Beginner's Chinese

New York: Hippocrene Books, 2004. — xiv; 173 p. Includes bibliographical references. (Hippocrene Beginner's Series). — ISBN 0-7818-0566-X.This introduction to Mandarin Chinese is designed for those with little or no prior experience in the language. Beginning with an in-depth look at the langueage's prominent features, including Chinese phonetics and the written language, it provides the most basic and crucial words and patterns to enable the student to immediately communicate in Chinese. Each lesson consists of the following: basic sentence patterns, dialogues to illustrate the use ofthese patterns, vocabulary and expressions, language points, exercises, and cultural insights about the topic of each lesson. On completion of this course, the student will have learned ninery basic sentence patterns, three hundred characters, basic grammar, and communicative skills.