Intermediate to Advanced Textbook Recommendations

I am using the Boya reader right now it isn't too bad. The first few stories have been kind of boring but they have really good use of 成语。It also gives a Chinese definition for things as well as English so it gets you accustom to how words are explained in Chinese. I have a couple of other HSK books that I randomly look at but i don't like them. They are just words taken out of context and I can't get anything from just sitting down and memorizing an alphabitized set of 4000 characters.

For a second year university course, I used "Trip to China" by Chih-p'ing Chou & Der-lin Chao. This was after a year of 40 lessons in the older Practical Chinese Readers I and II. I liked the lessons. The topics of the lesson texts often focused on the negative aspects of China. However, after spending a couple weeks in China recently, I didn't see much there that really surprised me either good or bad. I've just started "Beyond the Basics" by Jianhua Bai, et al. I've only started the second lesson, so I don't have too much to comment on. So far it is seems OK.

Check out Cynthia Ning's just-published "Exploring in Chinese" (Yale University Press--US$40 per volume). Volume II is due out in September. I'm ordering the series for my upper-level students. "Exploring in Chinese is an intermediate-level multimedia Chinese program consisting of a student text and accompanying DVD that uses unscripted dialogues as the basis for students to make the transition from the basic skills acquired at the elementary level to the more complex comprehension skills required at the intermediate level". [from the Yale Press website] http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300115697

I didn't really like using "Trip to China" since there are quite a few mistakes and the material is dated. I don't know of any others, but that book might not be your best bet.

http://www.yale.edu/fep/catalog/mirror2.html Two books that I know on this page are good reads. intermediate; Talks On Chinese Culture - Vivian Ling 中文文化叢談 advanced; 思想與社會 Thought and Society An Advanced Spoken Chinese Text (now the version I have was published by Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies in Taipei-administered by Stanford University, but the Yale text has the same name so maybe there was a purchase in the recent past by Yale. I am not sure)

tianfeng, In your opinion, what is "really good use of 成语"? I'm curious...

Well used in the context of a story or sentence. i have books on 成语 that just list it and a rough English translation. I find it hard to figure out when and in what situations it should be used. Every time I study a new chapter I pick up new ones and have been pretty successful using them correctly. I get more complements about the use of 成语 than I do about anything else. I probably only have about 10 or 15 I use on a regular basis but it is something that needs time. I find the usage in this book suits my way of learning well.

I use the Chinesepod advanced lessons for reading practice. It's not quite my spoken level, but for reading, it works out pretty well. The media lessons would probably be good for someone more advanced than me. I've tried some other books. The ones that worked the best for me were collections of 成语故事。 They tend to be targetted at grade school or middle school children and have a good mix of cultural background, word usage and grammar points within them.