Very Practical Chinese

About the Book

Very Practical Chinese - 45 Conversations To Know (VPC) and its companion text, the VPC Study Guide are the product of three years of work and a combined total of 35 years of experience learning and teaching Chinese. The first two books in the start of an exciting new language learning series, VPC's unique system teaches you to understand, speak, read and write Mandarin, the language spoken by one billion people worldwide. VPC features Standard Mandarin, the official and most widely spoken and understood dialect of Chinese. The comprehensive 255 page VPC textbook features 45 original, easy to learn, practical and effective every day conversations, supported by a combined total of 12 hours of audio on two Audio CD-roms. The conversation topics cover a wide ground - everything from shopping and sightseeing to small talk and apartment hunting, discussing interests and meeting new people. VPC enables you to know to talk about life, love, travel, money, work, play…everything that's important to you! It's the perfect conversation book for real life! In addition, the VPC textbook features an 80 page glossary of over 3,000 words and phrases compiled from the pages of the text and study guide, a 15 page guide to the latest slang, proverbs, tongue twisters and more. The VPC Study Guide is a 224 page, sentence-by-sentence guide to the VPC textbook - to learn more, click here. For sample chapters, useful links, and FREE flashcards, available for downloading, check out the VPC website at verypracticalchinese.com

About the Author

An ESL teacher and student of Chinese for more than ten years, Maureen Kealy arrived in Taiwan in August of 1997, in search of a way to pay off debt incurred by a failed business. She promptly found a job, made new friends, and quickly realized that to do important things such as order food she liked and find public washrooms she would have to learn the local language. After quickly achieving her initial modest goals, she was hooked by the study bug and what naturally evolved was a period of ten wonderful years of living in Taiwan and learning Chinese. Self-taught for the first 8 years (she enlisted the help of two Chinese teachers with a combined total of 25 years experience to edit the VPC Text and VPC Study Guide) she spent many happy days doing errands, meeting friends and seeing the island, all while learning how to speak Mandarin. She taught herself to read and write, and for a while worked as a translator before deciding to write a practical, effective and affordable self-study text for those wishing to learn Mandarin. She hopes Very Practical Chinese (VPC) - 45 Conversations To Know and it's sister companion, the VPC Study Guide will help people around the world to learn Chinese to achieve their own personal goals, whatever they may be - whether for work, for business, to travel the world or just for fun and the fascination that comes from learning a new language.