This is the complete beginning-level course for spoken Mandarin Chinese designed to have you speaking quickly and accurately!

The Basic Mandarin Chinese series offers a complete introductory Chinese language course specifically designed for native English speakers. These books teach spoken and written Chinese separately, allowing you to focus on the area most important to you, and to learn the spoken and written forms of Chinese at different speeds depending on your available time and interest.

The free audio and video recordings included with this book reinforce the content and make the learning process easy. Whether you're learning Mandarin for work, travel or other reasons—the Basic Mandarin Chinese approach of having two separate but integrated 'tracks' helps you to learn the language more efficiently and more successfully.

Key features of this Chinese textbook and discs include:
Clear and detailed pronunciation, grammar and cultural explanations
Exercises and activities based on real-life experiences in China
Hours of video recordings filmed on location featuring dozens of native speakers in various parts of China and beyond
Six hours of native-speaker audio recordings for all the book's dialogues and exercises
Special software allowing you to interact with the recordings.
This Mandarin textbook is designed to be used with it's seperately available workbook, Basic Mandarin Chinese—Speaking & Listening Practice Book which provides a range of drills and exercises designed to dramatically enhance your spoken proficiency and improve your Chinese language skills. This book is a new edition of Basic Spoken Chinese.

Cornelius C. Kubler received his Ph.D. in linguistics from Cornell and is currently the Stanfield Professor of Asian Studies at Williams College. Since joining Williams, he has chaired the Department of Chinese and held visiting professor posts at Middlebury, National Taiwan Normal University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and other universities. He has authored many books and articles on Chinese pedagogy and linguistics, and served as a consultant for many Chinese language programs in the U.S. and abroad including orientation programs for Chinese language teachers arriving in the U.S. He has chaired the SAT Chinese exam Test Development Committee and recently completed a two-year stint as Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Nanjing University Center for Chinese & American Studies in Nanjing, China.