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Rating: 
Summary: Almost worthless
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer and am just reenforcing his/her opinion. Some things are cheap and still over-priced. The Barron's Gettings By in Chinese is a much better value.
Rating:
Summary: Almost worthless
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer and am just reenforcing his/her opinion. Some things are cheap and still over-priced. The Barron's Gettings By in Chinese is a much better value.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Place to Start
Review: I listened to this cassette everyday in my car for three months. When I got to China, I was able to greet and thank people, ask for chopsticks, forks, tea. I was also able to talk genially with our bus driver about when we were eating. I understood time and money and the food being served. Being horrible at foreign languages, this was just the right speed and the right amount of phrases, not so many as to be confusing. Because it is listen and repeat, I could not read or write anything but everyone I spoke to in Mandarin was impressed, said I spoke very clearly and were really happy to hear an American speaking Mandarin.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Place to Start
Review: I listened to this cassette everyday in my car for three months. When I got to China, I was able to greet and thank people, ask for chopsticks, forks, tea. I was also able to talk genially with our bus driver about when we were eating. I understood time and money and the food being served. Being horrible at foreign languages, this was just the right speed and the right amount of phrases, not so many as to be confusing. Because it is listen and repeat, I could not read or write anything but everyone I spoke to in Mandarin was impressed, said I spoke very clearly and were really happy to hear an American speaking Mandarin.
Rating: 
Summary: good tape, but poor pamphlet
Review: The tape is pretty good. The phrases are helpful and if you can keep up with the speakers on the tape, you will learn some good pronunciation. But, the pamphlet that comes along with the tape isn't that great. The romanization is always troublesome, especially for beginners. Chinese characters would be good so that the beginner could get help from someone advanced.There are better language tapes out there than this, but if this is all you have, you could probably learn a little. Overall, I wasn't extremely impressed.
Rating:
Summary: good tape, but poor pamphlet
Review: The tape is pretty good. The phrases are helpful and if you can keep up with the speakers on the tape, you will learn some good pronunciation. But, the pamphlet that comes along with the tape isn't that great. The romanization is always troublesome, especially for beginners. Chinese characters would be good so that the beginner could get help from someone advanced. There are better language tapes out there than this, but if this is all you have, you could probably learn a little. Overall, I wasn't extremely impressed.
Rating:
Summary: Stay away if you want to learn anything
Review: The tape wouldn't be so bad if it were backed up by a text of any quality at all. But the leaflet it comes with is less than worthless -- it's misleading. First, it doesn't use pinyin as its phonetic spelling system. They make up their own. This will teach you very bad habits if you care to move past this very simple level. Beyond that, it gives nothing but phrases to say with no hint to what the words in them mean. The text is just a transcription of what's on the tape. The only additional information is a short bizarre pronunciation guide and a woefully inadequate description of tonality. A very low-level introduction to the language. Appropriate only if you're not willing to spend more than 30 minutes studying the language.
Rating:
Summary: Stay away if you want to learn anything
Review: The tape wouldn't be so bad if it were backed up by a text of any quality at all. But the leaflet it comes with is less than worthless -- it's misleading. First, it doesn't use pinyin as its phonetic spelling system. They make up their own. This will teach you very bad habits if you care to move past this very simple level. Beyond that, it gives nothing but phrases to say with no hint to what the words in them mean. The text is just a transcription of what's on the tape. The only additional information is a short bizarre pronunciation guide and a woefully inadequate description of tonality. A very low-level introduction to the language. Appropriate only if you're not willing to spend more than 30 minutes studying the language.
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