Review of Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington
This is a grammar most deserving of its title. It is truly comprehensive in every sense of the word. The grammar is explained along lines that a Westerner with even a pinch of grammatical knowledge can understand.
It is probably a good idea that the examples of erroneous grammar are included, complete with an asterisk to indicate that it is an error. However, I can’t help feeling that they’ll remain in my memory and I won’t be able to tell the difference between a sentence that’s been hailed as a grammatically correct example and one that is incorrect. I can’t really think of any alternatives to the way the authors have done this though.
It would be great if there were just a few exercises at the end of each chapter, complete with an answer key. That really wouldn’t add all that much to the total page count of the book, but would greatly add to its overall usefulness. After all, most of us who actually buy/read this book are students of Chinese who need all the exercises we can get - aren’t we?
Lastly, here are a few shortcomings I found in this book:
On page 46, section 2.14 should be cross referenced to chapter 7.
I’m not sure whether this is actually a mistake or not, but hai2shi0 (or) is explained in section 23.4. But there’s no reference made to huo4zhe3 at all, which is exceedingly relevant.
In the index, on page 417 xiang3 points to a non-existent 8.1.6. It should be 18.1.6 (page 284).
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