The multi-lingual series Chinese 2008 has been satisfying market demand since its publication in 2007, with full endorsement from its users. Many users have enhanced their Chinese communicative competence and thereby acquired a better understanding of the realities of China. As time and society have progressed, however, the renewal of some parts of this series has become necessary. As a result we have revised this series and changed its name to Chinese in Hand. As is shown in the name of the book, our primary goal is to enable the readers to use it whenever necessary to solve communication problems in real life and to master the Chinese language by learning authentic expressions. This revised version includes four separate books: Basic Chinese, Daily Chinese, Travel Chinese and Transportation Chinese. All the texts have been revised, and some texts have been fully rewritten. Some of the tips have also been replaced accordingly. New word lists have been added to the chapters at the suggestion of readers.
   
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. Much attention has been paid to ensuring that this series be not only practical and interesting, but also encourage the latest scientific knowledge and be up-to-date. The daily communication expressions and practical situational conversations in this series cover the basic needs of non-Chinese visitors in their daily communication in China. This series, as a practical Chinese communication handbook, can also serve as a textbook for short-term training programs.
 
Whole-sentence-input is the special feature of this series. Each book is based on the common situational activities of a few foreigners who come to work in China short term. Each book has twenty lessons, and each lesson consists of five sections. The first section contains six basic sentences, which are taken from the dialogues in each lesson and can be used directly in real life. The second section consists of two or three dialogues developed from related situations. In these dialogues, simple and appropriate expressions are used according to the status of the speakers and the relations between them. Meanwhile, some popular functional items are set in these situations to emphasize their communicative nature. The third section is “New Words”. Some hard words for foreigners are chosen from each lesson to be explained and phonetically marked. The fourth section is “Additional Expressions”. It includes frequently used words and expressions related to the situations presented in the lessons and serves to enhance the readers’ ability to express themselves. The last section, called "Tip”, provides some general information about geography, history, culture and general knowledge of everyday life in contemporary China in an attempt to enable the readers to better associate and mix with the Chinese people.
 
For readers’ convenience, pinyin, Chinese characters and English equivalents are provided in the Basic Sentences, Dialogues, New Words and Additional Expressions in each book of Chinese in Hand. All "Tip” 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. All books are supplied with CDs. The digital version of this series will be introduced in the App Store at the time of publishing to better facilitate the readers’ use and study.

Chinese as a Foreign Language Education Editorial Department of the People’s Education Press is the designer and organizer of this series, with Professor Liu Yuanman as the chief editor. The editors, with a wealth of teaching wisdom, have worked hard to ensure the quality of this series. We sincerely hope that this series will continue to be indispensible to our foreign friends who live, travel and study in China.
Chinese in Hand: Basic Chinese (Chinese-English Version)
Writer: Wang Tianmiao
Translator: Jiang Hong, Li Yu
Executive Editor: Zhang Jun
Reviewer: Di Guowei, Dong Weijun
English Reviewer: Miriam Ruth Fisher
Cover and Format Design: Jiang Hong Workshop
Illustration by Gao Dai.