Next Steps in Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble for Intermediate Learners – Complete Course

Mandarin Chinese Made Easy with Your Personal Language Coach

By: Paul Noble, Kai-Ti Noble

Narrated by: Paul Noble

Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's Summary

No grammar tests. No memory drills. No chance of failure. Welcome to Learn with Paul Noble – a unique, tried and tested language learning method that has been used by almost a million people to speak fluently and confidently in no time at all. 

Take your Mandarin Chinese to the next level with Paul Noble's simple, relaxed approach to learning that has been proven to succeed every time. Unlike more traditional language learning courses, Paul Noble’s unique method has no grammar tests, no memory drills and no chance of failure. Just listen, interact and learn wherever you are. In this audiobook, Paul will help you build on your existing Mandarin Chinese knowledge and give you the confidence to independently construct sentences and speak Mandarin Chinese fluently in a variety of scenarios. 

Language learning has finally become quick, easy and effortless. 

This 12-hour course also includes a handy downloadable booklet to help reinforce your learning. Next Steps is an intermediate course, for non-beginners, which follows on from the Learn Mandarin Chinese with Paul Noble for Beginners – Complete Course.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Paul Noble and Kai-Ti Noble (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

Praise for other titles in the Paul Noble range: "More than I ever managed in five years of French at school." (Tom Meltzer, The Guardian)

"I seemed to absorb the phrases taught, without even consciously trying, and quickly felt confident enough to make my own sentences." (Penelope M. Walsh, Canary Wharf Magazine)

absolutely the best if you really want to learn

Paul Noble, Kai-Ti Noble and Dirstin(?) are the best teachers. I have learned so much from them and if they are reading this, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Please consider making a 3rd book too! After I completed their first book I felt that I had learned more with that audiobook than I had with many months of studying using other audiobooks, apps and textbooks. This 2nd book had my head spinning. Still is! It's almost too much, but through every hard bit, Paul guides you slowly, with so much repetition and explanation. There is so much that makes his book better than anyone else's book, but the major thing is that he makes you think and speak all the way through. You start speaking sentences very quickly in the first book, not repeating , but actually putting together the pieces that you have been taught to make sentences. This book teaches you much more complex sentence structures, and there were times when my brain just couldn't take it and i had to go back and start over. This book is much harder than the 1st book and there isn't as much time to answer, so he's making us think quicker. You are constantly having to think and put together sentences using the skills he teaches. Everything is explained clearly though and so many things that I partly knew just "click" into place with Paul's explanations. The end result though is that when trying to talk to my Chinese friends in Mandarin, I actually can. I have learned how to stop and think and make sentences. For instance, what is the word for "car" how to do I say "drive car". How do I say, that "your son is going to drive the car over here and pick you and the kids up, you need to wait over there for him". Yes, I actually had to relay that message to my friend's Chinese in-laws while in DC. I was able to make a sentence and be understood by my friend's non-English speaking in-laws. This happened while a group of us were visiting DC and in fact i even stopped and offered to help take a picture of a chinese family, all in rather stunted Mandarin, but I felt confident enough that between what I had learned and a few sign gestures I could make this offer. The students I was with couldn't believe I did that. This book is not just a quickly put together book to make a profit. This is a book that required a lot of planning to make and is made to really help a person LEARN mandarin, not just learn a bit of vocabulary for a tourist visit . By the way, Paul uses different food names throughout the book and it's worth looking up the recipes and making them. Mapo tofu is now one of my specialties, LOL. I wish I could give more stars! take a look at my other reviews and you will see how many other learn mandarin books I own. NONE of them compare to this one. I gave all the other good reviews, because at the time they each helped me some. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time on them though, I learned so much more from this book. This is the one you want!

Much better than Pimsleur

I've spent years using Pimsleur to limited results. Paul Noble has exposed the flaws in Pimsleur to me. Firstly one needs tone practice, pinyin, actual explanations of sentence structure and an understanding of what is required and what can be left out, as well as a modern vocabulary. all of these things Noble provides and Pimsleur is lacking.

Loved this series!

I learned so much from these books! I listened at least 20 times over the course of a year and I just returned from a trip to Taiwan where I was able to have basic conversation with people, it was awesome! I've tried all the other Mandarin Chinese courses and Paul Noble's is definitely the best one so far.

PLEASE PAUL, WE NEED STEPS AFTER NEXT!

Great for Making Chinese Stick!

Both of Paul Noble's Mandarin Chinese resources are wonderful. I've made it through both and feel much more confident both speaking and understanding Chinese than I did before. (I have studied some in the past). He allows plenty of time to think through your answers (unlike most "book on tape" type learning methods) and being given permission to forget was invaluable in helping me keep on moving through the course until I found I was suddenly actually recalling the "harder" vocabulary. And the way he teaches Chinese grammar is clear and easy to understand and will stick with you long after you've finished. Highly recommended.

A good but not sufficient Pinselur alternative.

This book and the previous one will give you what you need to start learning Chinese. Technically speaking, they will get you past HSK 1 and well into HSK 2 vocabulary. That is good. However, it is nowhere near as thorough as Pimsleurs Mandarin Chinese. A good start nonetheless.

amazing! I've been complimented so many times.

The best way to learn. don't think twice. so incredibly well done. I listen in 0.9 and it's excellent for learning the tones.

Just as great as the first one

I've just finished the second Paul Noble's complete course for Mandarin Chinese (for the second time) and I must say, the books have really sparked my passion for learning Mandarin and are an incredible resource to learn the basics very effortlessly and in a playful manner. Two months ago I couldn't say a word in Chinese, 我会说中文了。

Truly useful for your next level Mandarin

If you have learned the basics of Mandarin and would like to go further, this is the right material for you!

