The Curious Curator's Book Blog

I started learning Mandarin a little over a month ago, so I decided to get a couple of books to accompany the one I already have for class, to get a slightly different perspective and to familiarize myself with the language. I bought this one solely because of the positive reviews I'd seen on the web - if I hadn't read them I would never have picked up this book, since the title is so ridiculous. There's nothing "easy-peasy" about Mandarin, unless you're a native speaker, I guess.

Still, this is a good enough book for those who, like me, are just starting out. It touches upon many interesting cultural facts, like traditions, festivals and the lunar calendar, and covers basic conversation skills and grammar. The CD is quite useful to get the pronunciations right.

However, if you don't want to go to classes and instead intend to study Mandarin on your own - I can't imagine why you would, but anyway - this book, while a decent place to start, won't be nearly enough. I'll be looking into others.