This book teaches you all the basics of the Chinese language, including practical conversations, vocabulary, and how to write the basic characters—with manga comic strips for easy learning! It enables you to begin communicating effectively from the first day. All Chinese words and sentences are given in Chinese characters and romanized form for easy pronunciation, with English translations. The book includes useful notes and explanations on pronunciation, the Chinese script, greetings and requests, basic sentence structure and vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, etiquette dos and don'ts, and important cultural notes. A useful bi-directional dictionary of commonly-used Chinese words and phrases is provided at the back.