Читать книгу Chinese Phrase A Day Practice Volume 1 - Sam Brier - Страница 7

Introduction

Although more people are studying Chinese than ever before, others are still wary of starting because they believe “it’s just too difficult.” But A Chinese Phrase A Day will show absolute beginners that Chinese is in many ways much easier than other languages; and it will help intermediate learners review and improve upon their past studies.

With almost no grammar or tense, no verb conjugation, and a consistency that English, Spanish, French and Japanese learners can only wish for, Chinese enables you to start conversing relatively quickly.

This calendar-like desk companion is divided into monthly topics and builds upon itself, one day at a time. Phrases are kept short, simple and functional.

Each page includes three components:

1. the Chinese characters,

2. the Chinese transliteration, and

3. the English phrase.

Audio for all of the Chinese Phrase A Day entries is available online. Listening and repeating after the native speakers in the audio files will help you to polish your Chinese. Go to www.tuttlepublishing.com to practice your pronunciation each day!

To begin, let’s learn the basics about Chinese pronunciation and the tones. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that each consonant and vowel in Chinese has only one pronunciation with only two exceptions. A few tone marks have been changed to best reflect the spoken word.