I have basic Mandarin plus extensive self-study and initially, I thought this book might be too basic. However, I still benefited in terms of reviewing and increasing my vocabulary and at the same time reinforcing what I already know.

The audiobook is a perfect companion to supplement your learning as you can use it while travelling, driving or anything else you can do while listening.

Paul Noble may be a Westerner who is not a native speaker but I believe he did study the language and was aided by a team of native speakers to come up with this book. It is not only his language knowledge but his method that helps very much in learning and practicing my Mandarin.

Highly recommended.

Good teacher.

Great Teacher and pronounciation. Repetition is Key. Dont worry about pausing everything will come again.

Very helpful

This course really brought together sentence structure and grammar for me in a very easy way. It just reinforces how logical this language is which is what I love about it

Another excellent course that really works!

I highly recommend this course because it is very effective and continues to develop your language skills, seamlessly, from the end of the first course. Please can we have a "Beyond Next Steps"!

I never thought I would learn any Chinese

I've always been terrible with foreign languages. I did five years French at secondary school and managed to learn one sentence and how to count to five. Years after that, I tried to learn Italian for a holiday, but only learnt how to say 'thank you' and gave up on it.

I then met, fell in love with, and married a Chinese woman. Her English is great, but her whole family live in China and only speak Chinese. The majority of her friends only speak Chinese. Clearly, I needed to learn Chinese!

I tried EVERYTHING. I tried books, I tried audio guides, I tried apps... even apps designed for children. Where did I get? Nowhere! I tried several times over the years and decided it was impossible and I would never learn Chinese.

Getting this audio book was my last attempt and - I still can't believe this - it worked. I found myself learning Chinese. Being able to remember the words, pronounce the words, and even string together sentences. My wife is so impressed with me. We're not conversational yet, but I'm only two months in (about an hour from the end of this book) and I'm feeling extremely confident. I WILL be able to speak Chinese. Not straight away, not even soon, but I feel that at some point I will be able to speak Chinese.

I only have two issues:

1. There are two native speakers (a woman and a man) and I found the woman great, but the man too fast and his pronunciations unclear. For a tonal language, it's important to say each word correctly, but often I couldn't hear it in his voice.

2. The end of the book is for practising the words you have been taught. There's no guidance, just phrases for you to translate, a pause for you to speak, and then one of the native speaker says the phrase in Chinese. The pause here is shorter than before, to encourage quicker use of the language, but I find the pauses too short. Even if I start talking immediately and get through the phrase quickly, I will often still be cut off by speaker. I find that a bit off-putting as it distracts me from completing the phrase.

Aside from those two, no complaints. After all, it has achieved the impossible and taught me Chinese.

It works!

Brilliant audio book once again! Please do an advanced/further book for Mandarin Chinese! Superb way to learn and practise.

Best method ever

This and the first audio book is absolutely amazing. I wish there was a third one. I spend hour ms on end without feeling tired. It’s is fun, very instructive. What amazes me the most is that I have not touched a pen or written anything. I have had many language teachers over the course of my life and this is the best method so far. 1000% highly recommended.

A very good continuation of the first course

Now we need a vocab builder. I do hope you and Noble Tai Tai (aka the Noble House) do more in Mandarin.

I always recommend your courses to learners as the very first part of their learning journey. I think you carry on where Michel left off. Plus you don't have his distracting accent!

Learners, take it from me, a Polyglot and the inventor of the GoldList Method. Start with audio only. Paul Noble's course if there is one in that language, then maybe MT or Pimsleur, and then a written course book like a Colloquial or TY one, and after that the Routledge Frequency Dictionary for those languages that have them, although not all are good, check the Amazon reviews.

Whoever does this and the preceding course know they have been in very good hands, but the journey now has to continue. Will we be a yóukè or a joker, all depends on where we go from here.

Really high quality stuff

I’ve now completed both audio courses from Paul Noble on Mandarin Chinese and I’m very impressed. The format is very simple but the language does really sink in. I’ve lived in China for 8 years and really struggled with pronunciation but hearing native speakers pronounce the words continuously makes things much easier. Highly recommended!

So good, what do I do now?

Aaaaah I've done the Complete Course (15 hours)
Soon I'll be finished with the Next Steps (12,5 hours)
there aren't anymore are there?

WHAT WILL I DO WITHOUT Paul Noble and his two native speakers speaking Chinese to me while I cook, or lie in the bath...

This is really good. Although it could be used on its own, I use it as a complement to group classes because the repetition gives a very solid hold on tones. I don't think after 27 hours I could ever pronounce 我想要 the wrong way, ever... (with the rule of third tones in succession of course, as hammered down my ears by the two native speakers).

Chinese having a strange grammar, so different from ours, it makes sense to learn it as patterns rather than a set of rules. HSK courses do the same. They call them grammar patterns, don't they...
For someone like me (French native speaker) who knows a lot about grammar, it feels mad at times, but for someone who doesn't understand anything about grammar, it's an ideal way to learn. And for me too. Because there aren't any better ways really.

I just wish Paul Noble would carry on making Chinese learning books, aiming for higher and higher levels every time. Cross my fingers he will do that. These teachings are really excellent. I can see how much better I'm doing compared to other students in my class. Highly recommended.

Fantastic highly recommended!

Paul's method is fantastic i really emjoyed the course and wish he had an intermediate/advance course. where to go now is the question. 5🌟

I can speak and think in Chinese now. More please

This is really the most effective course I’ve done to learn Chinese. Easier to memorise words and I’m actually thinking in Chinese.
Please make make more Chinese courses. I would like to see one dealing with workplace situations and more emphasis on greetings.

great foundation for learning chinese

I really enjoyed Paul's approach to language learning. I love how he teaches you literal translations, they are so much easier to remember and reinforces it through repetition. I only hope he comes back and does another part.