including all too many teachers — believe about Chinese characters. Excerpt.
Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma, by William C. Hannas. A wide-ranging, detailed book that discusses some of the drawbacks of the continued use of Chinese characters. Excerpt.
Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar, by Li and Thompson. Good for the linguistically inclined. Just about the only Chinese characters in this book are on the cover, which, yes, I consider to be a good thing. Software
Wenlin software for learning Chinese, version 4. I use this on a daily basis. This incorporates both dictionaries listed above.Beyond This List
Here are some things not listed above, in most cases because Amazon doesn’t stock them.
- Pinyin Riji Duanwen, by Zhang Liqing. A book of largely autobiographical short stories, written entirely in Hanyu Pinyin (except for one brief letter in English). For intermediate and advanced learners — and for native speakers of Mandarin as well. At just US$5, plus shipping, this is the least expensive work on this list. The complete text is also available for free online, though a URL just doesn’t have that same Christmas feeling as a physical book, does it?
- Any or all of the three volumes in Y.R. Chao’s Sayable Chinese series. For intermediate and advanced learners — and for native speakers of Mandarin as well. Note: These books are in Chinese characters and Gwoyeu Romatzyh, not Hanyu Pinyin, so for most people the learning curve is steeper than for reading something in Hanyu Pinyin. With some notes in English. Excerpt (Gwoyeu Romatzyh column only).
- Other works on my recommended readings list, which may be available at Amazon but which may or may not fit well on a list for Mandarin learners.
- KEY5 2011 Multimedia — a different sort of software than Wenlin but one that offers excellent Pinyin support.
Great list of stuff! I’d never seen those biographies of Yao Ming and Lang Lang. They might be pretty good for learners! Big DeFrancis fan? We’ve done Amazon for a while now and I’ve only made 10 bucks. But good timing for your post because the holidays are always the best time! I posted you on Twitter and Google+!!!
Those are some great suggestions!
I’ll definitely try to check out “The Besieged City.” I got about 10% through an unannotated version, but gave up, so this version seems really appealing.
Also, I thought I should point out that the Mandarin Chinese Functional Reference Grammar is by Li and Thompson, not Li and Li.
If you want an electronic version of the ABC dictionaries that’s portable (or simply costs less than a $179 Wenlin license), I highly recommend the Pleco dictionary for iOS/Windows Mobile/Palm. The ABC C-E and E-C varieties are $30 and $15 respectively. There are also numerous other nifty features (some requiring additional payment) like a “Rikaichan-like” web/document/clipboard reader, OCR-based lookup, etc.
I’ve heard good things about Pleco but have never tried it out myself.
I thought I’d report on my Amazon experiment: US$11.60 between December 9 and Christmas — not exactly a fortune (so I doubt I’ll take the trouble to repeat the experiment), but certainly better than nothing.
Thanks to everyone who bought something through this page. But please keep reading, regardless of how you procure these useful texts.
Shèngdàn kuàilè!
Here is the link for Chinese Biographies companion website
http://www.chinesebiographies.com/
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