The Pocket Interpreter: Chinese

by Lydia Chen

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0835123200
• ISBN13: 9780835123204
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: China Books & Periodicals
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 4.3" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Mandarin Grammar Introduction

There are different categories of books. This was the first useful book I found on learning to speak. There are many phrase books, most are horribly written with terrible translations, now I know this. This book is different. Many of the sections give sentence and phrase structures that you can plug other words into. This is much more useful than trying to memorize "1400+" of (Ju Brown's) horribly translated phrases. This book actually allows you to learn rather than rote memorize. There is a great extensive dictionary. Don't get seduced by all the lousy books with great graphics on the cover over this subtle gem. This book got me through the first year of speaking. Dr. Michael Howatt

A Handy Travel Language Guide

This book is from 1988, so there is possibility of outdated-ness, but nonetheless, it has an aproachable, easy-to-use format.There is a pronunciation guide, essential phrases, basic sentence structure, an English-Chinese Chinese-English dictionary (with 3,500 words and Chinese characters), and more. There is even additional information about varieties and names of tea, idioms, Chinese horoscope, currency, local foods, and other areas of interest. I haven't studied Chinese extensively, but I have used the English-Chinese section to look up Chinese characters because I am studying Japanese (Chinese characters, or kanji, are used in Japanese writing, but the Japanese words for the characters are different). This type of book, although not completely comprehensive, is great for a beginner of a language or someone that wants to have all the essential terms (and more) outlined in an accessible manner.