Schaum’s Outline of Chinese Vocabulary is a great vocabulary book to help a Mandarin learner step away from textbook vocabulary and get towards more useful, real-life vocabulary. It is targeted for an intermediate level but can be used by advanced beginners and lower-level advanced students looking to smooth out their vocabulary. This isn’t just another vocabulary book which is composed of a big word list.
Specifics
The book covers vocabulary in standard Mandarin. Vocabulary is arranged in terms of topics. The topics feel almost like they’re borrowed from a phrase book for a standard itinerary for someone visiting the mainland, but the usage is far more fleshed out than a phrasebook.
Each lesson is composed of several sentences with highlighted words which are introduced as the new vocabulary. There are also several diagrams with objects and their corresponding words. Pinyin is included as well which makes this much more accessible at lower levels. The vocabulary for any given sentence is trivial outside of the highlighted term. The lessons provide several sets of exercises related to the previous vocabulary. Each lesson is composed of many of these mini-lessons which makes it extremely easy to fit into shorter sessions like the kind which make your studying more efficient.
The book covers a fair amount of vocabulary and the exercises are comprehensive, though boring. The lessons fit in with the standard travel, small talk, emergency motif of most phrasebooks. It’s a great resource for really fleshing out vocabulary with very formal, standard Mandarin.
What It Does Best
Most vocabulary books don’t cover usage and this one at least makes a good effort to do so. A lot of concrete nouns and verbs don’t need much introduction, but it helps to see everything broken down roughly the same. The use of sentences makes it far more powerful for having an example of how to use a given term.
It manages to touch on a large number of topics which are almost all universally applicable to an adult traveler. Even though a lot of vocabulary is more centered on a traveler getting around China, the majority is applicable to more than just travel. You’re not going to form deep friendships over your love of Chinese poetry with strangers after reading this book, but you also won’t have an issue conveying the basics which help you focus on traveling, work, or study.
This book manages to hit on a lot of the points which make it a valuable resource for learning a language. It manages to simplify the majority of auxiliary vocabulary to focus on scaffolding in new vocabulary. The sentences may not be the most organic, but they’re also self-contained to focus on learning. Vocabulary outside of what the book teaches feels about on par with that of Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook.
What It Could Do Better
The general structure of the book is great, but it does tend to do a 1:1 matching of terms. Mandarin has a lot more variance in certain terms than this book would lead you to believe. Every conceptual term is going to match to a single conceptual term whether realistic or not. You can can round this out with Harrap’s Chinese Pocket Vocabulary or similar.
The content is pretty mindnumbing even though it is put together extremely well. Sentences and usage are all entirely pragmatic so there’s no real progression or sense to be made of the sections. You get a lot of content but there’s no real human flow to anything either. The division of lessons into smaller segments makes it much more digestable, but it’s still boring.
Integrating This Work Into Your Studies
I focus on learning a language by splitting it into its given components and going from there. I divide a language into vocabulary, grammar, and usage, and then subdivide other skills into listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This breakdown allows for a more focus fire attack on weaknesses to get up to speed faster.
This book employs a very limited grammar and the vocabulary outside of the units is extremely simple. By organizing the book this way, it makes it easier to focus on what’s at hand for a lesson rather than trying to tailor it to a specific level. You won’t get much repetition for anything but the simplest of grammar and vocabulary even at a beginner’s level, but the introduced vocabulary is done at a rapid pace and with mechanical efficiency.
I originally used this course a completely standalone item because of how isolated it is from most materials. Each unit is self-contained so you can also jump around as necessary. Use this book to focus on what you feel is missing in your vocabulary and what you’re trying to do with Mandarin Chinese and you can skip a lot of the content.
Linguistic Level
The majority of the terms are far more formal. This isn’t at all uncommon with language books, but this book feels especially stuffy. A lot of the terms are almost written language level of formal.
The terms are all good, but, again, extremely formal. The language also feels a bit dated in certain lessons due to the sheer formality. This book is the cleanup and rerelease of an older version, so I doubt much changed in the lessons. You’ll be understood, but you won’t win any prizes for authenticity if you’re under 50.
Versions
There are multiple editions and the older ones are still as relevant as the newer one, despite a few minor updates. The newest edition includes some extra diagrams and has been cleaned up a bit. Other than that, they’re pretty much the same.
Conclusion
If you want to add more to your vocabulary, this book is great. It does have a few limitations in usefulness, but as long as you know what you’re looking for and focus more on being understood, this book is a powerhouse. I’d strongly recommend supplementing this book with either some kind of textbook or other vocabulary system to round out your vocabulary.
The tone is a little dated and extremely formal, but that doesn’t hurt the accuracy. Unlike most vocabulary books, it includes usage examples and plenty of exercises. I’d love to see a modern version of this book which includes slang and more organic phrases in Mandarin.
If you’re looking to travel, study abroad, or work in China, this book is great. It is useful for advanced beginners all the way to lower advanced students. As long as you accept you won’t be getting any kind of slang or modern language, this is pretty much the best vocabulary book on the market for English speaking learners.
Get a copy here.