BOOK REVIEW
Today we look inside the Mandarin Chinese Picture Dictionary from Tuttle.
Tuttle is the premier publisher of Chinese language learning books. They have over 15 different books for Chinese language learning. Here are a few that I’ve reviewed:
Chinese Flashcards
Reading and Writing Chinese
Mandarin Chinese for Beginners
Learning Mandarin Chinese Characters Vol. 1
Making Out in Chinese
The First 100 Chinese Characters
A fun and helpful resource for anyone interested in learning some Mandarin — whether you’re 5 or 100!
This picture dictionary covers the 1,500 most useful Mandarin Chinese words and phrases. Each word and sentence is given in Mandarin characters — with a romanized version to help you pronounce it correctly — along with the English meaning.
This colorful picture dictionary includes:
- Hundreds of color photographs
- 1,500 Mandarin words and phrases for HSK 1-3
- 40 different topics — from social media and WiFi to paying and counting
- Example sentences showing how the words are used
- Companion online audio recordings by native Mandarin speakers of all the vocabulary and sentences
- An introduction to Mandarin pronunciation and grammar
- An index to allow you to quickly lookup words
The words are grouped into 40 different themes or topics, including basics like meeting someone new and using public transportation to culture-specific topics like celebrating Chinese holidays and eating Chinese food.
Mandarin Chinese Picture Dictionary makes language learning more fun than traditional phrasebooks. This resource is perfect for beginners of all ages — curious kids, visual learners and future travelers to China.
Who’s this book for?
✅ You live here in China and need real words so that you can go outside and ask native speakers what they mean, then this book is for you.
✅ You’re preparing to move to China and want to get prepared then this book could also be for you.
✅ It’s definitely for you if you need a nice pretty book for your coffee table that you’d like to casually peruse through to get some new Chinese vocabulary.
✅ Someone who is studying for HSK 1, 2, or 3. This is a great supplement to your boring vocab list.
✅ A visual learner who is struggling to get started.
???? If you are studying grammar, this book is not for you. Try this book instead.
Do you want to master Chinese tones?

If you want to be confident that your tones sound good when you speak Mandarin, and you want strategies to effectively learn Chinese on your own, then I’m here to help you! ????????
A quick and important disclosure:
Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. I recommend them because they are helpful and useful.

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