About this product

Product Information

Fundamental Written Chinese teaches both mastery of individual characters and reading comprehension. It introduces characters gradually, moving from simple independent characters to more complex compound ones. How characters are organized and constructed is taught through the liberal use of charts that display the structural and organizational regularities of each character, that is, its radical, phonetic component, shared graphic components, stroke order, and principles of proportion. This knowledge is then reinforced by exercises at the end of each chapter that require students to draw on the compositional information presented in the charts. Reading skills are taught through written passages that are accompanied by questions and exercises. Chapters begin with a reading passage and end with one or two shorter supplementary passages. Because words in Chinese are often composed of two different characters and because the optimum method for introducing new characters requires limiting the number of new radicals and structurally unrelated characters that can appear in any one character, many of the written texts in Fundamental Written Chinese make limited use of a Hanyu Pinyin-plus-character system of writing. This makes it possible for the text to remain faithful to a very controlled approach to character learning while allowing students to read passages that are within the scope of their abilities in spoken Chinese. The authors of Fundamental Written Chinese and its accompanying text, Fundamental Spoken Chinese, treat written and spoken language as two different but related systems that are most effectively learned by delinking the sequence in which the particulars of each system is taught. Such an approach insures that reading and writing skills are firmly grounded in the spoken vocabulary and grammar previously learned. Both volumes are designed to provide students with a systematic, knowledge-based approach to speaking, listening, reading, and writing Chinese. Accompanying MP3 audio files are available for download: http: //www.hawaii.edu/uhpress/mp3/fwc/

Product Identifiers

PublisherUniversity of Hawaii Press

ISBN-100824831578

ISBN-139780824831578

eBay Product ID (ePID)71265517

Product Key Features

Number of Pages384 Pages

Publication NameFundamental Written Chinese

LanguageEnglish

SubjectChinese

Publication Year2009

TypeLanguage Course

AuthorMargaret Lee, Nora YAO, Robert Sanders

Subject AreaForeign Language Study

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight32.1 Oz

Item Length10 in

Item Width7.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceL

LCCN2008-055802

ReviewsLearners of Chinese will find [Fundamental Spoken Chinese and Fundamental Written Chinese,] . . . which can be used together or separately, helpful in that they provide clear and straightforward explanations about Chinese grammar points and an informative analysis of Chinese characters. As a result, [they make] the teacher's job much easier.

Dewey Edition22

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal495.1/11

Lc Classification NumberPl1171.Y345 2009