Great! Be sure to let me know when you’ve read the book, I’m curious about it, too.

Dear Olle

Thanks for your reply.

I’ll get the Yen-Hwei Lin first, and perhaps write a review like yours, then get the San Duanmu.

I’m just starting Chinese — planning on taking the lowest level HSK and a GCSE (an entry-level British exam) — this summer, but my background is in linguistics and inappropriate questions (about phonology, syntax, …) keep occurring to me.

I’ll report back in a few months 🙂

Best wishes

Ivan

Hi Ivan,

No, I haven’t read that book, so I can’t compare. In fact, the other books I’ve read about the subject have been in Chinese, although I have of course read chapters on phonology in other books. I can’t say if this book is better than the book you refer to, but I can say that this book is worth reading regardless of how good the other one is. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll see if I can get hold of it.

Best,

Olle

This is a really excellent review. You really make it seem like an enjoyable book.

I wonder, have you had a chance to compare this book with “The Sounds of Chinese” by Yen-Hwei Lin (Cambridge University Press, 2007)?

I think I’m going to buy one or the other, perhaps both.

Searching for reviews of these books led me to this website! Happy!

With thanks and best wishes

Ivan

I think it’s clearer. A sentence like “This book has taught me very much, so listing it would be a bit time-consuming.” is almost enough to buy it.
I’ve noticed I understood Korean grammar much better after reading an “essential grammar”, so this may make my understanding of Mandarin better with this book.

@Vermillion: It’s a fairly complete and connected explanations of the topics listen in the article. When I say “connected”, I mean that the arguments aren’t disparate, but rather fit together into some kind of larger whole. This book has taught me very much, so listing it would be a bit time-consuming. Generally speaking, though, it’s theoretical understanding of all sounds, tones, word/compound/phrase distinctions, stress and so on. Basically, he argues that stress is the key to almost everything and uses this to propose a solution to T3S, word/compound/phrase distinctions and some other things. I’m not sure this answer helps you, but you’ll have to ask a more specific question if you want a better answer. 🙂

@Olle: I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I get why this book is interesting, from your review. Surely not for the beginner, but then, what does the more advanced learner gets from it? From the table of content I can only see “Stress”, “Rhythm in Poetry” and “Connected Speech” which seem interesting (just from the table of contents). Could you say more about why you think it’s an interesting read, what it brought you etc. If my question makes sense at all…