Chinese: Crash Course Chinese - Learn Chinese Fast With a Native Speaker: 500+ Essential Phrases to Build Your Chinese Vocabulary, Chinese, Learn Chinese, Chinese Phrasebook, Mandarin Study Aid Kindle Edition

If you're looking for a "good enough" guide or supplement that delivers real results (assuming you put in the work), get this one.I checked out this book based its description, which invokes the 80/20 rule (aka Pareto Principle). Having read elsewhere about using the 80/20 rule to learn the essentials of a language and still be an effective communicator, I sought a resource that would provide the 20%. Except there was no convenient resource containing the 20% I'd need to know... until now.If there's one thing I hate about books, it's all the useless fluff. Too many authors write for themselves rather than the reader. Too many times I feel like the author should have paid ME for all the weekends I spent wading through a sea of NOTHING.Not this book. The content is distilled to generate practical results. The length is short enough to be a quick reference should you ever get stuck, but it's long enough to give you the bird's eye view. If you're going to China tomorrow, skim Chapter 1 for pronunciation. For grammar, see Chapter 2, etc. It's step by step and logical depending on your needs.Celine did not mess around with this. If I could use one word to describe this book, I would say: intelligent. The information is extremely well organized, and there's absolutely no fluff. The grammar lessons are simple enough for a 3rd grader (who doesn't speak Chinese) and the broad range of vocabulary words and phrases could certainly cover my ass for a month-long trek in rural China.

Lots of phrases, and a link to a web site to hear the tones and other Mandarin specific tones as Pinyin may use roman letters, but the sounds are completely different. Not a bad book overall... but it is a very small step in the process of learning Mandarin.

I'm traveling to Beijing and Shanghai in a few weeks so I've been browsing different easy Chinese learning books for some time. I decided on this one for several reasons and I am very satisfied with my decision.First, this book has Pinyin with tone marks and Chinese characters with every word and phrase. Most of the other books I browsed did not have either tone marks or Chinese characters. One just had Chinese characters along with the English and that does not make sense for a beginner.Second, the ebook formatting is perfect. Poor formatting on kindle books is my biggest pet peeve. This book has a clean layout and professional presentation. It's very easy to read.Third, the topics covered went beyond my expectations. There are phrases on asking for directions, ordering food, bargaining and shopping, and going to a bar. There's even a section on "romantic" stuff, i.e. talking to girls.Last but not least, this book provides a good foundation Chinese grammar. I did not expect Chinese grammar to be so straightforward but it actually is. Originally I just wanted to know some practical phrases, but now I can also get a good grasp of basic Chinese grammar.

Want to learn chinese? Want to learn the fundamentals easily and quickly? This book is for you! Not only is the price very affordable but this is very well written and offers up a nice array of knowledge if you want to learn in your free time or have a deadline trip to china and want to communicate the necessities.The book is clean, offering descriptions and explanations of the vocabulary and terminology. It explains how to pronounce each vowel clearly and even has external links in the book you can click to hear a native speaker saying the sounds. I found this highly fun and educational.I have learned a few words from this and i am eager to learn more. I may never go to China but it is always fun to learn something new!Note - I recieved this item in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I found the book to be helpful. I have used it, along with other resources, to learn manderan Chinese.

Different languages have always intrigued me, and though I learned a few phrases from the French and Spanish languages in highschool, I am not fluent in anything except English. This book is written in a way that helped me relate to the Chinese language, that has always seemed so foreign to me in appearance. The author offers a nice presentation, isn't preachy and helps the reader learn simple and useful phrases. Though I am by no means fluent in the Chinese language, I am learning as I go along and understand a few phrases. I am going to continue to read this book until I feel more confident in the language.

not really useful enough without audio. knowing how to pronounce some of the words with respect to the type of "accent" on the particular word makes it difficult to comprehend without hearing. Here is a funny but very real example: - two letter word - "ma", actually has 5 different meanings depending on your voice intonation from low to high, high only, high to low, low only or monotone - . so as an inexperienced person, you might think your talking about your "mother" but in reality, the person listening hears you talking about a "horse".audio is required for this language.

I had had taken a Mandarin Chinese class in college years ago and I've always wanted to pick up Chinese again. Finally I got myself to search on Amazon and purchased this book. So far, I am very satisfied with the quality of materials. I like that there's both pinyin and Chinese characters. The situation specific phrases could be used as a vocabulary builder. I will probably need to make flashcards from this book. There's definitely waaay more info than I can chew right now. I'm super excited to revive my Chinese skills!

Well presented book. Good background or supporting material for study of the language, the author explains things well.It would be so useful to have some audio with the book to help learn and pronounce the phrases - hence the four stars.

Good read

Ok

Would benefit from a CD with audio to match the text -- very hard to figure out how words are supposed to sound from the pronunciation marks alone.

i like this book but it is really expensive and has only limited content for learning.