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Looking for ebooks

Bibi011   November 6th, 2013 7:06p.m.

Can anyone recomend textbooks in ebook format that follow closely HSK levels? Chinese editions.

lechuan   November 6th, 2013 9:26p.m.

I have HSK test prep books, but i haven't seen any in e-book format, nor have i seen any textbooks tailored for HSK in either ebook or hardcopy.

rmzhao82   November 7th, 2013 6:33a.m.

I study the Boya (博雅) series and I think they purposefully include the vocab that will be on the HSK, though they were originally published to help prepare for the old HSK. I studied the Quasi-intermediate (准中级) plus the HSK 4 mock exams and did great on the HSK 4. Then I worked on the Intermediate books and did the level 5 mock exams. I was well prepared for HSK 5, though doing some other activities in Chinese such as reading novels or watching TV will help with the vocab you'll need to do well on e HSK 5. There is A LOT of vocab on the HSK 5 that is not on the vocab list. Really, any vocab could potentially show up so you need to be able to guess word's in context.

Not sure if you can find ebook editions of the Boya series, however. Good luck!

朗帝   November 7th, 2013 7:49p.m.

Since even most text books have excercises like "fill in the blanks" and the like, I guess e-book isn't a very popular format on language teaching books. In fact I haven't ever seen one (Chinese or not), that was in fact published online.

elsa11   November 7th, 2013 9:54p.m.

I know one app/website may meet your demand. If you're using iOS systems on iPhone or iPad, there's apps called "Chinese Stories" in App store. (elementary/intermediate)

According to their description, their vocab is selected by New HSK standard. I'm currently using their free books, quite challenging! I especially like their pinyin and English function. Recommend you to try it out! :D

Oh, they have a website: http://www.chinese-stories.com
But I personally prefer learning Chinese on the go listening to mp3, so......

lechuan   November 8th, 2013 6:30p.m.

One thing you could try is exporting the Skritter vocabulary list for the textbook series you are thinking of, and paste it into @alanmd's HSK analyser:

http://hskhsk.pythonanywhere.com/hanzi

It will tell you how much % of the HSK vocabulary is covered by your list.

I am working through the iBooks version of Integrated Chinese (currently only Level 1 is available on iBooks. Level 2 is on the way). I'm also reading through elementary readers. I also bought a couple books with mock HSK exams (Hanban / Confucius institute) and HSK Oral exams (Peking University Press). I think a good way to prepare for the HSK test is just to work on Chinese in general, then fill in the vocabulary gaps, as needed, later on.

Bibi011   November 10th, 2013 10:23p.m.

Thanks to everyone for replying. I will look into everything you mentioned!

gua nö   November 12th, 2013 10:23a.m.

How do you like the iBooks version of Integrated Chinese lechuan? What is the difference compared to, say, a PDF ebook? Is there clickable audio for everything? For some reason it is not possible to buy it in the Swedish iTunes store (yet?).

lechuan   November 12th, 2013 11:53a.m.

Hi xiaokaka

The benefits of the ebook version are:
1) Integrated audio for dialogs and vocab
2) hyperlinks to grammar explanations
3) pop-up cultural/usage notes on parts of dialogs
4) Convenience

Main downside is that is still primarily designed for classroom use. There are no answer keys included. I would have also liked to have seen the videos included as well, but they are a seperate $70 DVD purchase per level/part. I has also asked Cheng/Tsui if could get online access to th exercise modules, but they are only designed for teacher/student access.

I would contact cheng and tsui directly to ask if they can add it to the Swedish app store. thy have generally been quite responsive when I've contacted them in the past.

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