Sunday, October 9, 2011

Learn Chinese Through Songs and Rhymes - Lydia Lin

Publisher:  CreateSpace
Pages:  400
Genre:  Instructional Bilingual
Source:  I received a copy from the author in exchange for a review

About the Author
Because of her father's occupation, Lydia Lin has lived in a few different countries during her childhood and youth. Whenever her family moved from one place to another, she and her siblings had to deal with the issue of learning the language used at the new school and, at the same time, maintaining a working knowledge of their native tongue, Mandarin Chinese. Consequently, Lydia has rich first-hand experiences to draw on for compiling this Chinese language instruction book, even though her studies and job functions have been in the fields of science and technology


My Thoughts

When I was first asked to review this book I was very excited.  It was not that I wanted to learn Chinese.  I teach at a middle school that has as one of its three foreign languages, Chinese.  I asked our Chinese Teacher Mr. Liu to review the book after I had and give me his feedback.  For my part I thought the book was an excellent example along with the audio files.  I loved that she used a lot of familiar Western songs.  No, I will never be proficient or anywhere near passable in Chinese.  My students have tried for three years.  I have a problem with hearing some of the sounds that are in the Asian languages.  My ESOL students used to throw up there hands in frustrations because of this. 

Mr. Liu took the book home.  He felt after examining it that if the book was used without the audio then I would be difficult to learn. His one suggestion was a CD to accompany the book.  He was impressed enough to use it as an incentive for his students.  One of his students will own the book at the end of the year.  He tells me they are working very hard for this book.

I believe this is just one more aid to help our students learn a foreign language.  In this case Chinese.  I whole heartily recommend this book.

3 comments:

  1. Learn Chinese are to be able to effectively communicate with friends and or relatives, to more easily travel within Chinese and Chinese-speaking areas, to prepare yourself for study abroad in China, for your job and career aspirations, and because China is the fastest growing economy in the world. Thanks.

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  2. I just received it. The audio files do not seem to be available. The link mentioned in the book do no exist any more. would you know if there is another way to get her audio.

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  3. I have tried to find more information on her to remedy this. I've not been able to find a website or anything for her. Sorry.

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