Deciding one day to study Mandarin Chinese was an easy decision. The task itself, however is still a difficult one.
I have a plethora of books on the language now from the etymology of some of the characters to simple and advanced dictionaries and "How to learn" books from both China and the West. So far, this is the best phrasebook I have come across.
It combines a dictionary with a phrasebook. It will cater to most of your needs and, let's be frank, if you need to say something advanced, then you probably wouldn't need a phrase book in the first place.
So, need to know what a telephone is in Chinese? This will give you the word and a useful series of phrases you might use such as ("is such and such here?") and the like.
I think one of the best features of the book is that it gives the characters, pinyin (for those who don't know, Pinyin is a standardised romanisation of Chinese. It uses a set of basic rules for character pronunciation in transliteration which cut down on the number of complex transliteration guides. Thus, once you learn how to pronounce one component, say "Yi", then you should be able to pronounce it for any character once you combine it with the tone), and a different phonetic transliteration for you to use. I found that the phonetic transliteration was brilliantly helpful, especially for a beginner (for example, Duo might have "Dwor", and Dui Bu Qi "Dwey bu chee" or something to that effect). If your pinying and phonetics fail you, you can always take the short cut and show the words to whoever you're speaking to!
Unfortunately some of my hopes were unfulfilled and helpful words do not always appear in the book. Nowhere could I find Muslim, Mosque and such words which would have been a help had I been, say, in Sichuan, Chengdu and wanted to visit the fabulous mosque near Renmin Park. (FYI Muslim is MuSiLin or Hui Jiao Ren in Putonghua).
So I recommend this handy little book. Naturally it's not something you're really going to use to learn Chinese with (and to be honest if you want to begin learning Chinese on your own the best thing to do is pic up the books designed for foreigners in China itself. I would recommend large bookstores in Beijing and Shanghai which will often also contain foreign works in English at very cheap prices compared with the US and UK. You won't find the same great deals in Hong Kong).
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