How long does it take to read Beginning Chinese Reader?
Beginning Chinese Reader by John DeFrancis takes about 18 hours 24 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 18 hours 24 minutes
A long haul
First published 1966. 1,004 pages, about 276,100 words.
37 days (about 6 weeks) at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 30 hours 41 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 18 hours 24 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 11 hours 30 minutes |
The page count is the median across 6 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
A complete revision. this new version, in Pīnyīn romanization, is aimed at secondary school and college levels. It is an introduction to spoken Pekingese or standard Mandarin, the most widely used Chinese dialect. Based on a vocabulary of some 600 items, the lessons include dialogues, pronunciation drills, sentence-building games, and substitution exercises. Two lessons are devoted to instruction in Chinese characters. There is a combined glossary-index, supplementary vocabulary, and a detailed suggested study guide. John DeFrancis is research professor of Chinese at Seton Hall University.
