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The Practical Chinese Reader is a comprehensive introductory Mandarin Chinese language textbook series for use in courses at secondary schools or universities. The series follows two students as they first study Chinese in their own country, and then go to China to participate in a foreign exchange program there. The two-volume beginning level consists of 50 lessons and introduces a vocabulary of 1,000 basic words. For simplified character texts for Books 1 and 2, two editions are available. The content is identical, but the paper and printing quality of the Hong Kong edition is better than that of the Beijing edition. Books 3 through 6 are available only in simplified characters. Books 3 and 4 consist of 30 lessons covering some 2,000 words, while Books 5 and 6 consist of 30 lessons covering approximately 3,000 words. Texts in books 5 and 6 are original essays and literary works in Chinese.
