Amazing. This Course Makes Speaking Mandarin Easy

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would definitely recommend Power Mandarin Accelerated because it's fast, it's amazingly easy, it's enjoyable and really effective.
My boyfriend's family is from China and I have struggled with Pimsleur (too few words to really communicate) Rosetta Stone (cost a fortune and makes me guess) and other methods.
None of them gave me the portable audio, the English speaking instructor and the native Mandarin speaker who taught me how to create my own sentences - I mean - speak my own thoughts in basic Mandarin in a way that Chinese people understand and without one bit of confusion.

What did you like best about this story?

What I like best about Power Mandarin is the speed, the simplicity of it all, the creative way the program is laid out, the memory review, the Audio Snapshot previews, the opportunity to hear the language spoken at different speeds, adding one word here and one word there to avoid overwhelm. Love it!

Which scene was your favorite?

My favorite scene is where I get to say I want to eat. I love Chinese food. I noticed that this program uses real Mandarin Chinese, because they usually say the word for "eat" followed by the word for "food" or "noodles". This made me sound really fluent even when I wasn't.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No way would I recommend using Power Mandarin all in one sitting. This program is meant to be used whenever you have time and wherever you happen to be at the moment. The extreme portability of Power Mandarin is one reason I wanted to try it out, and for $19.00 bucks, it's a real gem.

Any additional comments?

Real instruction, real practice, real results. There's no BS here people. This program is the real deal and you'll thank me for recommending it to you.

18 people found this helpful

Greatly Simplifies an Impossible Language

Any additional comments?

I have learned to speak several languages in a basic way, mostly French and Spanish, and I never dreamed how hard Mandarin Chinese would be to speak. They have TONES and they don’t have easy cognates (similar words) to borrow from like in Spanish and French. Then there is a weird pronunciation with the tones. I tried many programs learned next to nothing and found Mandarin Chinese impossible to learn for years.
Then I tried Power Mandarin by Mark Frobose. Mark explained everything in English and then his slow speaking native Chinese speaker gave me the clear, slow repetitions that I needed to hear the difference between the tones, and then to actually pronounce the tones clearly. Then they helped me constantly remember what I learned with each lesson. My ability to speak and remember Mandarin exploded at that point.
Then I learned how put it all together to make and speak my own original sentences in Mandarin (I admit that these are basic sentences, but come on, what do you expect? – Besides, I only want basic conversation in Mandarin)
The natives I speak with at work understand everything I say and I understand them many times too.
Frobose is a language teaching genius that makes an impossible language like Mandarin easy to learn. Power Mandarin is a must buy, a first buy if you want to speak Mandarin Chinese.

8 people found this helpful

Funny and Effective Way to Learn Mandarin

Any additional comments?

The speakers in this program are so spontaneous and amusing that I found myself actually “enjoying the process” of learning to speak Mandarin.
Don’t be fooled by the amusing side of this program. Power Mandarin is a serious language course that requires work and effort on your part. But if you try (and you will enjoy it, believe me) I believe you will learn like I did.
Bottom Line: A very difficult and daunting language made fun and relatively easy by Mark and his degreed native speaker from China. Great value for the money. Got me speaking and understanding basic Mandarin, which was not easy to do, though his “process” makes it far easier than the other programs I have tried.

3 people found this helpful

Amazing program for the price

Any additional comments?

Power Mandarin totally demystified spoken Mandarin for me. For years I have tried to speak & understand this beautiful yet amazingly complex language.
I am thrilled at how quickly I have been able to speak and understand large sections of Mandarin by using Mark's techniques. It's such a simple approach. First of all, you relax because Mark is telling you what everything means in plain English. Then, the native Mandarin speaker from Beijing slowly speaks to you in her language. So personal, so clear. And then, of course there's the practice sections that make sure that "you really get it". Amazing program for the price. The only one that worked for me.

3 people found this helpful

the BEST I HAVE FOUND

I have been "learning" Mandarin for 4 or 5 months now. I have purchased 3 audiobooks, use Duolingo,drops and a flash card program. This program is absolutely the best. One thing to know is the things they go over fast, and that make you frustrated are actually explained in much more detail in later chapters. This is a long program, almost 9 hours and you are learning all the way. Lots of repetitions. There are two very important things. I am in daily contact with people from China, and the way this program teaches pronunciation is how my friends speak. In addition, I talk twice a week to a young lady in China and she also speaks the same way. In the Duolingo program, it teaches you the chinese characters, but many of the pronunciations are different, to me it seems wrong. For instance, the verb to drink in duolingo is pronounced like "her" while in this program it is "kerr", while to "eat" sounds like "her" . this program also explains everything, it really helps you to make sentences on your own as you understand the meaning of all the words and the order that Mandarin uses. i also listened to some youtube videos and while helpful, they don't repeat enough for me to get it, or else I'm just slow at learning. i am searching to see if Mark Frobose has a "part 2" and if he does, that will be my next purchase. It definitely would be nice to have a print out with the chinese characters and pinyin on it, but oh well, can't have everything.

2 people found this helpful

Excellent Primer

I am new to Mandarin and felt that this audio was equivalent to an entire college semester course. A lot of good reposition. The only downside is they usually don't tell you which number tone is. You are just supposed to mimic the speaker's tone. Overall, I thought it was excellent.

2 people found this helpful

good for learning mainland mandarin vocab

one of the best methods i think, bc they simply say everything in english and chinese, TWICE. phrases are not too long and easy to follow. if only we could read the characters at the same time! only issue could be that it is some kind if mainland chinese and not taiwan style, but that is expected.

2 people found this helpful

Works!!

I feel like I've really learned something with this audio book. The repetition really helps you memorize the words -- and tones!! I'll never try to learn another language without going first to audio books. This is my first language audio book and I really loved Mark Frobose's approach. He made it simple and mixes in lots of review. It's a great, enjoyable way to learn.

2 people found this helpful

Great source for me

I liked the method and the repeatings. I missed the written form in pinyin. Great

4 people found this helpful

Pretty Awful and Annoying way to learn Chinese

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

A robot. The speaker is incredibly monotonous and hard to listen to. The material is definitely 'Accelerated' - to the point where a new sentence is gone over once, quickly, and then you are expected to know and remember it. To make things worse, there are repeated breaks where he congratulates you: "Wow, you're really learning a lot!"

Would you ever listen to anything by Mark Frobose again?

Maybe

Would you be willing to try another one of Mark Frobose’s performances?

Absolutely not.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The "Native Speaker" (Can you just give her a name and call her that?) had

Any additional comments?

I've bought a lot of books from audible and this is by far one of the hardest to get through, which is unfortunate because learning a new language really requires effective instruction. There are no chapters in the audio file, or even bookend chapters in the book. It's one long conversation making it difficult to rewind, fast forward to go back over certain parts after they breeze through them too fast. I really wish I could return this and try something else, but no go.

8 people found this helpful