Golden Chinese: A Golden Key for Entry: Conversational Mandarin for Beginner-Intermediate

"Golden Chinese: A Golden Key for Entry" is an intensive study in Chinese Mandarin with practical and interesting anecdotes in conversations. It contains simple and clear grammatical explanations, step-by-step exercises with answers; moreover, it provides unique cultural and historical introduction in each lesson. This book is for complete beginners and for those who have learned the language years before wanting to have a good review of basic Chinese and move up to intermediate level smoothly. It will guide you to grasp the language quickly by using both the textbook and the audio CDs (CD1, CD2 and CD3 which are available in Amazon.com). The layout of each text (every line) has combined 3 things: Pinyin with tone marks (Alphabet), Hanzi (Simplified Chinese characters), and English translation. It leads you to focus on today's Spoken Chinese since 80% of everyday communication is through speaking.

Janie Chien Golden (AKA Janie Chien) was born into a Chinese scholar's family in Shanghai, China. Her great-grandfather Xie, Wu-liang was one of the most brilliant scholars in China (he had helped and worked closely with President Sun Yat-sen for his presidential speeches and articles) in the old days. It has been a family-tradition to send girls to go abroad and study. First, Janie went to Wesleyan College (Macon, Georgia) for her vocal training (she was the first student who went to Wesleyan after China's Liberation since 1949). Later, she decided to follow her great-grandfather's footsteps in studying and teaching Chinese Language. She went to California State University Los Angeles to further study Chinese Literature and Language. Janie has won 1st place in the Contest of Southern California Universities Chinese Poetry Recitation in 2002 and 2003. She is known for her exquisite intonation with a subtle linguistic expression. She is also known for her unique teaching style that is utilizing music concepts: tones and rhythms to guide her students in practicing tones with Pinyin and leads them to speak Chinese within a short period of time. Today, Janie is a well-known Chinese Mandarin coach for actors and singers in Hollywood entertainment industry. Also, she teaches Chinese Mandarin at Los Angeles Community Colleges and Language Door Language School in Encino, CA.