Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar

Dr. Ross has written a grammar guide that goes through basic sentence construction in Mandarin Chinese in a clear and systematic way. However, in an effort to be both accurate and exhaustive, the book occasionally gets bogged down in specialized grammar terminology such as "stative verb" and "aspectual suffix" that are sure to confuse younger learners of the language. As with most Schaum's outlines, the answers in the back of the book encourage self-study. Overall, a solid resource for adult learners who want a more thorough survey of technical grammar.

Nathan Dummitt
author of Chinese Through Tone & Color

I'm currently living and studying in China. Although I'm a full-time Chinese student, all of my text books are written by Chinese educators. This is a great thing especially when I get more advanced in my study. However, right now I'm more toward the beginning and the English explanations in my textbooks are often mistranslated and confusing. For those of you who are toward the end of their first term of Chinese study (or if you have a general understanding of the language) this book will help you greatly.

I've found it written in a way that is easier to grasp than many of my own Chinese textbooks. The readability of Schaum's book is what really sold me into singing its praises.

I too am working my way through the Pimsleur series and this book does a great job of accompanying and clarifying some of the grammar points made in those lessons.

Some people have said that this book isn't for the beginner. Well maybe so and maybe not. I will say that after a term of study I have a lot of questions that this book has helped me answer. My only regret is not purchasing it sooner as it could have helped me after the first month.

Chinese has grammar? Well, not so much grammar as it applies to say, European language, but rather sentence patterns, suffix ending particles and lots and lots of them. This is an excellent book for explaining those sentence patterns and particles. This should help whip your Chinese into shape.

Troy Parfitt, author

Although I didn't have time to read through the entire book, I am sure this will be very helpful as a reference book.

I am not happy that I had to wait over 1.5 months to receive the book, but I can tell that Amazon made their efforts to ship this item seperatly with another book that I ordered in March, which was not in stock for long time.

As I wrote in another review on Modern Chinese Grammar, I am developing a course for English speakers to learn Mandarin. What I didn't write is that if I could only have one Chinese grammar this would be it. This is an outline. It is not as complete or functional as the Modern Chinese Grammar. However, it contains all that you would need to master Chinese patterns ( there is a scholarly argument as to whether the language actually has a grammar).

I have found information in here that I found no where else. This is a concise, distillation of how the language functions. Recently my Chinese teacher showed me a pattern but couldn't explain the logic and rules of use behind it. She said, " I can't tell you why but this is the way we say it." Of course, I found the information in Schaum's.