Reading & Writing Chinese Simplified Character Edition » (Third Edition)

William McNaughton was the founding teacher of Chinese at Oberlin College. From 1986 he taught at Kong Kong's City University, where he was the founding program leader of the BA (Honors) program in Translation and Interpretation. He now lives in retirement in Hong Kong.

Now retired, McNaughton was the founding teacher of Chinese at Oberlin College, Ohio, established Chinese-language programs at four other colleges and universities in the U.S., and taught at City U. of Hong Kong from 1986 to 1998. The third edition of his reference text for students and teachers has been completely revised with modern simplified forms. The content and organization are now linked to Chinese language proficiency level standards utilized by Chinese universities and employers for prospective students and employees who are nonnative speakers of Chinese. The new edition features some 1,067 characters, including 450 new ones. Pronunciation and core meanings are provided for each character, along with examples of its use in common compounds and a stroke-order diagram showing how to write it correctly. Includes both an alphabetical index and a stroke index. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

o Introduction covering the essentials of learning the Chinese writing system using the modern simplified format o Comprehensive charts of modern simplified Chinese radicals and their traditional character equivalents o Features the Student's 1,020 Character List and the Official 2,000 Character List o Pronunciation, definition and derivations for the basic 1,062 characters, presented in a systematic and thorough manner o Use of hanyu pinyin romanization o Memorization tips, stroke order diagrams and cross-references to look-alike characters o Notes on those aspects of the Chinese writing system that are often overlooked o Alphabetical index and stroke-count, stroke-order index