City Guide
Answers
Login
Home
/
Community
/
Forums
/ Post a Reply
Post a Reply
Thread: First timer
Title:
(100 characters at most)
Content: ( 3,000 characters at most, please )
You can add emoticons below to your post by clicking them.
[quote=RMAYEKAR ,3063]Personally, I think it's generally easy but there are some guidelines. I don't know how much Chinese you already know so I hope I don't offend you or anything. I would just make sure to learn how to say a few things like hello, goodbye, thank you, how much, cheaper please (comes in very handy!) and so on. Just keep practicing and it'll stick in your head. Also learn numbers. That will be very beneficial to you. The Chinese have hand gestures that correspond with the numbers 1-10 and I think that you should definitely get really familiar with these. It will make your life much easier when shopping or doing anything that requires money. Get Lonely Planet's "Mandarin Phrasebook". Everything you need to know is in there. Also, make sure to have a good guidebook to help you along the way.Carry around the card of the place you are staying at and MAKE SURE IT HAS THE CHINESE CHARACTERS ON IT as well as pinyin. That's important. Also, if you are staying at a hotel, make them write down on cards or something the places you will be visiting. That way, you just have to show the taxi driver and they will know. Taxi drivers in Beijing are really great. If you are not going as an organzed tour in China, I would make sure you have an elementary grasp of a few words or phrases before you go because when you get out of the city, no one speaks english. I did the "not so tourist thing" and I was really on edge a lot of the time.Also, learn how to say common foods that you would like to eat and also learn the characters for beef, chicken, pork, fish and so on. It will help you so much when you are hungry and want to stop at the first place you see. I hope this helps. [/quote]
characters left
Name:
Get a new code