Mandarin Scholarship Taiwan » books

Three new mock tests for TOP

kang-wei — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:17:14 +0000

If you are taking the Basic, Intermediate or Advanced Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (TOP), there are now three new mock tests available from the Language Center of Fun Jen Catholic University. They should also be available from Lucky Bookstore and participating universities.

The Mock Test for TOP-Huayu 1 (in three volumes, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced & CDs) published by the Language Center of Fu Jen Catholic University is now available for purchase. The price is NT$320 per volume. Please call the Language Center (02-29052414, 02-29053721, 02-29052487; Ms LAI Shu Zhen/賴淑真) for more information.

輔仁大學語言中心出版華語文能力測驗模擬試題第一套(初、中、高三等含光碟)，每本僅酌收工本費新台幣320元。欲購請洽：輔仁大學語言中心 02-29052414, 02-29053721, 02-29052487 賴淑真。

Chinese flashcards

kang-wei — Sat, 10 May 2008 08:43:23 +0000

For those of you using Practical Audio Visual Chinese, which is the most commonly used Mandarin text book in Taiwan, you may be interested in the flash cards available at truant.net/flashcards.

They have traditional characters, Zhuyin (BoPoMoFo), Hanyu pinyin and English. There are DIY Print-Cut-Use Flashcards available for download. I downloaded the Practical Audio Visual Chinese Book 1 sample and laminated them. I found the flashcards very useful during my first few months. I didn’t purchase a set because my language center does not use Practical Audio Visual Chinese.

For those of you who use prefer to use a computer or hand held device, truant.net also offers ready to use Virtual Flashcards.

If you’re interested you can read a review of Practical Audio Visual Chinese here.

300 Character Chinese Reader: The Lady in the Painting

kang-wei — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:54:14 +0000

This book is available in Taiwan at www.books.com.tw. If your Chinese is limited it could be tough to get it delivered as Books.com.tw is an online bookstore.

The Lady in Painting is a well-known chinese folktale retold here within the limits of an elementary 300 character vocabulary. It has Yale and Pinyin romanization with Traditional characters. It’s an excellent text for those beginning to learn Chinese. As there really aren’t a huge amount of decent reading resources for beginners I think it’s worth a look. Although it is expensive. The version pictured (2008） has a CD and retails at NT$1350. There is another version (1983) without a CD for NT$673.

Yale Press has some excerpts of the 1983 version available for download:

Read the Foreword in PDF (1 page)
Read the Character Introduction and Preface in PDF (13 pages)
Read an excerpt from the book in PDF (10 pages)

Some of the characters, as my teacher pointed out, are written in a style not really used today but I still found the excerpts great to read. I’m not sure but the characters may have been updated in the 2008 version.

If you have read the 2008 version, please feel free to leave a comment.