Who says Chinese is hard? (Click to find out!)

New Book!

Traveling to China anytime soon? Well, what will you be eating? Dictionaries and guidebooks rarely translate any but a few dishes—ones so famous they may not need translation, and, anyway, you’ll get tired of this limited palette pretty soon anyway. That’s why we developed this book.

This shot of the front cover (those are Cantonese New Year’s cakes in the cover photo) lets you know what to expect inside. Introductory sections include an exhaustive phrase guide (no other such guide comes close!), a list of some exotic foods (which you may seek to avoid or seek out, depending on your personality), explanations of many food terms, and a guide to pronouncing Chinese (including an explanation of pinyin) for non-speakers of Chinese.

But, as advertised, the main entree is a list of over 3000 menu items. These items are organized in several different ways for your convenience—by group (seafood, for example), subgroup (shrimp, say), and by pinyin name. Each listing contains the official pinyin transcription of the name, the full name in Chinese simplified characters, and an English translation.

At $15.95, this book—easy to tote and easy to pack—is available from fine etailers and retailers everywhere. Keep it near the top of your backpack on your next trip to China.

EFlashcard files now available!

With these files, you can use ‘flashcards’ to review your characters on PC, Mac, or Unix boxes, iPhones, iPods, flashdrives, Android phones, and more. Come
here to see how.