Chinese Through Tone Color

A unique visual method for learning over 100 basic Chinese characters, with audio presenting the book contents. With audio CDs. For self-study and developing vocabulary, reading, writing, and listening skills.

Please Note: Amazon's "Look Inside!" only shows the introductory pages by default - but you can see a random selection of the FULL COLOR Chinese pages by clicking "Surprise Me!". Thanks! If you only learn the first 100 Chinese characters in this book, you'll be able to recognize more than 50% of all commonly printed Chinese text! But if you learn all 1,000 characters, you'll be able to recognize over 95% of all printed text. Chinese characters are printed in black & white on one page and then again in color on the next facing page, along with the Pinyin and a very brief English definition for each character. You can test yourself by flipping from the black & white page to the color page, memorizing each character's tone color and it's Pinyin name. Eventually, by recalling the character's color, you'll automatically know it's correct tone. It's very easy to remember which color represents which tone: 1. RED High Alert (High tone) 2. ORANGE Rising Sun (Rising tone) 3. GREEN Green Valley (Down/Up) 4. BLUE Deep Blue Sea (Down) 5. BLACK Neutral (Neutral Tone) The characters are presented in the order of most frequently used (first) to least frequently used. Try memorizing the characters before worrying about their English definition(s). Later, after learning to recognize the character, it's tone color and it's Pinyin name, then you can start to add the various English definitions. Again... by memorizing the tone colors, you'll find that when you read regular black Chinese text, you'll be able to easily recall (visualize) the color of each character, hence know it's correct tone. This book is interleaved with blank pages so that the printed pages are all facing the same way up thus allowing you to conveniently flip "in-situ" between black text and color/pinyin. You could maybe use those blank pages for study notes. English definitions are very short and of course there's many definitions for the same word that cannot be shown. This book is definitely not a dictionary! It's simply a character learning aid.

Learning Chinese can be frustrating and difficult, partly because it's very different from European languages. Following a teacher, textbook or language course is not enough. They show you the characters, words and grammar you need to become proficient in Chinese, but they don't teach you how to learn them! Regardless of what program you're in (if any), you need to take responsibility for your own learning. If you don't, you will miss many important things that aren't included in the course you're taking. If you study on your own, you need to be even more aware of what you need to do, what you're doing at the moment and the difference between them. Here are some of the questions I have asked and have since been asked many times by students: How do I learn characters efficiently? How do I get the most out of my course or teacher? Which are the best learning tools and resources? How can I become fluent in Mandarin? How can I improve my pronunciation? How do I learn successfully on my own? How can I motivate myself to study more? How can I fit learning Chinese into a busy schedule? The answers I've found to these questions and many others form the core of this book. It took eight years of learning, researching, teaching and writing to figure these things out. Not everybody has the time to do that! I can't go back in time and help myself learn in a better way, but I can help you! This book is meant for normal students and independent language learners alike. While it covers all major areas of learning, you won't learn Chinese just by reading this book. It's like when someone on TV teaches you how to cook: you won't get to eat the delicious dish just by watching the program; you have to do the cooking yourself. That's true for this book as well. When you apply what you learn, it will boost your learning, making every hour you spend count for more, but you still have to do the learning yourself. This is what a few readers have said about the book: "The book had me nodding at a heap of things I'd learnt the hard way, wishing I knew them when I started, as well as highlighting areas that I'm currently missing in my study." - Geoff van der Meer, VP engineering "This publication is like a bible for anyone serious about Chinese proficiency. It's easy for anyone to read and written with scientific precision." - Zachary Danz, foreign teacher, children's theatre artist About me I started learning Chinese when I was 23 (that's more than eight years ago now) and have since studied in many different situations, including serious immersion programs abroad, high-intensity programs in Sweden, online courses, as well as on the side while working or studying other things. I have also successfully used my Chinese in a graduate program for teaching Chinese as a second language, taught entirely in Chinese mostly for native speakers (the Graduate Institute for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University). All these parts have contributed to my website, Hacking Chinese, where I write regularly about how to learn Mandarin.

This is the first book to explore color history in Asia. Color is a natural phenomenon and a fundamental element of the universe, and offers a medium to communicate with others globally. It is a language of signals, such as traffic lights, signs or symbols, and an essential part of society. Color attracts people’s attention and transmits important information. As such, color language denotes all of the activities of human history, and has been associated with changes in society, economic development, and dynasties replacing the old with the new. The book brings together many elements of Chinese history with reference to the topic of ‘color’ and has evolved from the authors’ respective interests in art and design, teaching and research, consultancy and publishing. The topic will be of increasing importance in the future as a consequence of China’s increasing influence in the sphere of global culture. For practitioners of art and design, the book will be a valuable resource; for the general public, interested in the development of Chinese aesthetics over the centuries, it will provide a new perspective complimentary to existing studies about art, design and the history of the region.

Huang Xiang 黄翔, the protagonist of this book, was born on 26th December 1941 in Guidong county, Hunan province of central China. After the Communists came to power in 1949, he was imprisoned six times and severely persecuted for his free-spirited writing and his campaigns for human rights. For more than thirty years, this self-educated poet and writer, wrote secretly against the bondage of totalitarian ideology to safe-guard the freedom of speech. According to the author of the book, Huang is a great dark poet who has expressed the painful memories, fears and struggles that haunted his life creating wonderful poetic beauty in the darkness. His poetic creation is a miracle in the history of Chinese contemporary literature. We may say that Huang's identity as an unknown dark poet is conditioned by his personal, emotional and tragic experiences of struggles while facing historical events such as the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, the April 5th Movement in 1976, the Democracy Wall Movement in 1978 and the Pro-Democracy Movement in 1989 in China.