Chinese

Shun Classic 7-3/4-Inch Chinese Chef's Knife
$219.00
Many of the other reviews critique this tool as either too expensive or that it is inadequate somehow for cleaving bones and parting out. This is a misinterpretation of what the knife is designed for. The Chinese use two different blade designs in the cleaver pattern. One is a cleaver in the western sense, in that it is an impact cutter, this pattern has a blade about 2x as thick as a vegetable pattern (like this one.)

This knife is meant to be used more like a thin chef's knife, santoku or large nakiri. Once you get used to using it this way the method is very practical and flexible. Instead of the full block of various knives, you can reduce yourself to one of these, a 6" utility, a 3" paring and a meat pattern cleaver if you do a lot of parting out. I find that I use the cleaver for virtually everything, slipping back to regular pattern knives only when I need a sharper point for something. For those who critique it as too expensive, I would encourage them to take a look at what pro-quality forged tools go for on other sites, I've seen comparable tools going for over 2x what Shun is marketing these for.

The biggest drawback is that stainless steel tends to hold a rounder edge. By that I mean that the edge is very durable but slightly less sharp, and harder to sharpen than high carbon steel. However, that is the price one trades for easy maintenance. A sushi chef, for instance, will sharpen and wipe down his blades at the end of every day. For those of us who are less conscientious, this is perhaps a rational trade off.

Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition
$24.95
This book is useful only if you are taking a Chinese class, not if you are trying to learn on your own.

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters
$29.95
I bought this book as a supplement to private tutoring sessions. My teacher had already chosen a book that we had been working from and I was hoping to just use this as a way to more easily remember the characters. While this is a possible approach, I found that the order my teacher wanted to go in and the order that the book presented the characters. This wouldn't have been a problem except that the book's stories very often build off one another.

Additionally, I found the stories for the base radical characters to be difficult to remember. Matthews & Matthews use stories to help you remember which characters make up new words. They also include mythical creatures to help you remember the tones, which is a mediocre method, I think, but good enough. The base radicals, though, get stories about wheels and unicorns, which I just can't place in my mind. I've taken to just looking up non-radical individual characters as my tutor uses them and forgetting about the rest.

Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Simplified Character Edition (Integrated Chinese) (Integrated Chinese) Textbook
$32.95
I would strongly discourage anyone from buying this book. The translations in the book are often very ambiguous and confusing. The book often presents new grammar without explaining it. For the grammar it does explain it gives very few example sentences. If you look at the authors they are all Chinese. Regardless of how well they may speak English many points are still lost in translation. When learning a language every small grammatical detail should be broken down and explained. This book will explain the main details but will leave you to figure the rest out on your own.