Mandarin Textbook whose origin is not China?

xiaophil
 July 05, 2011, 01:45 PM posted in I Have a Question

I'm trying to find respected Mandarin textbooks that haven't originated in China. I am interested in them being pinyin and simplified character based.  American publishers would probably be best, but I would be interested in hearing about any good textbook other than those from China.  I'm most interested in high-school level textbooks, but middle school and elementary would be appreciated as well.  Anybody got any ideas?

Thanks

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kimiik
 July 03, 2011, 08:01 PM

Méthode d'initiation à la langue et écriture chinoise (Joël Bellassen)

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xiaophil

Thanks Kimiik, I once studied French. If I used this textbook, I could kill two birds with one stone, heh heh.

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xiaophil
 July 05, 2011, 01:48 PM

Any takers?  Someone must have learned Mandarin in the US or other place without using Beijing study materials.

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ElijahW
 July 05, 2011, 01:51 PM

I've talked to some people who studied in the U.S. They all used Integrated Chinese at the college level.

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xiaophil

Thanks a lot! If it is convenient, I would like to know if those people thought Integrated Chinese is a good textbook.

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ElijahW

The person I've talked to the most said she really liked it. Of course, she had never studied with any other materials before. The folks on Amazon seem rather opinionated (generally positive), but I've noticed that Chinese curriculum can polarize people faster than politics.

http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Chinese-Simplified-Character-Textbook/dp/0887275338/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1309936576&sr=8-4

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babyeggplant
 July 06, 2011, 07:48 AM

I ended up buying Chinese Link for a Chinese class that I was planning on auditing during college. I never ended up going to the class, but I did use the book a couple of years later when I first started learning Chinese by self study. I used the book, accompanying CDs, and the workbook that taught you how to write each new character that you were learning. I believe the book teaches about 800 characters, and each new lesson builds upon the previously learned material which I liked. There were also a few cultural references related to the the lesson material. I feel like this book gave me a great foundation (along with CP that I was using at the time).

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Link-Simplified-Level-Part/dp/0131564420/ref=pd_sim_b_2