Very Good: Spoken Chinese for Beginners vol. 4 has altogether 12 lessons. In coherence with the first three volumes and centering on the four characters' understanding and discussions on personal value and pursuit, it displays their distinctive personalities in vivid, humorous and simple language, thus reflecting the features that run through the book, "Classroom is the life setting", "Words reveal personalities" and "Humor is the key feature". Every lesson in this book is coherent with a storyline, which can arouse students' interests. The intriguing texts are thought-provoking. It includes 12 topics: Chinese talent shows, ways to cure insomnia, shopping (for an Mp3), watch a debate contest, what is happiness, classic movie quotes, learn to cook Chinese food, go for an interview, worship of idols (Jackie Chan), arrangement of holidays and life plan. In combination with rich culture it includes idioms (such as "killing two birds with one stone", "Lord Ye's love of dragons—professed love of what one does not really understanding or even fears"), popular sayings (such as "better to seek help from within more than without"), facial make-up in Beijing opera, he Romance of the Three Kingdoms, cultures and customs of the ethnic groups (Nakhi people in Lijiang) and the special meanings of color words in Chinese etc. The texts are thought-provoking. Students can learn 50 language points, over 200 words and make daily conversations in Chinese after learning this book. The texts are annotated in English. The supplementary booklet annotates the new words in Japanese and Korean. It also attaches the introduction to the texts, the teaching purpose(s) and two sets of exercises to facilitate teachers.

A CD is attached with recordings of the texts, new words and Prover of the lesson.

◇ Annotations both in Japanese and Korean for vocabulary
◇ Introduction to the texts and instructional objectives
◇ Two progress test papers

Liu Songhao started teaching in the International College for Chinese Language Studies in Peking University in 1989, and had taught Chinese in countries such as Fiji, US, etc. Starting from 1994, Liu was a lecture in the department and in 1999, he assistant professor. From Aug, 2005 to Jun, 2006, he was a visiting scholar at the grant of Fulbright Program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His has participated in a lot of Chinese textbooks such as HSK Simulated Tests, Chinese Reading (Intermediate), Chinese Listening Course (Elementary), Essential Reading, New Chinese Listening (Intermediate), Chengo Chinese, etc, and has gained rich experience in teaching Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL) and TCFL textbook compilation. The other authors are all experienced teachers of TCFL from Peking University.