Title: No Pinyin AND language errors!
Product review: I am usually a big fan of Lonely Planet products but this little book really let me down. I've studied Mandarin for a few years. A book like this should be useful in that a traveler should be able to use it quickly and easily. Unfortunately the move away from "pinyin" to LP's own crazy system is irrational. It is neither intuitive nor useful. My other grievance lies with the book's numerous language errors. If a traveler has problems pronouncing something, he or she should be able to point out the sentence to a fluent speaker. With this book though, you could very well be asking the wrong question. Sometimes the Chinese characters, English translations, or the LP symbols do not match up. Lonely Planet needs to make some adjustments with their next edition if it's going to have any success.
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