The New Practical Chinese Reader Series

[Rem]

One of my main resources for Mandarin at the moment is the New Practical Reader.

I am currently working my way through book 2 of the series. I’ve found it quite easy going so far and there’s a natural sense of progression which is nice to follow, but it’s also rather restrictive.

I am starting to wonder whether or not I should get book 3 next or if I might be better off looking for something else to use after I’ve gone through book 2 (I still have a while to go before I finish it).

Has anyone used this series who can give me their opinion on whether they felt it was worth it to stick with the whole series? Or can anyone recommend some other resources that I could look into? Maybe there’s something that I can add in alongside book 3 to break it up a bit when I get to that point?

[aabram]

I've more or less went through all 6 books. Their value is their structured content. They do build upon previous lessons but some of the lessons themselves are a bit... arbitrary. Like the one about Chinese scientists developing new strain of wheat or something. For relative beginner these are somewhat irrelevant. However, the series follows HSK path and I think 6th book takes you up to HSK4 vocabulary and grammar wise. I'd say NPRC is not terribly useful if you want to start speaking ASAP but it's okay in the long run granted you supplement with other sources. I got mine for peanuts from local Confucius Institute so I'm happy to have them.