Learn Chinese before you
travel to China

Learning to speak Chinese isn't as hard as it may sound - at least enough to ask where the toilet is, or how

Kris holds a cup of coffee in the original Salvador's Coffee House in Dali.

My son, Kris, who has lived in China since 2001, says learning Chinese is the main thing that has helped him in being accepted by the local population. He speaks fluently, but he bought his Chinese phrase book the day before he left for China. He barely knew a single word before he left. Yikes!

Kris travels all over the country, and he has learned the various dialects in the different parts of China. And people really appreciate that he has made that effort to communicate effectively with them.

But if you're just visiting, don't worry about speaking fluently. You just need to learn enough to ask and understand the essentials, and as with anyplace else, a lot of it is done with sign language - pointing and nodding.

I happened to learn Chinese with Pimsleur. Actually, I got an introductory course on CD that I listened to a lot, and I bought a separate, simple workbook from Amazon.com called "Chinese in 10 Minutes a Day." I cut out little flash cards and put them around the house. They said things like "table," "chair," "door," "car," etc. (in Chinese, of course!). But with the tonal component of the Chinese language, the audio CDs were essential.

There were a couple of funny incidents that happened as I tried out my language skills. One time, we found a little restaurant in a back alley that served pizza (and it was delicious - homemade with fresh ingredients). We were there early and happened to be the only customers. We got settled in an upstairs loft area after giving our food order, and the girl who waited on us put some music on. It was very pleasant, and I wanted to tell her so.

I asked Kris, "How do I say, 'That's sounds good'?, and he said, "Hao ting," with the tones down on "hao" and up on "ting."

I called down to her, "Hao ting!" with the tones the opposite of what he had said. She looked shocked and concerned.

My son said, "You told her to 'stop the numbers,' " he said.

We Americans don't get tones easily. With English, we do our inflections all over the place, and it doesn't change the meanings of the words. For example, when we ask a question, the end of the sentence goes up in tone, but the words' meanings don't change. In Chinese, individual words have their own tones, and when you change an up-tone to a down-tone, it's a totally different word. So instead of saying, literally, "good sound," I said, "stop numbers," just because my tones were incorrect.

You don't understand?

Another funny incident was when we were sitting outside a museum waiting for the rest of the tour group to come through. The tour was in Chinese, and I was tiring of not being able to understand anything that was said, and Kris was tiring of translating, I think. We went

This is inside a museum in Xian, part of an all-day tour that included going to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.

As we sat in this nice, park-like area, a Chinese man patted the seat next to him to offer it to me. I sat down, and he asked me something that I didn't understand. I had memorized the phrase, "I don't understand what you are saying" in Chinese, so I said that: "Wo bu ning pa nee shwa shun ma." (That's how it sounds phonetically.)

He gave me a strange look and asked where I was from. But I didn't understand that either, so I said, "I'm an American," so he'd understand I didn't speak Chinese.

Well, of course, I had answered his question correctly, and he was quite puzzled. So he continued to speak to me in Chinese. Again, I told him I didn't understand, but he persisted.

I finally called my son over to tell him I didn't speak Chinese. Kris explained to me that this guy thought I was pulling his leg because I was stringing a lot of words together to say I didn't understand him, so he thought, "Well, she must understand." And then I accidentally answered his question correctly about where I was from, which really confused him.

Needless to say, I would have been lost without my son as personal Chinese tour guide, but knowing a little of the language helped me many times to buy things, ask where the toilet was and other basics. And it was fun.

It was mostly just a matter of listening every day, and doing a bit in the workbook. There are many different price ranges and methods, so you can pick one that seems right for your needs. I've heard that Rosetta Stone - (free 2-day shipping in the U.S.) - has the best method for learning a language, but I haven't tried it myself. You can even learn online, so it's super convenient -- you can get started right away, and the price is right. You might want to check that out.

One other method I've heard is really good (and less expensive) is "Rocket Chinese". Again, I haven't tried this one, but the price is right, and it seems VERY comprehensive. Worth checking out.

But don't be afraid to try. It really is pretty fun. I found that learning about money and the days of the week and such things were pretty easy. And once you get there you'll learn more phrases and feel more confident.