Book & 2 CDs. This Hippocrene best-seller has been redesigned and updated, making learning to speak, read, and write Mandarin Chinese easier than ever! Spoken by over 850 million people world-wide, Mandarin Chinese is the standard dialect for business and trade in China, one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and the world's most widely spoken language. Mandarin is also a useful study tool for stu-dents of the Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tibetan languages, all of which have strong cultural roots in Chinese. New features in this edition include: Ten practical lessons with dialogues, vocabulary, and exercises; New audio CDs featuring professional actors from Beijing; Updated cultural and language notes; An attractive, easy-to-read presentation of the Chinese characters; Additional exercises for teaching stroke order and writing skills; An index providing traditional character equivalents; New technology sections on how to read and write Chinese characters on a computer.