Brilliant! Easy to get along with and understand.

I highly recommend this to anyone looking to take their first steps in Mandarin Chinese. Or Zhong wen! Good luck to you all!

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1 person found this helpful

Very helpful and easy to follow:)

Started to learn Chinese for a few months and this book was very helpful. While driving, I just needed to repeat after it guided and it helps me to memorise the expressions. Furthermore, I could understand and make my own sentences easily!

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Excellent work as usual

This is my 3rd Paul Noble book now, after his first 2 German ones. Very easy to remember words and sentences, the accents and tones are understandable too for a complete beginners. Next steps up next for me! Cheers Paul

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A perfect place for new learners

This course is all it was cracked up to be. It is well paced and covers a lot of different vocabulary and grammar items. It teaches them in a way which makes their usage apparent, and more than just a dry academic exercise. Whilst it took me a while to get through it, it was definitely worth it, and took my knowledge far beyond what other resources (like the popular language learning apps) were able to do.

Yes, there is a fair bit of repetition, and early on it's easy to wonder: "what exactly is this supposed to do for me?" However, no skill can be learned without repetition, review, and (most importantly) patience. If you give it the time it needs, everything falls into place.

My only criticism regards the review section. At the end there is a 45 minute segment reviewing many of the vocabulary and grammar items taught throughout the course. My issue is that the jump in difficulty is enough to give you whiplash. The rest of the course is very slow and deliberate, which is why I listened on 1.15x speed. Then the review section shows up and barely gives you enough time to actually speak the sentences between prompts, let alone actually take the time to recall them. This made the review process quite frustrating, since it felt like unrealistic expectations to place after the pace of the rest of the course.

This isn't enough to bring the course down in my eyes though. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who wants to start learning Mandarin from scratch.

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You need this!

I am highly suspicious of some reviews slamming this for being repetitive, because we all need reputation to learn!

To give you some back ground, I have about 8 month prior Mandarin Chinese experience, using apps, flashcards various DIY methods.

How I wish I began with this, I didn't have to worry about tones, despite the fact the best explaination I have learned relating to them is actually from this! I didn't have to worry about reading Pinyin and Hanzi (Chinese script).
This way of learning was so natural, almost like being a baby, you learn to speak before you can read. This gave me a lot confidence in speaking the little Chinese I do know. Which is slightly more then what you will learn in this audiobook due to my right months prior learning.
By the end of the book you while no how to say:
你好，我想点咕噜肉，一个菜包子和茉莉花茶。
You will regardless of skill level by the end of book, be constructing such long sentences and it's not just about food, you will learn to say where you are going, what you are doing, if you are driving, if you are allowed, skilled or capable of various different things. It's quite rigid but amazing with this system you will be well on your way. This would have made all my prior learning easier. I did this in the space of just over 1 month and am now looking forward to the sequel! 再见朋友。

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14 people found this helpful

哇 - This Actually Works!

I own a lot of language courses. I buy them, thinking "This time I will really study hard and learn this" and always I give up a few chapters in. Most courses seem to throw big blocks of vocabulary at me - which I can not for the life of me remember. Or they ignore explaining about grammar. Or it doesn't seem very relevant or interesting.

I had been watching Chinese dramas, and found the language fascinating. But Chinese is "impossible for a native English adult to learn" - or so I had been told.

Then I spotted this Paul Noble course, and saw it had good reviews. I knew I could return an Audible book if I really disliked it... so , hey, let's give yet another language course a try.

And oh my! It actually works! I listened whilst knitting... and everything made sense. An hour later, I could actually say I wanted fried rice and chow mein... IN CHINESE! OK, maybe I wasn't pronouncing it perfectly, but I felt I sounded like the recorded versions. And I was remembering it.

Paul keeps saying not to try to remember stuff, but I can't help it, hehe.

I am now on Chapter 68 (out of about 175). Yes, he does have you repeating things, over and over and over. And yes, there does come a point where I think "You really want me to say "I want to go to Beijing" AGAIN? I could do that in my sleep now!" and of course that is exactly the point. The continual revision is exactly what is needed to actually make sure you remember stuff - and use it easily and naturally.

I listen to a few chapters at a time, stopping once I have a few new points and I am starting to feel a little tired. When I come back I "rewind" a chapter or two to refresh stuff. I find myself mumbling the new things as I go about the house - my poor guinea pig clearly thinks I am now insane.

The only wee issue I have is that the PDF version of the included booklet is not as easy to use as a physical copy would be, but as the Audible version is SO much cheaper than the CD/physical book version, I am not complaining.

The booklet is designed to be used AFTER hearing the full course, but I have been looking up new words as we go along. Seeing them written in Pinyin really helps to be sure I am pronouncing them right, especially the tones.

The booklet does not have the words and phrases in the order you learn them in the course, so finding them can be tricky. I have started to use the Pleco app on my phone to check now, and that works great.

I am also "disobeying" Paul by writing stuff down and practising writing the new phrases in Pinyin (and even throw in a few Hanzi characters now, hehe).

When I have finished the course I will use the booklet as he intends and work on the written side of things - knowing how to say everything comfortably should make that easier.

Today, I watched an episode of a Chinese period drama and could actually pick out a few words! I never dreamed I would be able to do this, and so soon.

So, to conclude this very long review, I am very pleased indeed that I got this course. I will definitely be getting the next one, and any future Chinese courses Paul Noble issues (I am also going to do the upcoming Japanese one in a few years, bring it on!).

Whilst I have seen criticism that this course only covers a limited vocabulary and a few conversational situations, I would argue that it covers exactly what you need to get started with a very sound foundation. You learn about grammar points in a natural and easy to understand and implement way. You learn many everyday words. It will be easy to learn new vocabulary for other situations later on. Paul Noble has given me confidence and progress that I never dreamed of.

And now I am going to go listen to a couple more chapters!

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2 people found this helpful

Really enjoyed this book. loved the method.

Paul teaches in an interesting and informative way that made it a breeze and so enjoyable. i bought the next steps in Mandarin and am nearly finished. 5 stars all the way 👍

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Surprisingly effective for such an easy listen

I felt like I learned so much by not even trying. By being patient and allowing yourself to forget you end up learning so much by the end. After the book I recommend learning more vocabulary to practice with the sentence structure and pronunciation learnt here. That is the perfect combo for learning a language.

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Learn so much

Easy to follow and fun. Great course for anyone looking to improve their Chinese from any country.

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Easy to understand Chinese!

A brilliant guide to understanding the Chinese language. Made in a way that's easier to understand, would highly recommend to any beginner learner!

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4 people found this helpful