We don't have it yet, but I'm sure we will offer it as soon as available. And yes, I will update all of you as soon as ChildBook has it.
In the meantime, if you need any of the items in New Practical Chinese Reader 1-5, we do have the textbooks, CDs for the textbooks, workbooks, CDs for the workbooks and teachers' guides.
Please note that there are different CDs for the textbooks and workbooks, so you learn a lot more words than when using the usual textbooks that come with only 1 CD per level.
One nice thing about New Practical Chinese Reader is they have videos of the storyline in the textbook series. If you haven't seen the videos, here is a sample of the dramatization:
Do check out all the videos and use New Practical Chinese Reader for your Chinese lessons. This series is especially made for late teens or early 20's set to learn Chinese easily.
New Practical Chinese Reader has over 300,000 books sold! It seems to be the most widely used book for college classes. The number of books sold just amazes me.
I created a table for New Practical Chinese Reader showing the Textbooks, workbooks, CD for textbooks, CD for workbooks, and instructor manuals. On the same page there is more info. on the contents and sample pages.
I like it when users talk about the content of Learning-Chinese textbooks. I learn about how easy or difficult it is to use. Students usually have great comments on what works or don't in using the book.
I am amused however, when users actually talk about the storyline of a textbook. I have noticed this a year or so ago, but ignored it until I recently joined a Chinese forum.
Now, we were taught gossiping is not a good thing, but if for example, I find my teenage son gossiping about a textbook character, then I think I would be all for it.
This means the textbook is very interesting for the target user. For New Practical Chinese Reader, that would be teen-agers, so it's understandable.
As a parent, I would prefer it that way, because this means my teen-ager will willingly use the higher levels of a learning-Chinese textbook. I think it's a mean feat for a language textbook to attract the attention of a user this way.
I think it was also mentioned in that forum thread that the story line stopped for level 4. The focus of Book 5 was more on classic Chinese materials that the students would need. Yes, I sensed disappointment and somebody mentioned the boyfriend issue should be resolved in Level 6.
I heard Level 6 is out, and ChildBook will surely have it when available, so let's see if it will be resolved.
It's nice that people are using the New Practical Chinese Reader books, and their cameras to practice their own versions of the new Practical Chinese Reader storyline.
I think it is a good idea to video tape yourself if you are studying Chinese. That way you can see how you say things and how you look, and you can assess yourself what can be done to improve your Chinese-speaking skills.
Here are some user-videos made using dialogues of NPCR
School Projects:
Class practice sessions:
For those who are interested to use the New Practical Chinese Reader books, yes, these are available from ChildBook. As you may have seen in the videos, the books are designed for late teens and early 20's students.
ChildBook is finally carrying the New Practical Chinese Reader, a compilation of Chinese lesson books edited by Liu Xiun. They are inspired by the original De Francis Practical Chinese Reader books. Authors combined the different teaching styles and came up with this series.
So they came up with a learn Chinese textbook that: 1) teaches Chinese conversation 2) teaches structure, and still 3) teaches cultural contexts of the Chinese culture.
There are mixed reviews on the books if you google about, but generally people agree there is an improvement. I also got the impression that one of the strengths of the series is teaching the writing of Chinese characters.
What impressed me are the audio CDs that complement the textbooks (sold separately). Per textbook, there are about 4 CDs available! I like this because I know how important it is to know the sounds and tones when learning Chinese. And in today's world and technologies available, there's no excuse now to not learn the proper tones. I am also intrigued that even the workbooks have audio CDs. Somehow I feel safer learning Chinese if there are conversations to emulate.
Anyhoo, to make the lessons more interesting, the original characters in the First Practical Chinese Reader now have families. It is now their children’s turn to learn about the Chinese language and culture, and the series revolves around their stories of learning.
