Making Out in Chinese: Revised Edition (Making Out Books) [Paperback]

Ray Daniels (Author)

Book Description

Series: Making Out Books | Publication Date: September 15, 2003

The books in theMaking Out series are fun and accessible guides to languages as they're spoken on the street. These classic phrase books have been updated and expanded for use in informal situations such as bars, parties, or anywhere else one needs to know slang to survive! The books also now feature phrases written in their native script as well as in English, so the book can be shown to the person you are trying to communicate with. With transcriptions revised for easier pronunciation, these helpful books will have you making out in no time!

Making Out in Chinese is a fun, accessible and thorough guide to Mandarin as it's really spoken. It has been thoroughly updated and expanded to be even more helpful as a guide to modern colloquial Mandarin for use in everyday informal interactions- giving access to the sort of catchy expressions that aren't covered in traditional language materials. A new feature of this book is that each phrase is written in Mandarin script as well as in English, so that in the case of difficulties the book can be shown to the person you are trying to communicate with. The transcriptions have also been revised to make it easier to pronounce the phrases intelligibly.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Original edition by Ray Daniels who studied Chinese as an exchange student in Taiwan and Beijing. He met his Chinese wife in a tea shop in Taiwan.

Revised by Haiyan Situ, a Beijing native who has taught Chinese at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing; Revised edition (September 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804833907
• ISBN-13: 978-0804833905
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #473,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very useful, cool guide, but hard to read phonetics., September 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Making Out in Chinese (Paperback)

This book is full of useful colloquial slang expressions, as well as good conversational phrases. Its sections are divided by theme (e.g., Basic Phrases, Getting Acquainted, I've Got the Munchies, etc.) which make finding phrases pretty easy.

My only gripe is that the author does NOT use standard "pinyin" phonetics to write out the Chinese words in the Roman alphabet. It seems as though he has modified the standard pinyin consenants and vowels in an effort to make it sound more like real English pronounciation. This is great for someone who has never studied Chinese using the standard pinyin system, but for some who has trained themselves to read pinyin (which is a screwy system to begin with) the phrases in the book are difficult to pronounce, and more importantly, difficult to memorize (through visual symbolic recognition based on already-learned words).

I would hope that a new revision of the book be written for standard Chinese pinyin, if possible.

P.S. The phrases and words related to sexual intercourse are in good number and detail. The author did not abstain from including even the dirtiest of phrases.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Small, Basic and Fun, November 6, 2004

By 

Laura De Giorgio "hypnotherapist" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Making Out in Chinese: Revised Edition (Making Out Books) (Paperback)

This is a very small phrase book. As far as phrase books go, it contains much less information than any regular sized phrase book. As such, it may be most suitable for someone who knows no Chinese and would like to learn just a few expressions.

On the other hand, this booklet does include few slang expressions, some insults, dating and sex-related language which you won't find in a regular phrase book.

All words / expressions are written in English, in Chinese simplified characters, and in pinyin.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Note: I am reviewing the updated edition (2003), January 20, 2004

By 

Ultimate Reviewer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making Out in Chinese: Revised Edition (Making Out Books) (Paperback)

The new edition, which has been revised by someone other than the original author now contains Chinese characters, Pinyin and a simplified pronunciation guide for each entry. If you are looking for a complete guide to slang then this book is disappointingly thin on the ground. It gives one way to say something, that is a valid way, but it misses out other ways that are just as likely to be encountered in common, everyday usage. I was impressed with some of the attention to cultural, idiomatic usage, that was very helpful, such as the euphemistic way Chinese people refer to a woman's level of beauty. Finally, one caveat with learning Chinese - If you are starting out, you can't learn to pronounce it well from a book alone, even if it does include Pinyin, or other make-shift phonetics, as this one does. You just won't be understood. For the price, this book is OK, but just OK. I feel that a lot more could have been included and hope that the publisher will produce a follow up like they did with "Making Out in Japanese".