Books to Consider when Learning Chinese

Chinese is one of the hardest language but worth the time to learn since China is a big country filled with rich history. Even non Chinese people are taking the time to learn the language due to work, hobby or just to interact with Chinese speaking people. Here are my suggestions on some books that I do personally own out of my collection worth checking out.

1. Picture Chinese Art As Language by Sukming Lo- Out of some books that teaches Chinese, this one talks about the meaning of the word as well as a picture along on each page. Mainly used on kids since the author wanted to find some way to teach her daughter Chinese. The pictures are colorful and each pages have colors in them. Not only is it educational to learn but the pictures are a fun way to learn for the young kids. If you love seeing pictures, this is a great book to get. She also included Chinese pinyin words plus showing you how to write Chinese.

2. Practical Chinese Reader- You can get the updated version compare to the one I have with me. It started off teaching you how to say Hello in Mandarin Chinese where a girl is meeting up with a guy friend of hers in China. Pinyin is included with a picture or two and on each chapter talks about the grammar for some of the sentences with what they mean in Chinese. On the updated version, there are maybe 4 or 5 series where they continue on. The first series was where they were in China. The second series is where they were in America. If you would love to learn more on how to write more words in Chinese, buy this new edition in your local bookstore if they have it. Asians bookstore such as in Seattle Chinatown's KInokiniya have them.

3. Read and Write Chinese by Rita Mei Wah-Choy- She started the book off by talking about how you can find the Chinese words in the back of the book. She showed some ideograms that got evolve over time where they got the idea for each Chinese words. Explaining with a brief overview of what the single Chinese words mean in English with mandarin pinyin and Cantonese pingyam sounds. If you are not familiar on hearing either or both of the Chinese dialects of Cantonese and mandarin, I suggest you get their tapes that are in either Cantonese or mandarin. Get both of them if they still have them in stock.

4. Understanding Chinese by Rita Mei Wah-Choy- Another book written by the same author under number 3, she combine two or more Chinese words that tells the meaning in English. She include some everyday phrases in mandarin and Cantonese with a few errors on how to say them in Cantonese but besides that, this book is pretty good on teaching you some of the Chinese words. Just like Read and Write Chinese book, this edition also have it in tapes in Mandarin and Cantonese editions that you can choose to get from the same publisher company.

5. Chinese dictionaries- There are the updated Oxford edition in mandarin pinyin with Chinese and English meanings. I personally have the Concise version and with so many Chinese dictionaries out, choose wisely since they are a great addition to learning more mandarin Chinese with the four books I had listed here.

If your local bookstore doesn't have these in stock, you may either order them in person with one of the bookstore employees or go online to order some of these books. I suggest to not just using books to learn Chinese or other languages that you are not familiar with but get either CDs and/or tapes that come along with the book. When you are traveling or have some spare minutes to learn how to speak Chinese, they go great with not just speaking but learning how to read and write Chinese.