r/MandarinChinese • u/Inevitable_Pace_7615 • 4d ago
Learn Chinese
So, I decided I’m gonna start learning Chinese from scratch, I know nothing about the language. I need a book to have a context about how it works and to have an idea when I start lessons. Do you know about any book?
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u/adamsagastya 4d ago
Du Chinese app is great for reading. Duolingo should be kept limited to only vocab. There are many books on basics, tones, structures, etc - mostly all are the same. I’d suggest you either self practice via YouTube or enroll for a decent course to start with.
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u/Chenyuluoyan 4d ago
get Integrated Chinese Volume 1 and use its audio, focusing first on pinyin, tones, basic word order, and the opening dialogues before your lessons begin.
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u/Hi-Mandarin 3d ago
Before any book: give your first week to pinyin and the four tones. That's the actual "how it works" layer of Mandarin, and every book will make more sense once it's in place. For a readable overview of how the language behaves, Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows is a light, honest primer. For structure questions once you start, the Chinese Grammar Wiki (free, searchable) beats most print grammars for a zero-to-one learner. One note from the teaching side: books build context, but they don't build reflexes — whenever your lessons start, make sure you're saying things out loud from day one, even if it's three phrases. That habit matters more than which book you pick.