Customer Reviews

SPEAK E-Z CHINESE In Phonetic English

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have bought a few books and an audio course in order to learn some Chinese for fun and also because I wanted to communicate better while visiting China. If I had my pick of just one resource, this awesome, efficient little reference would be it. The best part about it is the pronunciation key for us Westerners to pronounce pinyin, it helps enormously. The book starts with the pronunciation guide and the four tones, then moves on to the essential phrases in every contexts, such as transportation, currency, time and calendar, and restaurants. It teaches both words and short phrases and sentences that introduce you to sentence construction. At the end there's a 130-page dictionary that is surprisingly complete, and includes a pronunciation key for every word. Most of the times I want to know how to say something out of the blue, it's there.

As an added bonus, there's a *lot* of interesting things here that you are unlikely to learn from any other source. I am not sure why they are there but there they are, some are pretty funny. If you want to tell someone she's cute or sexy or that you love her, if you want to curse, call somebody an idiot or crazy or odd, how to call BS, how to say Chicago or California or Spain, how to say general or female/male body parts, how to say football or basketball, how to say honey (both as the sweet liquid and as a term of endearment), how to say "I'm stuffed", how to say so-so, and a bunch of other things, look no further: it's all here.

You can also download an audio version of the book for free from their website, I have not tried it yet but I definitely will. I took this book everywhere I went to in China. Highly recommended.

I've found this book to be extremely helpful in being able to grab a word or phrase at a glance and then pronounce it accurately. Designed for the beginner, SPEAK E-Z lives up to its word on making the learning process enjoyable and easy. I have three other Mandarin language books and they remain on the shelf. Thanks to its simplicity in usage and its fun bits of humor, SPEAK E-Z CHINESE is the only phrasebook the traveler in China needs.

Whether you're going to visit China or you have some chinese friends, or you just want to say a few things in chinese the next time you go to a chinese restaraunt this book really does make it easy! Just pick 3 or 4 words or phrases each week and practice. Well worth the money!

What can I say? I am traveling to China, and looked at many resources to learn some Chinese. This is by far the easiest one to learn quickly and easily for someone who only speaks English. Their online resources and responsiveness to inquiries are a big bonus. The authors truly care about improving relations between China and other countries, and have made this available for a very reasonable price.

This book is what you need as a tourist. No fancy stuff, just essentials. They have a website where you can download the audio files so you can exercise your accent(very important!).

Contains lots of English phrases and short sentences and shows what the Chinese characters are, the pinyin translation, and how the pinyin is actually spoken in phonetic English.

Helpful for those starting out or traveling. Some of the phonetic english is not(according to my tutor) in accord with Beijing mandarin pronunciation, but is passable if wanting to converse merely as a tourist.
Does contain vulgar language, so those sensitive to this need to beware.

I bought this book knowing the complaints about it. They're all accurate but it doesn't mean this book is useless. It is great for introducing one to slang and uncommon yet useful mandarin, which courses would not necessarily expose one to. Good for the intermediate or novice mandarin learner.

I took this book to a business trip in Shanghai, but found people still could not understand me. The difficulty with Chinese is that one's tone changes the meaning of the word.

This is a great book for anyone wanting to learn some basic Chinese . It has the Chinese characters and the pinyin,and then the english sound of the pinyin! Many phrases and wonderful vocabulary in back of book. You won't be disappointed ,well worth the money,and fun to learn from!