Lonely Planet Mandarin [With CD (Audio)]

I have no idea what most of these reviewers are talking about. This phrasebook absolutely uses pinyin (although it's possible that previous editions did not). This book was without question the most useful thing I had when I lived in China (for six months). Not only does it have excellent sections on grammar, etiquette, and non-verbal communication (which really you will use a lot more than anything else), but it covers basically everything you will need to survive in China. It also has every phrase written in pinyin, for you, and Chinese so if you fail to pronounce it correctly anyway you can always show the book to the person you are trying to talk to. That feature can be used even if you go to Hong Kong or somewhere else where they speak a dialect other than Mandarin.

In my opinion, these are the best phrasebooks out there. The sections are all color coded and organized in an easy to use way, making it easy to locate the phrase you want to use. Much easier than the rest of them out there that are just white page after white page which makes it incredibly hard to dig through. These books will teach you what you need to know.

This book has almost everything you need, although i think you need some sort of knowledge cause its kinda hard too, but anyways this book its worth it, trust me

This book was invaluable on our recent trip to Beijing and Xi'an. Particularly useful in that it does not use the "standard", but confusing pinyin system, so that the words are spelled like they sound!