Nice idea...Shame about the music!- By: J. Tout, 10 Mar 2006 This conversation pack is aimed at the complete beginner and, from that perspective, I think it is successful, introducing some of the most fundamental vocabulary & basic grammar structures of Mandarin Chinese. Each dialogue builds on the one before, making the progression logical & manageable. It's nice to have a title purely devoted to the spoken word, which with many book-and-tape sets tends to get neglected. Most would agree that spoken ability is the real test of such sets, so although I would not consider this title a "stand alone" course, it is a very useful compliment to book/tape titles. I have been using itin combination with Kan Qian's "Colloquial Chinese", which is also very good. The only real downside to "Mandarin Chinese Conversation" is the incredibly irritating - & lengthy - musical interludes between dialogues (of the "Mystic East" type), & the "baby talk" of the narrator, which is somewhat grating, since most people attempting to learn Mandarin are probably notin primary school.
