Delightful book, May 30, 2004
　

This book is intended for people traveling to China who want to master some basic characters so that they can find it easier to find their way around.

The book is very enjoyable to read and the characters presented are rather easy to learn. Beside each character and character combinations, the author has provided mnemonic devices to make it easier to remember the character.

At the end of the book the author has also provided a brief section with guidelines for writing Chinese characters.

Some of what you'd be able to read by the time you're done with this little book are numbers, dates, currencies, public utilities, directions, names of public places, signs, tickets, and few other words.

On a side note, if you want to get deeper into learning how to write Chinese characters easily, you may also want to check out Easy Chinese Tutor.

A Quickie Tour of Chinese Characters, January 7, 2003
　

Not exactly a text on Chinese characters, this pocketbook is a great starter for those who have a curiosity of how Chinese writing works and don't want to be burdened with the extraneous info found in a serious textbook. Seventy-one characters frequently encountered by tourists are introduced but you'll wind up learning much more than that because many of these characters are also used in combination to form new compound words. The format is well-designed and makes the book fun and easy to use without being too simplistic. You'll learn the traditional and simplified form of the character, how these characters are rendered in the Western alphabet (i.e. the pinyin), and, thankfully towards the back of the book, how to write the character. Throughout the book are cultural tidbits and photographs of signs, ticket stubs, stamps, and advertisements which contains the characters introduced. This little book will take the intimidation out of trying to learn what far too many Westerners find as beyond their capacity to understand.

Can be really helpful for travellers to China, October 27, 2004
　

This book is intended for people traveling to China who want to master some basic characters so that they can find it easier to find their way around.
The book is very enjoyable to read and the characters presented are rather easy to learn. Beside each character and character combinations, the author has provided mnemonic devices to make it easier to remember the character.

At the end of the book the author has also provided a brief section with guidelines for writing Chinese characters.

Some of what you'd be able to read by the time you're done with this little book are numbers, dates, currencies, public utilities, directions, names of public places, signs, tickets, and few other words.

On a side note, if you want to get deeper into learning how to write Chinese characters easily, you may also want to check out Easy Chinese Tutor.

Bailed me out of a tight spot!, July 30, 2004
　

I recently went to China for a few weeks to teach English, and found that after a little bit of study with this book I could easily recognize the basic characters for such handy words as entrance, man, woman, Beijing, etc. But my work really paid off when a friend and I got lost on top of the Great Wall in a sea of Chinese people, none of whom spoke English (how one gets lost on top of a wall is another story altogether!). Anyway, I knew the characters for exit and after I sketched them out on a piece of paper a helpful man pointed us in the right direction. I really liked being able to interpret the otherwise undecipherable scribbles that are everywhere in China. This book was well worth the modest price.

An incredibly good book for a traveller, April 9, 2004
　

This is a remarkably good book for a non-Chinese speaking tourist to have. The reviews which say that this book is not for the student of Chinese are correct. It's not a very "deep" book, and it doesn't teach you very many characters. But that's not who the book is meant for.

I travelled to China last year, not knowing a word of Chinese and certainly not having any ability to make out the characters. Prior to that trip, I might occasionally read an article or website which would show me the characters for, say, "China", but they'd so to speak go in one eyeball and out the other -- I simply couldn't retain or learn or even really *see* the characters.

A travel article recommended _I Can Read That_ so I bought it, and it was a miracle. Literally on the first page, in the first few minutes of reading it, I at last started to realize "oh, there's a system behind all these characters". I could now look at Chinese characters, and though I couldn't truly read them (since I don't even know Chinese), I could start to truly see them, recognize them, and learn them.

After 5 minutes of reading, I'd learned 5 characters. After another 5 minutes, 5 more. After that, well there's a limit to how much information my brain can take in at once, but I kept reading the book and learning characters.

It was as exciting an experience as learning to read must have been (I actually don't remember).

And, to return to the first theme, this could all be done without "studying" per se, or taking a class. It can be done on the run, while travelling in China (or on the plane to China).

So, the book is no substitute for actually taking a Chinese class or learning from an in-depth book. But for the traveller who doesn't have time to actually take a Chinese class, but who is willing to spend a few hours poring over a small but useful book, this book is ideal.

I never would have believed that I could start reading Chinese in 3 minutes, but this book makes it possible. And the characters presented in the book are the ones that are especially useful for tourists (characters which are common in place names, such as "jing" for "capital", directions such as "bei" for "north" -- and if you put those together and say "Aha! Beijing!", you can now see how this book makes the Chinese language suddenly start to come together for the tourist).

So this book gave me a gift of (partial) literacy that no phrase book or guidebook did. I only learned a few dozen characters and I still do not know Chinese. But I could use that literacy skill to read some signs, to pick out bus stops (assuming that I knew the characters for the destination), etc.

A marvelous, marvelous book.

P.S. The book is most useful for mainland China, because it teaches the "simplified" characters, not the "traditional" characters, which are used most other places in the world.

Not for the student, June 18, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
If this is your first Chinese book, it's kind of fun, but it doesn't take you very far. If you really want to learn Chinese, there are a lot better books than this. This is more of a stocking stuffer/[bathroom] book.