Introduction

Globalization has made familiarity with other people, cultures, and languages not only preferable but also essential in the 21st century. With the help of the Internet and a bevy of social media growing at a dizzying rate, reaching out and touching someone on the other side of the earth has become as easy as clicking a mouse, using a smartphone, or clicking on to RenRen (the Chinese equivalent of Facebook) or Weibo (the Twitter of China). And yet nothing quite beats the excitement of a face-to-face encounter with someone who hails from the other side of the globe in his or her own language. Communication in cyberspace doesn't even come close.

Whether you're an inveterate traveler, going overseas for business, studying abroad, adopting a child, interested in frequenting Chinatown, befriending a Chinese-speaking classmate or co-worker, or just plain curious about China, Chinese For Dummies, 3rd Edition, can help you get acquainted with enough Chinese to carry on a decent conversation on any number of topics. You won't become fluent instantly, of course, but this book helps you greet a stranger, buy a plane ticket, talk to Chinese students, converse with business colleagues, and order some food. It also gives you some invaluable cultural tips so that you not only rattle off those newly acquired words and phrases but also back them up with the right behavior at the right time.

I designed this book to help guide you toward the successful use of one of the most difficult languages on earth. Chinese should also just be plain fun to learn.

About This Book

The good news is that you can use Chinese For Dummies, 3rd Edition, anytime, anywhere. No mandatory class sessions, no exams, and no homework assignments to dread. Need to get to a new city for a business meeting? Just turn to the chapters on travel or business to find out how to buy a plane ticket, get through customs, get to the airport on time, or do some negotiating. Have to make a sudden trip to the doctor? Turn to the chapter on your health and figure out in advance how to tell your caregivers exactly what ails you.

Pay attention to a few conventions that can help you navigate this book's contents:

• Chinese terms are set in boldface to make them stand out.
• Pronunciations and meanings appear in parentheses immediately after the Chinese terms. The English translations are in italics.
• This book uses the pinyin ?? (pin-yin) (Literally: spelling the way it sounds) Romanization system of Chinese words. What does that mean? Well, if you go to China, you see signs in Chinese characters all around, but if you look for something in English, you may be hard-pressed to find it. Whatever signs you see in Roman letters will be of pinyin, the Romanization system developed by the Communists in the 1950s, so seeing pinyin in this book is good practice for you.

• In this edition of Chinese For Dummies, Chinese characters have been added in many places and appear after the initial transliteration from the pinyin. Chinese characters are fun to try to decipher. The Chinese have been working at precisely that for thousands of years, especially for the more complicated characters that took as many as 20 separate strokes of the writing brush to create traditional Chinese characters.

  Lucky for you, many of the more complicated Chinese characters were simplified in the early 20th century to make them easier to read and write, and these are used in mainland China today. (You can read more about Chinese characters in Chapter 2.) The original (or traditional) characters are still used in Taiwan. In this book, simplified characters appear first, followed in parentheses by the traditional characters. Characters that were never simplified don't have any separate notation in parentheses.

• Another thing you should keep in mind as you begin to understand Chinese is that many of the English translations you see in this book aren't exactly literal. Knowing the gist of what you hear or see is more important than knowing what individual words in any given phrase mean. For example, the Chinese phrase meaning so-so literally translates as horse horse tiger tiger even though you're not actually talking about animals. Whenever I give a literal translation, I preface it with "Literally."

The following elements in this book help reinforce the new terms and phrases you're studying:

• Talkin' the Talk dialogues: Nothing beats seeing and hearing an actual conversation to learn Chinese, so I intersperse dialogues throughout the book under the heading "Talkin' the Talk." They show you the Chinese words, the pronunciations, and the English translations, and I often put cultural do's and don'ts into context, which should come in handy. Many of these dialogues appear in the accompanying online audio tracks so you can practice the sentences after you hear how they should sound. With the tonal nature of the Chinese language, this feature is indispensable as you learn Chinese.
• Words to Know: These boxes come after the Talkin' the Talk dialogues and highlight useful additional words beyond the dialogue.
• Fun & Games activities: Working through word games, cracking crossword puzzles, or recalling some phrases to fill in the blanks can be a fun way to review the words and phrases you encounter in each chapter. This element is a great way to gauge your progress and tease your brain at the same time. Look for these activities at the end of each chapter.

The beauty of this book is that it can be all things to all people. You don't have to memorize Chapter 5 before moving on to Chapter 6 if what Chapter 6 deals with is what you really need. Each chapter provides you with different bits of information about the Chinese language and highlights different parts of Chinese grammar. Read as much or as little as you want, as quickly or as slowly as you like. Whatever interests you is what you should focus on. And remember: You're discovering a language that simultaneously represents one of the world's oldest civilizations and one of its fastest-growing economies in the 21st century.

Foolish Assumptions

Some of the foolish assumptions I made about you while writing Chinese For Dummies, 3rd Edition, are that

• You don't know any Chinese, except for maybe a couple of words you picked up from a good kung-fu movie or the word tofu, which you picked up while grocery shopping.
• Your goal in life isn't to become an interpreter of Chinese at the U.N.; you just want to pick up some useful words, phrases, and sentence constructions to make yourself understood in a Chinese-speaking environment.
• You have no intention of spending hours and hours memorizing Chinese vocabulary and grammar patterns.
• You basically want to have fun while speaking a little Chinese.

Icons Used in This Book

Cute little icons occasionally appear in the left-hand margins, next to sidebars, and with the Talkin' the Talk dialogues throughout this book. These beacons shed light on what kind of information you're looking at and can help you locate certain types of information in a hurry. The five icons used in this book are as follows:

The bull's-eye appears wherever I've highlighted a great idea to help make your study of Chinese easier.

This icon, appropriately showing a string around a finger, should serve as a reminder about particularly important information concerning Chinese.

This icon should act as a stop sign in your mind. It warns you about things to avoid saying or doing so that you don't make a fool of yourself overseas or with a new Chinese friend.

This icon clues you in on fascinating bits of information about China and Chinese culture. Knowledge of a culture goes hand in hand with knowledge of a foreign language, so these icons help light the way as you embark on your journey.

This icon highlights various rules of grammar that may be out of the norm. Even though this book doesn't focus primarily on grammar, your successful execution of the language can only be enhanced by paying attention to little grammatical rules as they pop up.

Beyond the Book

This book is full of useful information, but you can find even more online! Check out this book's Cheat Sheet, which contains useful questions, common expressions, phrases used in emergencies, the Chinese calendar, and Chinese numbers all in a handy portable format. Just go to www.dummies.com and search for "Chinese For Dummies Cheat Sheet."

You can also hear all the Talkin' the Talk dialogues provided in the book to get a better handle on correct pronunciation. Just go to www.dummies.com/go/chinesefd.

Where to Go from Here

Chinese is often considered one of the toughest languages in the world to master. Don't worry. The good news is that you're not trying to master it. All you want to do is be understandable when you open your mouth so that you don't ask for the men's room when you really want the ladies' room. All?you have to do now is keep listening to and repeating the words and phrases you find in this book....