How can I master survival travel Chinese within a month?

Question

I plan to travel to China during China's National Day holiday. I have no knowledge of Chinese whatsoever. I want to learn survival Chinese and words used for traveling. In order to meet the deadlines of my travel plan, I prefer a one-on-one private tutoring with a customized study plan. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Chinese Education Revolution

"Absolutely Don't Study Chinese" is a revolutionary Chinese online courses. It is a magic online courses. Through this course, you can Learn Mandarin Chinese quickly and easily.

http://www.chinese-family.com/

Through these lessons, you only need to spend 20-3-days to understand not only words from sentences but also master with proficiency about sentence form of written form. learn chinese is so easy.  

Answer 2

If you have only one month left, I suggest you finding a Chinese tutor online. It's convenient and mostly cheaper than face-to-face tutoring. But not all Chinese tutors online are certificated or qualified teachers. Though they speak both Chinese and English, they don't necessarily teach Chinese well. As far as I know, as told by a friend studying online Chinese, there is a leading Chinese learning center with specialist expertise in Chinese teaching and distance learning methods. They have varied Chinese courses, one-on-one tutoring with customized study planner. Most courses have an intense training schedule and can be finished with in a month. If you want to know more, you can go to the site -- http://www.echinese4all.cn   Find travel Chinese, and see more details. Good luck!

Answer 3

I'm an American living in China. I don't think that you can do what you want. First of all, Chinese is a very difficult language to learn. Every word has at least four meanings, usually more.

If you are going to one of the major cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, etc...) it shouldn't be too hard to find someone who speaks ok English to help you (if you have trouble, try the clerks in the nicer hotels).

Words that might help:

"she-she" - "thank you"

"knee-how" - "hello"

"sigh-chin" - "goodbye"

"dough-show-chi-an" - "how much (money is it)"

"tie-gwey-la" - "too expensive"

"pee-an-ee-dee-an" - "a litle cheeper?"

"pee-joe" - "beer"

"bing-pee-joe" - "cold beer"

"zai-na-lee" - "where is"

"ee-guh" - "one (thing)"

"are-guh" - "two (things)"

"san-guh" - "three (things)"

Answer 4

Those pronunciations are terrible. It's not "she she" it's "xie4 xie4" sounds like "zshyay zshyay" it's hard to explain. And you need to hear it and pay attentions to tones.

Try Chinesepod.com. Newbie lessons are free, and there are a few hundred of them.

I mean, unless you're not going where people speak Mandarin. In that case, figure it out and learn the dialogue spoken in the area you're visiting (if you can)