Another day, another failure…
In my quest to conquer another language I started learning Mandarin two years ago. I’ve taken an introductory course two years ago and am working on a second textbook which will soon be finished. So it was time to find a new textbook and I’ve decided on a textbook based on the HSK curriculum – but the research prior to acquiring the textbook was not sufficient.
What happened?
Taking a quick look at HSK in wikipedia I grabbed the info that there was a Elementary level. Thinking this level might suit me fine I ran off to a bookshop to order a textbook because I couldn’t find anything appropriate on Amazon. They ordered the book for me and I picked it up this weekend. By the way, between ordering the book and handing it over to me, the price was raised 5%. I think I will call them about this… Anyway, thumbing through the book I felt somewhat intimidated – the content looked quite tough. Many unknown words, long sentences – this is Elementary? I thought, suited for beginners (association: elementary school)
Some more googling revealed the following: HSK is divided into four levels: Basic, Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced where as Elementary and Intermediate are grouped into one. Unfortunately, the lowest level is not Elementary but Basic.
Looks like I’ll have to get a different book…
For the time being, from this page you can download vocabulary for the different levels in different formats, even pre-formatted for Mnemosyne, my favourite educational vocabulary tool:
http://hskflashcards.com/download.php
cheers
m.