Publisher's Synopsis
Mandarin Chinese has become the official Chinese language after the 1911 revolution, it has been taught in schools for many decades and now virtually every educated Chinese can speak the language. Today, Mandarin Chinese is spoken throughout the country in China, a Western tourist in China will have no trouble communicating with the Chinese in Mandarin Chinese. Traditionally, each Chinese character stands for a word, there are a total of over twenty thousand Chinese characters but over half of them are not in common use. The Chinese government has designed a system of alphabetized phonetic symbols by which Chinese characters may be pronounced accurately, the symbols may be compared to the International Phonetic Symbols used to pronounce English words. In learning to speak a foreign language, a sophisticated dictionary is critical. Here is a comprehensive dictionary in which a complete system of alphabetized phonetic symbols is used for 20,947 characters to facilitate the learning of Mandarin Chinese. This dictionary should prove very convenient and efficient, and, above all, it should make Mandarin Chinese incredibly easier to learn. Nowadays virtually all Chinese dictionaries arrange Chinese characters in the order of phonetic symbols and as a result, no one will be able to use them unless they know the phonetic symbols for the characters, whether Chinese or foreigners. When you use a Chinese dictionary or when you are reading a Chinese book, you will find this dictionary very handy to assist you in identifying the phonetic symbols for the characters. This pronouncing dictionary is designed as a useful tool in facilitating the learning of Chinese characters.
