Basic Mandarin Chinese - Speaking & Listening Practice Book - by Cornelius C Kubler & Yang Wang (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This comprehensive Mandarin workbook can be used with any textbook or on its own to dramatically enhance your Mandarin speaking and listening skills.

No matter what textbook you're using to learn Mandarin, it requires a lot of practice. Here is a wealth of effective activities and drills--plus over 16 hours of audio recordings--to help you improve your spoken Mandarin Chinese quickly and effectively.

This book follows the Basic Mandarin Chinese--Speaking & Listening textbook but works equally well with other coursebooks or on its own. The free companion resources contain hours of audio recording as well as printable PDF files providing hundreds of pages of extra practice exercises and activities.

Basic Mandarin Chinese--Speaking & Listening Practice Book includes hundreds of carefully designed activities to help you with every aspect of your speaking skills, including:

• Pronunciation exercises
• Vocabulary and Grammar summaries
• Substitution drills
• Transformation and Response drills
• Role Playing and Listening Comprehension
• Dictation exercises
• Translation exercises

The companion media kit contains:

• 16 hours of audio recordings by native Mandarin speakers
• Printable practice pages
• Printable exercises and activities

About the Basic Mandarin Chinese series:
Respected Chinese language educator Dr. Cornelius Kubler has taught Mandarin Chinese to diplomats, business people and students for several decades--using an effective learning system with two separate but integrated "tracks" to help you learn the spoken and written forms of the language more efficiently and more successfully. The materials in this series have been acclaimed as a breakthrough in Mandarin Chinese language learning. This book is a new edition of Basic Spoken Chinese: Practice Essentials.

All media content is accessible on the Tuttle Publishing website.

Review Quotes

"A breath of fresh air... Its dual track for spoken and written language finally gives American students a chance to develop oral proficiency without being slowed down by the character writing... An ideal textbook for any program that seeks to advance rapidly in spoken Chinese and to fully prepare the students for their encounter with China." --Dr. Jingqi Fu, Associate Professor of Chinese, St. Mary's College of Maryland

"Contextualized so learners know not only what to say, but why, when, and with whom it is appropriate to use such language. ...thorough and clear...refreshing." --Dr. Matthew Christensen, Associate Professor of Chinese, Brigham Young University

"I have been teaching Chinese to high school students for over 25 years and have used a variety of texts. I decided to try Basic Spoken Chinese (BSC) with one of my classes on an experimental level, and I have to say it is the best text of its kind that I have ever seen. --Richard Ayres, St. Xavier High School, Louisville, KY

"Kubler's books distinguish themselves with natural, culturally-rooted dialogues, detailed notes (for both written and spoken language), generous practice activities and an amazing care for organization. These books will be valuable tools for both students and their teachers." --Prof. Eric Pelzl, Wisconsin Lutheran College

"Meticulously planned, carefully prepared and patiently tested for over a decade, the Basic Chinese series represents the most comprehensive introductory materials available now. The eclectic approach, the flexibility in use, the attention to authenticity of language in its sociolinguistic context, the myriad of audio and visual aids, and the array of rigorously designed exercises makes the Basic Chinese the ideal material for any committed learner embarking on the journey of learning the Chinese language." --Dr. Jun Yang, Senior Lecturer in Chinese, University of Chicago

"Outstanding for its carefully graduated presentation of material in easily digestible sub-units, comprehensive and clearly written grammatical and cultural notes, and perhaps most important of all, its separation of the task of learning to speak the language from the very different processes of learning to read and write Chinese characters... The most exciting Chinese language textbook I have seen in many years." --Dr. James E. Dew, retired associate professor of Chinese, University of Michigan; former Director of the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies in Taipei

"Professor Kubler in a detailed manner explains the structure of Mandarin sentences and does a good job comparing Mandarin sentences with the corresponding English ones, highlighting many of the pitfalls faced by the average English speakers trying to learn Chinese." -- Study More Chinese

"This is one of the best elementary Chinese textbooks, I believe, ever produced in the history of teaching Chinese as a second language... A great and unique work which will benefit students and teachers for many years to come." --Dr. Shengli Feng, Professor of Chinese Linguistics, Chinese University of Hong Kong

About the Author

Cornelius C. Kubler received his Ph.D. in linguistics from Cornell and is currently the Stanfield Professor of Asian Studies at Williams College. Since joining Williams, he has chaired the Department of Chinese and held visiting professor posts at Middlebury, National Taiwan Normal University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and other universities. He has authored many books and articles on Chinese pedagogy and linguistics, and he served as a consultant for many Chinese language programs in the U.S. and abroad, including orientation programs for Chinese language teachers arriving in the U.S. He has chaired the SAT Chinese exam Test Development Committee and recently completed a two-year stint as Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Nanjing University Center for Chinese & American Studies in Nanjing, China.

Jerling Guo Kubler is a graduate of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of Soochow University in Taipei. Her experience in language education spans several decades, and she has taught Chinese as a second/foreign language, all levels, from pre-kindergarten to university, at institutions in the U.S. and Taiwan, including Williams College, Eisenhower College and the Taipei Language Institute.