Chinese-English Phrasebook

Bear in mind that there are many Chinese spoken languages. The written language is the same throughout China, but there are hundreds of different spoken dialects (which sound so different as to not really qualify as dialects, but let’s call them that for ease.) While Putonghua (Mandarin) is widely spoken and is encouraged by the government to be referred to as the “national” language; in many regions most people would not care that you are being polite and saying “thank you” and “hello” in Mandarin. It will mean nothing in Hong Kong or Macau, for example, where Cantonese is the spoken dialect. In Shanghai, it will mostly just mark you as a tourist. (It would be like saying “howdy” to a New Yorker.)

So learning to say hello and thank you in Mandarin as well as Shanghainese, Cantonese, etc might, IMO, be more meaningful.

I would also really urge you to get CDs or tapes, rather than relying on phrase books. All Chinese language are tonal, and you cannot get the tones correct by reading a phrase book. You have to hear the tones and learn them, as the differences are very subtle in some cases. You can buy CDs in most bookshops or on line. You can listen on the flight over.

A phrase book can be useful to show people if you want to know where the bathroom is, as you can show them the characters, but IMO a CD or tape will be more useful if you want to be understood when speaking.

From my very limited experience, I would say the key features of a phrasebook are that (a) you can find what you want to say as easily as possible by looking it up in English and (b) it has Chinese characters for the phrase once translated. I'm not sure there is a single "best" option, because I would think it depends on how well the book's organization matches the uses to which you will put it.

I'll second Cicerone's recommendation to try a set of CDs or tapes. Intonation is critical.

Other options to consider are (a) an e-book option and/or (b) something like "me no speak" which combines pictures, English, and Chinese characters for some common items.

Enjoy your trip!

I can't hear the tones, being virtually tone deaf, and have simply accepted that I will never speak tonal languages correctly. However, I still managed to travel successfully in China.

I'm not sure why Cicerone is worrying about people thinking you are a tourist - unless you are ethnic Chinese it will be patently obvious. But she is right about the differences in spoken language. Even I could tell that "xie xie" was being pronounced differently in different regions.

Although I gave up on speaking properly, I enjoy the characters, and found this book useful: "I Can Read That" by Julie Mazel Sussman. I bought a useful phrase book in China, not sure whether it is available elsewhere: "Essential Chinese for Travelers" by Fan Zhilong. But as kja says, the most important thing is that your phrase book has characters, not just pinyin.

I'm afraid that it's hardly worth the study needed to get the intonations right when I will be spending 3 days in Hong Kong, 3 days in Shanghai and a week in Beijing, among other places. It will be hard enough using one variant without the regional variations.

It is also difficult not to stand out as a tourist when I'm 6' tall and obviously caucasian.

So I'm happy to get one form of Chinese that is reasonably well understood in characters everywhere and phonetics that won't get me punched in the head anywhere; I don't want to be saying "I spit on your mother" when I am trying to say "Thank you very much"

The Sussman book sounds good; I'll check it out. Any others?

Cheers, Alan, Australia

Sorry - I'll also look for "Essential Chinese for Travelers". Thanks.

I found the free pamphlet "Essential Chinese for Travelers" as a download here: http://www.chinesetranslationpro.com/

Thanks.

Actually, the book I meant is this:

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Chinese-Travelers-Zhilong-Fan/dp/0835125750/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326433165&sr=8-1

Is the download the same?

Oh, and if you get the tones wrong you may very well be swearing. Certainly you won't make any sense. But I think the Chinese will cut you slack on the basics like thank you and rice and beer...

As thursdaysd says, you will probably encounter many people who will go out of their way to help just because you tried to learn to say "thank you."

I had forgotten about "I Can Read That" by Sussman - very helpful, especially to learn the characters for man/men and woman/women! (Actually, I think I really only learned "man" - and as a woman, I found it very helpful to know where NOT to go!)

> It is also difficult not to stand out as a tourist when I'm 6' tall and obviously caucasian.

Be prepared to be a subject of interest! If you get off the beaten track, you might find that some people (older folks, in particular) may appear quite comfortable coming within inches of you to stare and observe.

As noted above, the Chinese characters are the same throughout China but the pronunciation is so different that TV in Hong Kong has subtitles. Also average Chinese can not read Pinyin if you show it to them and at least my pronunciation from reading pinyin is not understood. However, people we met were very nice and pointing and gestures work well enough.

If you have a smartphone there are many applications for English to Chinese translators that have the tonal sounds included.

Aloha!

If only for a trip I would say don't bother. It is not easy to learn and you cannot learn it without a face to face teacher. You may thing you are saying something right then nobody will actually understand you. and again assuming that you can memorize a few key sentences, will you be able to understand the answers? Never ask a question in mandarin if you cannot handle the answer.
Most places where you will probably travel there will be some english spoken. The signs will be in pinyin (regular letters) so you will be fine. I think that a tourist only needs to learn three expressions; hello (ni hao), thank you (xiexie) and I don't want any (bu yao), this last one to get rid of annoying salespeople.
I have lived in China for the last 3 years and have been studying mandarin but frankly, in a place like Beijing or Shanghai, you will find english everywhere. I know many people who have lived here for years and cannot say more than hello and order a beer.
I have to disagree with the comment above regarding mandarin being useless in places like Shanghai. Mandarin is the national language. school is taught in mandarin everywhere and everybody speaks mandarin except older people. Also most people in Shanghai are not from Shanghai in any case. It is also incorrect that people cannot read pinyin. The problem is that a word in pinyin can correspond to 20+ characters, so it is not easy to figure out when reading it.
The only language challenge you might face is taking a taxi. Just make sure you have you hotel name and address written in characters and a travel book with name of attractions in chinese characters that you can point to when taking a taxi (although you can go everywhere by subway).

