Mandarin Chinese for Beginners: Mastering Conversational Chinese

Great book for beginners. The CD that comes with it is very useful too.

This book is a good resource to have to introduce you to learning Chinese. I used this in addition to other resources to complement different learning styles.

Me gustó mucho para complementar mis cursos de chino. El libro viene en inglés y chino. No traía ni bolsa no plástico protector adicional a la bolsa en la que fue enviado, sin embargo llegó en buen estado y antes de lo esperado. Lo super recomiendo.

I really like this book because it has every day life scenarios and is really very good for anyone who wants to learn the practical aspects of the language . Highly recommend !

This book is an Excellent source for learning useful Chinese. My background: I have been to China 3 times in the past 12 months. I am not traveling for business, but rather for vacation or personal reasons. I am married to a woman from China, and she can speak fluent Mandarin as well as read it. My Mandarin self study is not extremely disciplined. I still study the lessons from this book, while also being sure to fully utilize the included audio portion to help make my pronunciation more accurate. In my experience tones and the pronunciation of words are hard to grasp for beginners without first hearing an example from a native speaker. That's why the included audio feature is important and better than other books/courses that don't also provide any audio tools. I like the organization of the book and how it is broken down into sections for each chapter which helps me practice in segments and at my own pace. Each chapter has a purpose as well like: introducing yourself, asking directions, business phrases and company related topics, how to interact in a restaurant, saying thank you, apologizing... In my experience I noticed that if I repeat each of the lessons a few times in a row before moving on it's easier to absorb. I simply will do a lesson until I feel I have committed about 70% to memory, again because it helps me feel that I retain it better. This is also better if you go a few days between lessons. I don't recommend rushing through each lesson quickly or doing more than one or two lessons in a day, that won't work for someone like me. After a few trips to China I am definitely still a beginner but I don't feel as helpless as I thought I would thanks to making the effort to learn from this book. I have ventured around completely on my own, without my wife, on numerous occasions and I got by just fine. Sure there were several times street vendors or merchants probably were asking me to buy something and I just said no thank you, as I walked by but I had no idea what they were asking me to buy. That will probably get better with practice and experience. Be forewarned that obvious (non-Asian) foreigners are asked to buy everything, be sure to learn how to say "no thanks". From my limited experience Chinese people almost entirely expect you to know absolutely zero mandarin, so when you can speak some mandarin and also manage to be polite as you do it you go from being just another foreigner to someone that is respectful of the local culture and you will get along much better with the locals. Overall; I have learned from this book, I have also learned by asking my wife hundreds of questions, and I have learned Mandarin in the car from lessons via Audible. Among many other useful things that I can say now I will mention that I can: introduce myself, ask where a place is, ask how much things cost, tell them I will be late and that I am sorry, order food and get leftovers in a To-go box...and many more. As for beyond that, I can sometimes understand or guess the subject of some of the simpler details (time or day) of what my wife is discussing with her parents in a full speed Mandarin conversation. I can pick out a word or two from each sentence and make a guess and I am usually correct but not always. Use this book if you want to travel to China. It has a great section that applies specifically to business travelers and the book is a useful for leisure travelers as well. I recommend Chinese for Beginners by Yi Ren, she is a very good teacher and this book will help you prepare for your travels.