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Chinese Through Tone & Color | 
 enlarge | Author: Nathan Dummitt
Publisher: Hippocrene Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.57
You Save: $9.38 (38%)
New (14) Used (1) from $15.57
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 284681
Media: Paperback
Edition: Pap/Com Bl
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 244
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 6 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0781812046
Dewey Decimal Number: 495
EAN: 9780781812047
ASIN: 0781812046
Publication Date: March 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Book Description
Introducing a groundbreaking visual technique--successfully tested in classrooms--for mastering the correct pronunciation of over 100 basic Chinese characters. *Each character is printed in a color representing its tone, creating a tone-color association that makes recalling tones simple. *Two CDs allow readers to practice along with native speakers. *Clever visual mnemonic devices create associations between a character's shape and its meaning. *Image-enhanced mp3s allow users to see and hear characters on a computer, or practice on the go with an iPod.
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| Customer Reviews:
Tackling Tone June 19, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Before reading this book, all I knew about Chinese was that it's a tonal language and therefore very difficult to learn if you don't speak a tonal language already. After reading this book, I have a better grasp of what exactly the different tones are and how they change the meaning of the word. The CDs are extremely useful for the demonstration of the different tones. In a language where meaning depends largely on pronunciation, the CDs are crucial to the learning process. In the beginning, I was constantly looking back at the useful "Note on Pinyin" on pages 8 and 9. The "Note" explains the differences in pronunciation between our alphabet and the phonetically transcribed Chinese alphabet. If you are struggling with your study of Chinese or are just curious about what exactly learning a tonal language entails, this is the perfect book for you!
Singularly comprehensible. June 18, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
As someone without any real prior background in Chinese, I can safely say that this book introduces the Chinese tonal system in a way that anyone can understand. It's exceedingly clear, succinct, and well put together. I was able to load the character images onto my iPod without a problem, and it's really convenient to be able to study at any time, without bringing the book with me. I'd recommend this system to any new learner of Chinese, particularly if you're intimidated by the complexity of the language.
An ideal supplement June 18, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I recently gave this book to a friend and really found myself wishing I had had it when I started learning Chinese!
Basically, the book works uses a synesthetic concept to remembering characters and their tones. This is much more important than it sounds, as it is all too easy to forget the tones to Chinese characters, even after years of studying them. Since English and Indo-European languages lack tones, non-Chinese speakers tend to forget them. The method in this book not only provides reinforcement for memorizing tones, but does so in an easy, enjoyable way. If you give this book a hour a day for a whole week, I believe that any beginner can master not only the four tones and 100 characters in the book, but also the basics of the whole language.
As Chinese becomes more and more popular in the U.S. in coming years, I expect this system to really take hold in universities and high schools as a simple way to help overcome one Chinese language's greatest learning obstacles.
Why Tones Are Important May 4, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
In the pronunciation of any human language, risings and fallings of pitch, called "intonation," can be used to convey meaning. If someone asks you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, you might say "What?!" in a rising tone to express your shock at the suggestion. Then, after absorbing the message and deciding to reject it emphatically, you might say "No!", using a falling tone.
Chinese does this as well, but in addition uses the same kinds of differences in pitch in the same way it uses vowels and consonants--to tell which word you are using. Just as, in English, the difference between i and e makes all the difference between bit and bet, so in Chinese a rising or falling tone makes all the difference between tu `chart' and tu `vomit'.
Infants in China absorb these tonal patterns without noticing that they are doing so. Second-language learners of Chinese cannot do that. If you assume that all you have to do in learning Chinese is to get the vowels and consonants right and let the tones "come naturally," you will cripple your oral Chinese for life. Decades of experience in Chinese language teaching have shown that students who make this assumption form bad habits from the start and often never recover.
The cost of bad tones is usually not that you are misunderstood literally. Chinese people are smart enough to figure out from context whether you mean "chart" or "vomit". The cost is that your voice sounds extremely abnormal--almost if you had a severe birth defect or were on drugs. It is certainly not the voice you would want to use if you were trying to negotiate a business deal, discuss human rights, or make a personal friend.
To get a sense for how bad tone-free Chinese sounds, you can compare it to vowel-free English. Try this experiment: Choose any simple English sentence. Then choose any vowel, at random. Decide whether you want it to be a "short" or "long" vowel. Now, say your chosen sentence using only that vowel sound, for every single syllable. How weird do you sound? Would your listener understand your meaning? (Probably.) Would that person be inclined to like you or trust you? (No way.)
It is extremely important, therefore, that a second-language learner of Chinese consciously master tones. Once good habits are formed, it becomes no longer necessary to pay conscious attention, but the beginning stages are crucial. In Chinese Through Tone and Color, Nathan Dummitt presents the radically innovative suggestion that beginners might associate Chinese tones with specific colors--red for one tone, orange for another, and so on. For the psychology of the beginning learner, this approach has the important advantage of making the tone seem part of the very nature of a word--not something added optionally, as intonation can be added in any languages. The method also makes tones impossible to ignore. Every time you see a word, or even think it, the color will remind you of the proper tone.
American grade schools and high schools have been adding Chinese-language programs at a record pace in recent years. Many of these programs, although based in the best of intentions, do not teach tones well. I look forward to seeing the results that Chinese Through Tone and Color might make. It could be that this book will make a major contribution to the second-language learning of Chinese.
Perry Link
Princeton University
A brilliant concept perfectly executed April 29, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I knew nothing about the Chinese language before I got this book. I thought it would be near impossible to even begin to try to learn it by myself. But I was very wrong. I love this book! Hippocrene did a first-rate job. The quality of the paper, the printing, the color, etc. are all top-notch. I also liked the font, layout, and design very much. The pages are crisp, clean, easy to read, and very inviting. I especially liked the back matter, the cumulative review, color index, the English word index, etc. Those are essential components, and they're very well done. They're comprehensive, and I actually understood them.
But most of all, I was impressed by Nathan Dummitt's writing. The technique he presents of teaching Chinese through tone and color is brilliant, innovative, and imaginative. And easy to understand. Even I understood everything Dummitt wrote. And the CDs included with the book are perfect. Listening to them is like having an expensive private tutor without the expense. This book accomplishes the impossible: it makes learning Chinese easy and fun. Thank you, Nathan Dummitt.
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