The official language of China is Putonghua (people's language), also known as Mandarin. Local dialects, like Cantonese and Shanghainese are also spoken. In major cities there are English-speaking staff in the hotels, and people will often approach you to practies their English. In many placese streets names are in pinyin, romanized versions of the Chinese, which makes it easy to get around with a map.

Try a few phrases of Putonghua:

Recommended Books on Learning Chinese

Conversational Mandarin Chinese: Learn to Speak and Understand Mandarin with Pimsleur Language Programs

The Pimsleur Method provides the most effective language-learning program ever developed. The Pimsleur Method gives you quick command of Mandarin Chinese structure without tedious drills. Learning to speak Mandarin Chinese can actually be enjoyable and rewarding.

The key reason most people struggle with new languages is that they aren't given proper instruction, only bits and pieces of a language. Other language programs sell only these pieces -- dictionaries; grammar books and instructions; lists of hundreds or thousands words and definitions; audios containing useless drills. They leave it to you to assemble these pieces as you try to speak. Pimsleur enables you to spend your time learning to speak the language rather than just studying its parts.

When you were learning English, could you speak before you knew how to conjugate verbs? Of course you could. That learning process is what Pimsleur replicates. Pimsleur presents the whole language as one intergrated piece so you can succeed.

With Pimsleur you get:

• Grammar and vocabulary taught together in everyday conversation,
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Millions of people have used Pimsleur to gain real conversational skills in new languages quickly and easily, wherever and whenever -- without textbooks, written exercises, or drills.

About the program:

Conversational Mandarin Chinese includes the 10 lessons from Pimsleur's Basic Mandarin Chinese plus an additional 6 lessons. The 16 lessons in German are the same first 16 lessons in the Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese Level 1. Once you complete the 16 lessons in this edition, we are confident that you will want to continue on and complete the full, 30-lesson Level 1. When you also purchase the Comprehensive Mandarin Chinese Level I Program directly from Simon & Schuster, we will give you a rebate of $150.00. Please see the bottom of this package for details. Note: The purchase of this product alone does not qualify for any rebate.

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