Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm sad I missed the Kickstarter on this since I would have backed it because I love anything about learning Chinese language and it's a pretty nice idea. The book is colorful, bright and the Kickstarter backers should be proud that they helped something this pretty come to fruition. With its strong graphic design sensibilities and colorful content, it's a great book for anyone's coffee table. Unfortunately for the learning side of things, it's not very good. I'm writing this review only because I think folks should know what exactly they're buying. While the pictures are clever, many times, the associations are a stretch and they just don't seem effective as memory devices. Also, the book switches between traditional and simplified characters seemingly to facilitate the illustrations, which can be confusing for students who would actually like to read one or the other. On top of that, some of the words that are illustrated are just not used any more (nuan2 - argue or xuan1 - shout, for example). Definitely helpful though if you're reading ancient Chinese poetry, which I'm sure, most folks are not. Of course, for that, it's not enough content. I don't think this is a good resource for learning Chinese characters. Honestly, if the pictures thing works for you, I'd highly recommend Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters since they actually put together more of a system with their images and a LOT of great explanations of how everything works. I do,however, think that Chineasy is a unique coffee table book. Unfortunately, I don't have a coffee table.