Job Discussion Forums

[fluffyhamster]

I haven't been to China for years, and was wondering if the Longman Language Activator had been released in a bilingualized edition yet (not that I was aware of any plans for such an edition to be released!).

BTW, 'bilingualized' means that the English-English text is complete and as in the original monolingual publication, with full translations supplied of at least the definitions and examples - this is as opposed to bilingual (pocket?) dictionaries' often short and possibly inadequate glosses and examples (often, very short decontextualized words and phrases).

Please fell free to tell me of whatever other bilingualized books you've seen, or bargains generally (e.g. a stonking cheaply-reprinted grammar for under 100 RMB or whatever).

Thanks!

[Buck Lin]

I have not the opportunity to purchase anything from Longman here in China. Most materials used are from Cambridge in China. I prefer Longman , so I recommend that you buy teaching materials abroad to bring here. Taiwan has many good materials like the Azer Grammar books that have Chinese explanations to the grammar points . Trouble is that the Chinese is not the simplified Chinese used here in China.

[fluffyhamster]

Thanks for the reply, BL. Isn't there a Foreign Language Bookstore in Nanchang? I used to live in Shanghai and had no problem in getting Chinese licensed reprints of Longman dictionaries, but like I said, I haven't been to China for years so it's hard to know what's new and/or currently available from the FLBs in larger cities like Shanghai. (I guess what I'm saying is that I'd appreciate a reply from somebody living in Shanghai or Beijing!).

[Buck Lin]

If you are in Japan bring as many books you can . Pick up second hand ones if you can. Usually EFL students throw out their books so check the used books stores. Getting good reading material here is hard even for Chinese English teachers. They only have the classics available at places like Xinhua Bookstores. One thing that is really great for teaching is comics. I'd give anything for a stack of comics.

[fluffyhamster]

I should perhaps point out that I'm only intending to visit China again at some point (especially if there are some good books that I can pick up whilst there), not work there again! (Sorry that I didn't make this clear in my OP).

[Buck Lin]

HOng KOng or TAiwan . The mainland is very strict about what comes in . A few years ago The LOnely Planet tourest book was banned over a map of TAiwan that was a different color than the rest of China.