Chinese Phrase Book

If want to enrich your travels with the most popular and useful Chinese phrases and vocabulary close at hand, then keep reading...

Many Chinese language textbooks are intended mainly for people who study Chinese in formal classes and are based on assumptions that are appropriate primarily for such learners.



The words and phrases such textbooks introduce in early lessons are often those that help students function in a classroom setting. Such textbooks also assume that the learners’ need to learn to read and write Chinese is as pressing as their need to speak it, so they introduce oral and written skills at the same rate.

Underlying many such textbooks is also the assumption that they will be taught by a teacher, someone who will manage and guide the students’ learning process.

However, what about people who live or work in China but do not have the opportunity to study Chinese in a formal classroom setting? Such people usually need to become “street functional” in Chinese relatively quickly, so their most pressing need is for the words and phrases that will help them deal with daily life in China.

Also, during their first few trips to China, such people often have a much greater need to learn to speak and understand basic Chinese than to learn Chinese characters.

This Chinese phrasebook is intended for this special category of Chinese learners, those people who are going to work, live or sightsee in China for an extended period but who do not have the opportunity to study in a formal Chinese language program. This book aims to meet the special needs of these learners in several ways:

• It introduces the words, phrases, sentence patterns, and skills that are needed most often in daily life in China.


• It encourages learners to make their own choices as to where to focus their efforts; especially in regards to the question of how much time and attention to devote initially to learning to read and write Chinese.


• It recognizes that learners might be studying individually, with tutors, or with teachers who may have little experience teaching Chinese to foreigners

Underlying this book are several important assumptions:

• It assumes that learners have different needs, interests, and learning strategies, and it is thus designed to accommodate a variety of different approaches to Chinese, especially individual decisions as to how much attention learners initially wish to devote to Chinese characters.


• It assumes that people learn any language by first mastering that which is simple and only gradually moving into that which is more complex.

Here’s just a tiny fraction of what you’ll discover in this Chinese phrasebook:

• Exchanging Money


• Buying


• Drinks and Snacks


• In the Cafeteria


• The Noodle Stand


• In the Restaurant