Understanding Chinese Characters

Wisconsin Bookwatch, July, 2005

Understanding Chinese Characters

Ping-gam Go

Simplex Publications

575 Larkspur Plaza, Suite 4, Larkspur, CA 94939

www.simplexpublications.com

0962311375 $15.95 1-415-924-6508

Now in its fourth edition, Understanding Chinese Characters By Their Ancestral Forms by Ping-gam Go reveals the meaning of Chinese writing by providing and describing the historical pictograph for each Chinese character, thereby materially aiding the reader to identify, learn and memorize the most widely used Chinese characters with a minimum of effort. Enhanced with a full-color photo survey of business establishment signage in San Francisco's Chinatown, and a dictionary of 288 Chinese characters containing both Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation), students and tourists are offered dozens of practice exercises to memorize the meanings of those Chinatown signs. There are even flashcards for 41 of the most prevalent characters found on a Chinese restaurant menu!. Compact and portably, with alphabetical and subject indexes to dictionary entries, Understanding Chinese Characters By Their Ancestral Forms is a welcome and "user friendly" resource for learning to decipher Chinese writing whether for simply fun or serious business. Also very highly recommended from Simplex Publications are two other Chinese language instructionals by Ping-gam Go: Read Chinese Today: A Walk Thro-ugh San Francisco's Chinatown, Understanding Chinese Characters By Their Ancestral Forms With Photographs And Map (0962311332, $6.95); What Character Is That?: An Easy-Access Dictionary Of 5,000 Chinese Characters, 2nd Edition (0962311359, $19.95).