"This is an absolutely phenomenal series of books! Though there are many books for learning Chinese characters, none of them come even close to this series in terms of utility and efficiency. If you are trying to learn Chinese characters, you owe it to yourself to at least go to the author's website and have a look at the free sample PDF. I could not recommend this book any more.
These books use mnemonics and radicals to teach you the pronunciations and MULTIPLE meanings for each traditional and simplified character. No other book or series of books available accomplishes all of this, not even the books by Dr. Alan Hoenig that another review thought superior. Seriously, give this series a try."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The book is very well organized, the information is presented in a way that makes it visually captivating and easy to understand, and to remember.
With the approach used in this book, I realized that although Chinese is a complex language, it can be learned. It is useful to see some of the basic characters presented first and then progressively see how they are combined to make more complex ones. Seeing the characters take form with the building blocks facilitate the learning process.The use of stories to bring everything together, that is the meaning of the characters, its components and how it is pronounced is really helpful. The approach used makes learning Chinese a real possibility and it is fun doing it."
This is a great book. It makes learning Chinese characters interesting. The images really help to retain the meaning of the characters. The stories are funny and help in remembering the proper pronunciation and the sense of the characters. The building block concept and the way the author presents it, really helps by providing an approach to understanding the meaning of the characters and the basis of the language. I highly recommend this book."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A great book! The user-friendly approach makes it easy to learn and remember the definition and pronunciation of characters."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Until now, I was daunted by even the idea of trying to decipher Chinese characters. But after investing a little bit of time to understand the multi-dimensional approach developed by the author, the barriers have dropped considerably. My favorite part is the use of humorous and easy-to-remember stories that really facilitate the learning process. The purposeful use of strong images in the storylines helps in this. And the drawings add another dimension to the memorization process.
The method for learning pronunciation also requires a little practice, but once mastered, it is very intuitive and well designed, The combined use of sound words and images seems a very clever way to master pronunciation.
Furthermore, this is the most complete guide (with the planned sequels) to Chinese characters that I have seen so far. I have bought the first book with the security of knowing I could invest later in a larger set of characters. As in any method, there is some learning investment. I prefer to have the peace of mind that I can go as far as I want with the next books in the series. I can recommend this book without reservation for those who are serious about their interest in mastering Chinese characters."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A new, interesting, fascinating and simple book on how to read and learn Chinese! I always wanted to learn Chinese but was rapidly discouraged by the complexity of the character and how difficult it was to remember them. This book makes it very easy to do so, easy to understand, easy to learn and more importantly, easy to remember their meaning and how to use them. The stories associated with each of the character often made me smile and made the learning fun. This book, finally gave me hope that I will, one day, be able to read Chinese. Thanks!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pour avoir travaillé avec les 4 volumes, qui représentent un peu plus de 1.500 caractères, présentant à la fois les caractères simplifiés et traditionnels, je peux affirmer qu'il est possible d'apprendre ces 1.500 caractères en un peu moins d'un mois et demi.
Ceci pour tous ceux qui affirment que le Chinois est une langue difficile !
Evidemment, après il reste à apprendre les mots, mais c'est plus simple lorsque, quelque soit la méthode que vous utilisez, 99 % des caractères vous sont connus. Et les mots sont parfois un peu déroutants, mais répondent en général à une logique qui permet de les retenir assez facilement.
Comme en plus il n'y a pas de grammaire (conjugaisons, singulier/pluriel, masculin/féminin, déclinaisons) ...