Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters | 
| Authors: Alison Matthews, Laurence Matthews
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.67
You Save: $11.28 (38%)
New (31) Used (10) from $14.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 6197
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 1
ISBN: 080483816X
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.111
EAN: 9780804838160
ASIN: 080483816X
Publication Date: August 15, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
Aimed at helping students of Chinese learn and remember Chinese characters, including the pronunciation of characters, fast and effectively, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 is a systematic study aid to this difficult language.
Designed specifically to ease students into the daunting process of learning Chinese characters, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 incorporates the key principle of visual imagery. A book for serious learners of Chinese, it can be used alongside (or after, or even before) a course in the Chinese language. Concise, clear and appealing, this practical guide is well designed and includes an easy-to-use index.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Best Book to learn chinese characters September 29, 2008
I have tried many books, audios, dvds and I found this book extremely clever - it presents the information in a clear manner and attached each symbol to a story; it is really easy to memorize characters following this book, Highly reccomend it as well as "A chinese character a day" (pad) -by Philip Yungkin Lee - also check out www.chinesepod.com great stuff.
Great for Learning Chinese with minimal knowledge of the language September 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have purchase many publications and some av materials intended to RE-learn Chinese. Heller's approach is the effective and easy to follow.
Great September 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I agree with the other glowing reviews. One of the hard things about Mandarin is remembering the tone of the words. There are four tones - high, rising, falling/rising, and falling. The characters are either building block characters or formed out of two (and rarely three) building block. E.g., the character for good is comprised of the symbol for woman and child and it has a falling/rising tone.
The book has a "dorky" story about each character that help you remember the constituent building blocks which has one of 4 prototype characters woven into the story depending on the tone. Thus, if I am trying to remember the character for lamp, there is story about a giant (which signifies first tone) and fire and nail (the two constituent buiding blocks) plus a sound word which helps to jog the memory.
As someone who went through medical school, I appreciate good mnemonics. This is an excellent book. If you want to learn the hanzi (Chinese characters), just get this book! It teaches the 800 most common characters. But also, it teaches a method to learn even more. When I see a character now, I start making up my own stories following the pattern of the book.
makes it easy September 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
When you start the book, it doesn't seem like it is going to work. But it does somehow, and it is a rather fun read. I can picture myself going through all 800 characters (I'm in the 50's now) in slow but steady fashion, reviewing them at lunch each day.
 Tuttle Strikes Again July 18, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Following the success of their popular books on learning Japanese, Tuttle releases its first comprehensive guide to learning Chinese characters with mnemonics. Matthews presents an organized and thorough system for learning the 800 most basic hanzi by creating a short, visual story to associate with each character. While some of the stories are simple and effective, others seem to be too long and complicated to actually help the beginning learner of the language. Words referencing pronunciation and English translation are written in bold in the text, but it sometimes becomes difficult during recall to remember which was which. A solid effort and a good desk reference, but some of the stories - which require the reader to remember the special linguistic significance of flying saucers, ghosts, and dwarves, among others - could be edited for length and clarity.
Nathan Dummitt
author of Chinese Through Tone & Color
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