Conversational Chinese for Beginners

Dr. Morris Swadesh, widely known in the field of linguistics for his comparative studies of languages and language families, wrote this book in 1948. But the book is still a useful introduction to Chinese today. Like any teach-yourself style book, however, access to native Chinese speakers is indispensable. The book would be especially useful if one finds one's self in China for an extended period of time with little or no knowledge of the language. CCfB is built around 17 basic sentences which represent the most basic messages a traveler in a new environment will need to get across. Gradually, more sentences are added. At the back of the book is a small English-Chinese dictionary which can be used to look up new words to plug into the sentences you have learned in order to expand the number of things you can say gradually while ensuring, from the start, that what you learn is grammatically correct Chinese.