Mastering Chinese

CATHERINE HUA XIANG is East Asian Languages Coordinator at the LSE Language Centre, London where she is also Programme Director for the BSc International Relations and Chinese. She is also UK Director of the LSE Confucius Institute for Business London. She was previously Mandarin Chinese Coordinator, Language Centre, University of Bristol, UK.

'I've been using this book for about 4 months now, and I must say it is definitely a good book to have especially for beginners like myself! I found it very easy to comprehend, with English translations available for new phrases. Mastering Chinese not only covers reading and writing exercises, but also listening and speaking in the right tones - the CD comes in particularly handy here. The book is very well-structured, covering thoroughly the vital topics such as numbers, introducing oneself, transportations, date/time etc - basically it covers everything you need to know to survive on the streets of China! Its easy-to-grasp approach to the language makes it highly attractive, while its reasonably compact size makes it fit as a travel guide. Would definitely recommend it.' - Kelly Chung, Amazon 'The book guides you throughout, with English, Pinyin and Chinese characters, and youre given tasks to work through using the CD's. It is a great learning source for complete beginners, and even for those who may have known Mandarin before, but are now pretty rusty at it. It sucessfully teaches you to learn to speak well and recognize and write the characters. I can say that using this book, I have gotten A+ in my exams so far! :D Great book! - Nustun, Amazon 'I found this book considerably more useful than a standard dictionary, and in comparison to other Mandarin teaching books it is indispensible. ' - Matthew Green, Amazon 'This book is very suitable for adult learners, either for self-study or used in a classroom. The price of this book including CDs is very competitive too. A good book for meeting the increasing demands on learning Chinese in the UK. A big thank you to Catherine Hua Xiang for your dedication and hard work. Only a minor suggestion, perhaps the author can place a radical index at the back of the book, explaining the meanings of the common radicals to the learners, making the learning of characters a bit easier.' -Linlin Fang, University of Newcastle, UK