"It is also incorrect that people cannot read pinyin." - no one I tried it on could read it. Your explanation of why may well be correct, but it doesn't alter the fact that a pinyin-only phrasebook is useless and you must have the characters.

Like I said above smartphones and their translator apps are just what you need. Easiest and simplest way besides hiring a translator to translate in the 21 st century. Some applications are self contained and don't even need to be connected to the internet so you wouldn't need a paid plan or sim card. It won't do everything but will surely help you learn or say the simple travel terms you will need, check it out.

Aloha!

Thanks All. I'm followibng pu the various books and ideas given.

I don't have a smartphone. I will be posting a separate question about the best place to buy one of those: Australia, Hong Kong or Shanghai.

Cheers, Alan, Australia

"followibng pu"

I wish fodors had an edit facility

"following up" of course.

Shanghai will be the most expensive option.
Sorry maybe I was not clear. People can read pinyin but they do not know what it means. Even for me who focusses on pinyin, when reading it it is virtually impossible to know the meaning as there is no tone.

I think we have an English language issue. "Read" generally includes comprehension.

Thanks all.

Once you get a smartphone, Pleco, a smartphone app, has a pretty comprehensive dictionary that I've found to be one of the best. Written Mandarin and Cantonese are almost the same, so if you need something in HK you can show a person the traditional characters vs simplified in the Mainland. Try chinesepod.com and download a few basic podcasts or purchase a one month subscription - these are a great help. You don't need Cantonese in Hong Kong 99% of the time, so I'd focus more on Mandarin.

Lonely planet publishes a pocket Mandarin phrase book that is pretty good, and one with about 11 Chinese dialects (dongbei, tibetan, hakka, etc) that you wouldn't need, so I'd recommend the LP mandarin book.

I haven't used it myself but the Pleco program has some very interesting features in addition to its dictionary. You can supposedly point your iPhone or iPad camera at printed characters and it will translate them to English. It also allows one to "write" characters on the iPhone/iPad screen and it will translate those as well.

You need:

a) The written Chinese characters for whatever it is that you want - food, a restaurant, your hotel, an historical site. Thus, you should have with you at all times a phrase book that is written both in English and in Chinese characters. You can point to the Chinese equivalent to the English phrase. Literacy in China is very high, believe it's somewhere in the 90 percentile, so, even if a person can't understand your spoken Chinese, they will be able to read the Chinese characters.

b) You yourself should learn a few Chinese characters, especially those for "man" and "woman" to be able to find your way to the correct restroom. Learning the numbers from 1 to 10 would also help.

3) Here's your first Chinese Mandarin (the "official language") lesson -

For the syllable "ma", there are four tones in Mandarin -

ma (first tone) = mother

ma (2nd tone) = feeling numb or hemp

ma (3rd tone) = horse

ma (4th tone) = to scold

Don't bother with Cantonese, which has generally 6 tones (there are many dialectic variations of Cantonese, some of which can go up to 9 tones)

Shanghainese belongs to the Wu group of languages and is very different from Mandarin and Cantonese, so don't bother with learning Shanghainese either.

If China were Europe, all these "dialects" would be classified as separate languages, so you wouldn't be learning just German, you'll have to learn Norwegian and Italian at the same time. The saving grace is that the written language is the same no matter where you travel in China. Often you'll see two Chinese people, one would be writing with an index finger on the palm of the other hand. That's because, even among the Chinese, they have to frequently revert to the written language to get across to each other.

The most complex tonal languages are those spoken in Yunnan by the Miao (Hmong, Mong) people. There could be 12 or more tones in the Miao languages. Are you going to Yunnan?

It's been awhile since I've looked at guide books for China, but seem to remember that the Lonely Planet one had some phrases in the back of the book. Also the Frommer's Guide for China had maps with the major sites identified in both English and Chinese characters. I think the Frommer's guide is very useful in this respect, although it's a bigger book than just a slim phrase book.

Sorry to take so long to get to my point: stick with the written Chinese characters with their English equivalents. That'll work best for you.

Oh, one last thing, if you want to learn to speak a few phrases in Mandarin, pay attention to the vowels.

I once had a young man who kept talking about "eating horse $hit (chifun)" when he meant "eating rice" or "dining" ("chifan").

Forgot one moe thing:

There's an excellent picture book for travellers called "Point It" - no words, just pictures of what you want.

Thanks. I just ordered "Point It" from the bookdepository.co.uk/ for AU$7.25. For me it works out cheaper than Amazon because of free delivery.

