Twenty Lectures on Chinese Culture: An Intermediary Chinese Textbook (Yale Language Series)

The seller was wonderful, this shipped on time and is very good quality. The actual book: usable as a graded reader. It’s older, the characters are not simplified, and I felt it worded things sometimes differently than it might be worded now. That said it was useful, covers a decent amount of ground, and is quite readable. Like a textbook, it has a few pages of definitions of words and terms, then gives you the reading material. The reading material is non fiction and to me reads sometimes a bit like a history book (that’s a positive or negative depending on your taste). It’s useful. I personally prefer books which throw you into the readings, with glossaries afterward (like Mandarin Companion readers, and a lot of books by Sinolingua) but that is mainly just a preference I have. Definitely still a useful book.

This is not exactly what I thought it was. It is not in English. I will be reselling it as I broke the shrink wrap before I realized it was not what I wanted.

BE ADVISED: THIS IS NOT IN SIMPLIFIED...The product description should make this very clear but it doesn’t. If you’re looking to learn simplified, don’t waste your money on this one. Too bad I was really excited to get this...

Good, since the version is very old, and the printing order is a antique way.

This is still a worthwhile book for someone at the mid- to upper intermediate level in their study of Mandarin. It is true that the lectures are somewhat flavored by the political affiliations of the authors (at the time of publication the Nationalist side of things pretty much dominated Chinese language education in this country) but the lectures are interesting and cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from Chinese geography, history (ancient and modern), literature, art and religion, to name just a few. A learner can definitely get a great deal of satisfaction by working through this course and being exposed to a different political point of view also has some usefulness in terms of understanding mid to late 20th century Chinese history. Still, some work to make the book 21st-century friendly wouldn't be a bad idea. Certainly much more attractive fonts for Chinese characters are available now, simplified characters should be given in the vocabularies along with their traditional counterparts, and the anachronism that is the Yale system of Romanization should be put to bed- for good. Learners who have made it to the level where they can work with this book shouldn't have to be saddled with an outdated system of transcription. And just for good measure, how about recording the lectures on CD? Just asking.

It is in traditional Chinese and not simplified as I assumed it would be.