Chinese 24/7: Everyday Strategies for Speaking and Understanding Mandarin

Better than class.

This book is better than the textbooks I used in university. I'm currently living in China and brought both this and the texts. This one is more fun to use and teaches better. It explains how to use the language, what to use and when and why, tells you as much or as little as you want to know, and helps you feel better about not getting everything right as even the Chinese have problems with some grammar points. It even teaches you how to learn on the spot and gives advice for developing learning strategies. It's quick, easy, and fun to use. My Chinese boyfriend looked through the book and said it's really good because it teaches you Chinese as it's REALLY spoken, not the textbook Chinese which is sometimes too formal or antiquated, or just doesn't have the same connotation as it does in everyday life in China. It's already helped to broaden the communication lines between my boyfriend and me.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

My Mandarin Chinese Improves Daily

I live and work in mainland China. Every single day I am speaking better Mandarin Chinese by simply looking up words in a pocket dictionary and studying my copy of _Chinese 24/7_. These are the only books I'll need to develop my understanding of Mandarin Chinese.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Candor Book Review

Is it possible to be bad in a town that is perfect? Candor is a model town where all of its citizens know what the right thing to do is and always do it. Subliminal messages make sure of that. The town is saturated with different music that is always playing, with subliminal messages hidden in them. The subconscious hears them and obeys. Everything is perfect in Candor. Everything except Oscar Banks, the beloved son of the town's founder, Campbell Banks. Oscar has everyone fooled, even his father, into thinking that he is the model citizen. He has perfect grades, a perfect girlfriend, and when he's not studying for an upcoming exam he's writing college admissions letters. But Oscar is a very cunning young man, he takes on new children in town as "clients" and collects a large amount of money from them in exchange for their escape from Candor. Then along comes Antonia Silva. Affectionately called Nia. He finds her outside skateboarding and immediately is interested. He finds it harder and harder to concentrate on being good when he's around her. He finds her interesting and doesn't want the messages to change her. Oscar goes through so much mentally in this book, always fighting the messages that tell him to be good, to be the model citizen his father thinks he is. Will Oscar be able to hold onto his facade with Nia around?

Great book for anybody who wants to learn REAL Chinese

He understands what a western learner goes through, unlike all those Chinese grannies from BLCU writing books containing language that no one speaks on the streets anymore (except for the other grannies they meet in the park) and using teaching methods which would apply best to Chinese infants, not to western adults.

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