Reddit reviews New Practical Chinese Reader Vol. 1 (2nd.Ed.): Textbook (with MP3 CD) [textbook] Liu Xun [Jan 01, 2010] (English and Chinese Edition)

I learned to do this my first semester of Chinese. It's actually incredibly easy and nowhere near as complex as one might think it would be. The computer is really accurate about guessing which character you want to use based on context so as long as you input the pinyin correctly you generally get the correct character.

This is the one we used for class, but windows also comes with its own version which you can access by simply going to keyboard settings and adding Chinese (simplified or traditional) as an input method. From there switching between languages is as simple as hitting alt+shift!

If you're interesting in learning, we used this textbook series which I found to be really awesome. And it can be found online for free, of course.

I came from a beginner/intermediate level of Japanese fluency to Mandarin a year and a half ago. I have been using the New Practical Chinese Reader series (here) and have been very pleased with it. I think it will work well for you because 1) the vocabulary seems pretty accelerated to me and 2) there is a good amount of audio content with the texts. Hope that helps.

This textbook and workbook was used for CHNS 101 and 102 for Spring and Fall 2018:

https://amazon.com/gp/product/7561926235/

https://amazon.com/gp/product/7561926227/

CHNS 101 went half way, while 102 finished the textbook. So if you are going for upper level chinese, you probably would need something else.

In addition to the Chinese Breeze series already recommended, you can't go wrong with a text book.

​

Try New Practical Chinese Reader (comes with CD). Basically, each chapter is a reading/dialogue that lists the vocab and defines grammar structures used in the chapter. Working your way through the book will give you a really solid foundation in the language, which will pair nicely with your other methods.

​

The NPCR series goes up through level 6 btw. 加油！

​

*Edit: Also, check out /r/ChineseLanguage for other Mandarin learners

Vigernere1 gave you some pretty solid advice. It sounds like you are focusing on reading more than speaking, correct?

I have studied for a few years, and I am probably around 2000 characters. I bounced around with a few textbooks, but if I were to start over, I'd use New Practical Chinese Reader books 1-4. The videos from the lessons are on youtube as well. Then move to All Things Considered (put out by Princeton). I have 4 of the books from their series. They are all good, but All Things Considered is fabulous. They have a few books that are higher level than that as well. It also has simplified and traditional characters.

Buy Pleco if you haven't already and make flashcards. Do quizzes and quiz yourself to you go blind and you should be good to go.

[New Practical Chinese Reader] (https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Chinese-Reader-Vol-2nd-Ed/dp/7561926235/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501086151&sr=8-1&keywords=new+practical+chinese+reader)

[All Things Considered] (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=all+things+considered)