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The Rough Guide to Mandarin Chinese Dictionary Phrasebook 3 (Rough Guide Phrasebooks)x$3.21
  (4 reviews)
Best Price: $6.99 $3.21
Whether you want to reserve a hotel room, hire a bicycle or pay the restaurant bill – The Rough Guide Mandarin Chinese Phrasebook will help you all the way. The A-Z English to Mandarin and A-Z Mandarin to English translations will have you speaking the language even before you step off the plane. Practice your pronunciation with 16-pages of additional scenario material; available as downloadable audio files, the scenarios have been recorded by native Mandarin speakers and are compatible to either your computer or iPod. This thoroughly-revised third edition includes a detailed grammar section and a helpful menu and drinks list reader to ensure you always choose the right dish. With this phrasebook in your pocket you are sure to have a great trip!
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Customer Reviews
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The best book if you want to be able to say more than hello during your trip.
By A2BIK37ZMXKW91 on 2007-02-07
Rough Guide Mandarin is structured completely different from most phrase books: The first 40+ pages gives you numbers, days of the week, time, etc., and a 20 minute course in grammar. Oh no, you might be saying, but it is presented very simply. For instance it presents a handful of common verbs and their conjugations. So on one page you can see how to say "I have," "he has, " etc. and "I like," "he/ she likes," etc.
The rest of the book is split between an English-Mandarin dictionary (160 pages approx), a Mandarin-English dictionary (40 pages, approx.), and a 20 page menu reader. What makes the English-Mandarin dictionary pages unique, though, is that most every other page (at least) has dialogue boxes relating to the most useful word(s) on that particular page. For instance, when you thumb through the book for the word "live," you get the word itself, but also the phrases "I live in..." and "Where do you live?" It'll take you 10 minutes to find such a phrase in Berlitz or Lonely Planet in their "getting to know others' section. But because Rough Guide is structured as a dictionary, with hundreds of really useful phrases highlighted in boxes within, you can access something you want to say rather swiftly...and actually deliver it just a minute or so after looking for it. Add the grammar section, where you learn useful verbs and how to conjugate their past tenses, and the number section, and you can learn easily to chat with someone about where you are from, where you are going, where you have traveled thus far, what you like/liked, and so on. Likewise, knowing have to say "have" make sit easily to ask whether a hotel has rooms, whether the room has a shower (after thumbing through the book for the word for shower), etc. And when the answer comes back that the hotel doesn't have, or say "we have," you can actually catch what they are saying.
If still not persuaded, next time you're in a bookstore compare a Berlitz, a Lonely Planet, and a Rough Guide language phrase book side by side. Lonely Planet Mandarin, for example, is basically several pages of basic grammar followed by many sections of phases you won't likely ever use. For instance, the guide provides several pages each of lists of occupations, nationalities, college majors, items of stationary, jewelery, colors, insects, flowers, aquatic sports(!), electrical appliances, camping terms,and so on. Also provided are pat phrases to employ at a hotel's front desk, at a doctor's, at the optometrist, and eating out, among other mini-sections. The book, in effect, is set up to be taken out to be used once a day, if that. It's an improvement on Berlitz phrase books, but not by much. (Berlitz simply divides their books into 10 or so color coded sections such as: "sightseeing," "relaxing," "shopping," traveling around," "money," "eating out," etc.)
So, if you just want a book for emergencies (say, breaking a leg, etc.) then Berlitz and/or Lonely Planet phrase books will serve you well...in your pocket until you are faced with such a situation, since they do have many more specific terms (like 50 different parts of the the body), but if you really want to be able to say some things in Chinese on a daily basis during your trip you'll be much better served by Rough Guide Mandarin. Cheers
Great asset on my recent trip
By A2237DFIW1SK2V on 2007-01-04
Although the book favors the Beijing style pronunciation, the Chinese characters within are worth their weight in jade. I frequently pointed at more difficult characters. Coupled with a few phrases I'd picked up from the beginning of the book, I got around China really well.
Missing was a section on how to properly tell off street peddlers and other nuisances. I would have loved a dialogue page with the following exchange:
"Would you like a 'Rolex' watch?"
"No. Go away and never pester me again you troglodyte!"
Even with the above-mentioned shortcoming, I'd take this book back with me to China if I ever get the chance to return there. Take this with you and keep it very handy. I compared it to the newest Lonely Planet guide and this one is superior.
fun to read
By A2DB0ZOSH14G4J on 2007-01-20
This book is fun to read and easy to find a phrase that your looking for.
Good phrases for shopping and getting directions.
ITS OK
By A1Z8I5AFHYH70K on 2007-08-05
As with most of these books the print is small. There needs to be more English to PinYin translation of both words and phrases.
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