Has anyone used the book "Me No Speak Chinese"? Just wondering how that compares to "Point It". Looks to be similar.

I had "Me No Speak Chinese" with me. As I recall, I only used it once - and then not very successfully, as I was trying to find a cable car. But it helped me feel more confident that I could manage - and for me, that was not insignificant! I didn't see "Point It" and so can't compare them.

I just noticed that Fodor's has a phrase book that you can download from here: http://www.fodors.com/language/chinese/greetings/

Unfortunately, there are no Chinese characters in the Fodor's phrase book, making it almost useless if you're in China.

Besides which, I don't know who makes up these phrase books, but some of the Chinese phrases are almost archaic, some are very formal so that no one really will be using those phrases -

Must have been made up by He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Who-Didn't-Like-Chinese-Guides

> Besides which, I don't know who makes up these phrase books, but some of the Chinese phrases are almost archaic, some are very formal so that no one really will be using those phrases - Must have been made up by He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Who-Didn't-Like-Chinese-Guides

It must be 18 months since I last visited this site but the reasons not to contribute any longer, and particularly the childish ad hominem postings, are still here I see. I think I'll leave it longer still before returning again.

"He-Who-Shall" was actually responsible for the appearance of a large number of Chinese characters in the first edition of the Frommer's China volume recommended by the same poster, and indeed provided the originals for the majority of them himself, as well as writing the text of the language section, and persuading the publisher that every single pinyin term must be tone-marked. So the remark quoted is particularly fatuous even by the standards set in the past.

In passing, there is no "fun" in pinyin. There is "fen".

And since I'm here, for the OP's benefit, there's much to agree with in earlier postings:

Unless there's a particular interest in languages or repeated visits to China are expected then making more than a stab at the simplest of courtesies will require more effort than it's worth. Mandarin is the language to choose for mainland China, as it's the lingua franca, understood everywhere even including much of Hong Kong these days (although Cantonese is the standard there). Discussion of other Chinese languages and those of China's ethnic minorities is a red herring.

In Mandarin the grammar is pleasingly simple, but mastery of tonal languages does not come naturally to most Westerners. For simple courtesies and some basic exchanges context will make your meaning clear (perhaps after some puzzlement) but for anything else a failure to master the tones will simply make you incomprehensible.

If you wish to attempt more complex exchanges the best way is simply to show the characters for what you want, using either a phrase book or a portable digital device. The Pleco software, for iPhone, Android, and possibly some other platforms offers you a two-way dictionary function that recognises both English and Hanyu pinyin (Romanised Chinese), and offers written character recognition--so you can hand the phone to someone and invite them to write down what they are trying to say.

But don't worry: there are thousands of people travelling round China all the time without two words of Mandarin to rub together. There's English/pinyin everywhere on signs, even in the most obscure places, in announcements on public transport in major cities, and you can get plentiful help from English speakers at your hotel reception. A bit of pointing and some mime will also get you a long way. Common sense is more important than a phrase book, but if choosing one of these one that has plenty of nice large characters to show to people, and one that groups its terms intelligently would be the one to get: e.g. menu items grouped together, and separated into meats, vegetables, etc. (most Chinese dish names are made up of the names of their ingredients and a cooking verb--but then picture menus and ones badly translated using Google are ubiquitous now).

Attempts at simple courtesies are always appreciated, however mangled they come out. But 'please', 'thank you', 'hello', and 'goodbye' will do. All of these can be found translated for you at nciku.com, complete with audio recordings of their pronunciation. If you want to just try a little study, or learn a bit more about how Chinese works, begin by listening to the free elementary lessons at popupchinese.com.

Two characters you might occasionally find useful to know are those for male and female as used on lavatory doors: 男 and 女 respectively.

I was also a co-author and consultant on the earlier editions of DK Eyewitness China, so I hope you find it useful. I didn't write the language section, and its lack of tone-marking on the pinyin is regrettable, and the characters are printed rather small, but nevertheless it does contain probably rather more than what you might in reality expect to attempt.

temppeternh - IMHO, this board has sorely missed your expertise.

kja - seconded

Thank you temppeternh. I have bought the current DK Eyewitness guide, downloaded "Essential Chinese" from http://www.chinesetranslationpro.com/ (which is folded almost origami style to become a booklet) and bought a collection of pictures called "Point It". I've also been experimenting with nciku.com.

I've re-read your post a couple of times and will do again; thanks especially, on behalf of my wife, for 男 and 女 - is there also a character for a Western toilet?

PS. Not to do with Chinese, but with this forum. How did you embed the hyperlink in nciku.com?

Cheers, Alan

They will not write toilet on signs but will have the 男 and 女 characters on the doors or an international pictogram.

Suggest you find someone in your neighborhood who is a chinese person. Maybe a student at the college, even high school. That person can help you so much more than any book. You do not have sufficient time to learn much mandarin as it is not a visual language for you. It is not like learning Italian. Pinyin can help but you will need to hear the sounds. Also a digital recorder will help you record the lesson with your teacher so replay. Play it again and again, learn how to speak even the most simple of communications-where is the toilet? how much money (the most important), i want more beer...please and thank you.