Practical Chinese is one of my favorite Learning Chinese Textbooks Series. It's also known as The Effective Way to Learn Chinese, and a lot of people for whom other systems have not worked out for, use Practical Chinese. I like how the author, Wendy Lin developed Practical Chinese to teach her own daughters in the US, because the traditional Learning Chinese method that focused on characters was not working. Practical Chinese uses Pinyin and English, and builds up competency by focusing on conversation through it's ten levels. Feedback has been very positive from customers, especially for the activity book.

Short summary of Practical Chinese

Name	Motivation to Write	Author Location	Characters	Teacher's Edition	Age		CD	Levels
Practical Chinese - Effective way to learn Chinese	Teach her kids to learn Chinese in the US (Wendy Lin)	US (from Taiwan)	Simplified and Traditional Chinese Character Versions with Pinyin	No	Ages 3 - Teenager (some adults even use it)		Yes	10

Labels: Learning Chinese Textbook