Chinese 2008 is a series of concise handbooks for practical Chinese communication. It includes 5 separate books: Bask Chinese, Daily Chinese, Travel Chinese, Sports Chinese and Transportation Chinese.
      
The target readers are those foreigners who come to China to travel, study or work, and those who hope to learn Chinese and explore China. Its primary goal is to help readers with their everyday communication in China. Meanwhile, it can serve as a textbook for short-term adult training programs. This series is designed and coordinated by the International Center of Chinese Language and Culture, People's Education Press, and edited by Associate Professor Liu Yuanman at Peking University. The authors of all five books are experienced teachers who teach Chinese as a foreign language at Peking University.

The entire series is based on possible real life situations in contemporary China during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Whole-sentence-input is the principle underlying the organization of the series. It is practical, interesting and well organized. This series includes 600 frequently used Chinese sentences, and 300 situational dialogues, which should be able to cover the basic needs of foreign friends in their daily communication in China.
    
Each book has 20 lessons, based on the activities of a few foreigners who have come to work and stay in China. Each lesson consists of 4 parts. The first section contains 6 basic sentences, which are taken from the dialogues in each lesson and are the most frequently used ones in such situations. The second consists of 2-3 dialogues, developed from related situations. In these dialogues, simple and appropriate expressions are used according to the status of the speakers and the relationship between them. Meanwhile, some popular functional items are set in these situations to emphasize their communicative nature. The third is "Additional Expressions," which includes frequently used words and expressions for the situation of the lesson, and serves as a supplement to the vocabulary of the lesson. The last section, called "Tips," provides some general information about geography, history, culture, and general knowledge of everyday life in contemporary China related to the content or subject of each lesson. These "Tips" and the information attached as appendices will help readers to understand some background knowledge about China, have better communication with the Chinese people, and also enjoy their stay in China.
      
For readers' convenience, pinyin, Chinese characters and English equivalents are all shown in the Basic Sentences, Dialogues, and Additional Expressions in each book of Chinese 2008 (Chinese-English Edition). All the "Tips" are in English to allow readers to understand the information easily. Printed as small paperbacks, all the books are easy for readers to carry around.
     
This series includes 8 editions: Chinese-English, Chinese-Japanese, Chinese-Korean, Chinese-French, Chinese-German, Chinese-Spanish, Chinese-Russian and Chinese-Arabic. Each volume has a CD. We sincerely hope that the series will be of great help to our foreign friends who live auld travel in China.