Chinese Go Books / Discussion

Velobici: I was skeptical of the usefulness of Chinese language Go books to those that can not read, speak or write the language...what could I possibly do with such books. By using them, I have found that not knowning the language may be an advantage. All to often the authors provide various hints regarding the problem in the text. Since I can't read the text, the hints to not affect me! So I would like to leave the Chinese language books as part of Go Books hoping that others will try them. Dont want to be pulling up the ladder behind me (denying others the opportunity to improve in the same way....similar to those that will not play people rated weaker on the Go Servers).

Malweth: on the other hand, Asian origin go books are not as readily available. Certainly some can be ordered, but the majority of those I just added are not being imported.

Having a similar listing of foreign books would be more useful to those travelling. Such a listing could certainly be referenced by the books page.

I don't think it's any great secret that foreign language books can be useful. They just aren't worth the cost of import for most beginners.

And some books really aren't worth buying if you don't know the language... my reviews will illustrate this once they're completed.

unkx80: IMO it would be good to include the Chinese titles of the books in the list.

Velobici: Agreed. I find this site very helpful in obtaining the HTML codes for the Chinese characters once one has the pinyin. I get the pinyin from my Langenscheidt Pocket Dictionary.

unkx80: Do you guys prefer the old format (on the bottom half of the Chinese Go Books page) or the new format (on the upper half of the page)?

Feel free to restore if the new format is not welcomed. But if restoration is to be done, please note that I have corrected two or three translated book titles while converting the format.

Velobici: I like the new format better. Though I am conficted regarding the use of inflected vowels as opposed to tone numbers. Inflection marks in Latin alphabets indicate different vowels, whereas tones are the same vowel with different dynamics. Using the number emphasizes a significant difference in the structure of Chinese (and other tonal languages) Western languages. English uses some style of tone 2 in place of the Chinese toneless 吗 or 呢. Speaking of which, the choice between 吗 or 呢 is not clear to me.

unkx80: Officially, Hanyu Pinyin uses inflected vowels, and this is what you would learn in language schools and see in texts. However, these are very tedious to input, so people turn to tone numbers instead.

As for 吗 or 呢, both are used. I suppose the choice is pretty much arbitary.

Tderz: As with English vs. American, both individually being correct, one simply should be consistent: Hence, write a text either completely simplified (jiantizi) or in traditional characters (fantizi, usually more strokes).

Traditional Chinese characters:

(繁体中文词), fántǐ zhōngwén cí or short fántǐcí

Simplified Chinese characters:

(简体中文词), jiǎntǐ zhōngwén cí , or short jiǎntǐzi, 简体字

Mandarin pinyin:

(普通话拼音), I prefer to read the pǔtōnghuà pīnyīn as written here with the diacritical signs instead of the numbers 1-4.
Then it does not disturb me reading the text, while helping how to pronounce it. (I plan to transform the pīnyīn in Chinese Go Terms into jiǎntǐcí)

A good help for all of us non-native speakers/readers of Chinese is: MDBG free online chinese english dictionary

very helpful too is: CCDICT

Dieter: Can someone look at this page

http://www.clcn.cn.net/guest/Pubquery/PubQueryCls.ASP?WCI=ShowDetail&WCE=%201%237722

and find out what they say about the book with ISBN 7-5326-0661-9 ?

Velobici: Foo! No picture. Please compare with the description on that page. I have added some information on the Chinese Go Books plays. The publisher appears to be the Shanghai Publishing Company (上海辞书出版社). Cost is 13.80 Yuan ($1.50 or so). Published in 2000?

Dieter: Yes, the contents look identic.

Velobici: Purchased on eBay.com from goplayer2006 ? Item number: 6979623592. http://cgi.ebay.com/Go-board-game-tesuji-book-with-1320-Problems-Bonus_W0QQitemZ6979623592QQcategoryZ268QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem