300 Tang Poems: the Chinese originals with Pinyin, rhyme and tonal pattern

This book is in simplified Chinese characters and the pinyin romanization of the Chinese tones. The poems are not translated into English. The poems are in Chinese characters and pinyin. This book is a good buy for a student who wants to practice Mandarin Chinese pronunciation with the pinyin while learning the simplified Chinese characters.

This an excellent book for students of Chinese who are familiar with this famous collection of poems in English translation and wish to learn more about them in their original language. The poems are conveniently arranged by author. For each poem, the original Chinese language text is provided in simplified (not traditional) Chinese characters. This is followed by a Pinyin transliteration showing the pronunciation and tones of each character, making it easier for learners to learn how to read the poems aloud and look up the characters in a dictionary, if required. No English translations are provided, but several alternative translations are easily available in many already existing publications for those students who wish to consult them.The book also contains an introduction and several useful appendices. Among other things, these provide: an introduction to the poetic rhyming schemes and tonal patterns used in these poems; a primer on the Pinyin transliteration system with a pronunciation guide for English speakers; lists of level-tone Chinese characters used in the poems and those characters whose tones have changed since the time the poems were written; an index of authors showing their birth and death dates; and an index to first lines in the poems arranged in alpha order in Pinyin.Altogether this is an extremely useful book for students of Chinese. I wish it had been available for me when I first began learning Chinese four decades ago.