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Mandarin Phrasebooks


Guest LAkittee

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Hello Roddy,

I am planning my first trip to China and I do not speak Chinese. You mention two phrase books on your site: The Rough Guide to Mandarin Chinese (a dictionary phrasebook) by Rough Guides (Editor) (Paperback - May 2000)

2. Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook (Mandarin Phasebook, 4th Ed)

Can you please elaborate a little more of your recommendation? One of the reviews on Amazon pans the Rough Guide, saying that it doesn't have the Chinese characters, which are useful to show people who can't read pinyin -- some say that the LP guide is difficult for someone without any Chinese language background

What do you suggest for a "first-timer' -- I usually am pretty good at pronouncing things but I undertand it can take years of practice to get the 4 tones down right.

Thanks!

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For a first-timer, I wouldn't spend much time worrying about the tones.

Go for the one with the characters - they're useful.

Roddy

PS You don't need to address questions to me - there's a whole load of people to answer queries.

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To be honest I don't have a copy of either now, and I can't remember off-hand which uses characters where.

I suspect they both do, though perhaps one has them only in the dictionary section at the back, not in the phrasebook section.

Anyone else know?

roddy

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I don't have much knowledge of Mandarin phrasebooks generally, but I strongly suggest that you find one that has both characters and Hanyu pinyin. If you can learn the Hanyu pinyin then you can pronounce the words. Even if you don't learn the characters when you show the book to a Chinese person they will be able to read them.

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I don't have one with me to check, but make sure you get one with a good menu section (with characters so that the restaurant staff can point out what they have on offer).

Chinese menus are huge, incomprehensible things and you can miss out on a lot of great food if you don't take a good list of dishes with you.

Jo

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