New Practical Chinese Reader vol.1 - Textbook

The best and simple book to learn mandarin, details and rules neatly explained. The CD is an excellent addition.

This is the book recommended for learning Mandarin as a complete novice at my University, and it has been very helpful to use along my studies. There is also a workbook that is beneficial to use at the same time. I had some trouble getting the cd to work but that was in an xbox, so maybe the format only works on cd players. Can be a bit overwhelming when you first open it but should definitely be considered if learning Mandarin.

I used this as my beginner book: I had started with many others but found the layout and explanations not nearly as good as NPCR. This books has explanations for grammar (which I ignored to be honest) and has lots to text later on just in Chinese - once you start to remember the characters from the text you will find you can read these basic passages in Chinese no problem. Other books rely too heavily on pinyin which will hold you back if you actually want to progress. Book 2 has no pinyin with the text so it's essential (and fun) to get a grasp of the characters early on.I would highly recommend using something like Skritter along side this book as you will see your reading dramatically increase. The whole NPCR series is on there without you having to input every any characters. I am about to start NPCR book 3 and have already read graded reader books in Chinese thanks to this method.

Very well done book for beginners. Having completed the whole tree on Duolingo I needed to practice what I learned until now and this book it’s perfect, particularly useful the DVD with the audio.

This is an excellent textbook. It is relatively challenging as a beginner though, so you'll likely need a tutor. The way the book approaches dialogues means it's easy to gain knowledge of grammar structures, with basic HSK 1/2 words with some relevant higher HSK vocab where relevant. The only shortfall of this book is that the writing section I find isn't that great, without giving context for the characters and teaching them individually. You don't really need another textbook for this though, just some online resources (I recommend HanTrainerPro!)

This is the book I used to study in uni. Got it to review things.