The Rudiments of Mandarin is designed for foreign students who have no prior knowledge of the Chinese language. It introduces the learner to the Chinese phonetic system Hanyu Pinyin and authentic dialogues for everyday situations. The chapters focus on interesting themes like selfintroduction campus life transportation shopping food and travel. The drills and discussions equip the learner with useful grammar and key vocabulary both of which will help them communicate in Chinese more efficiently. The authors have also made every effort to include Hong Kongspecific elements such as local lexical items and culture notes in each chapter. The Rudiments of Mandarin is unique among Chineselanguage textbooks because it is specifically designed for learners who are studying and living in Hong Kong. This book is accompanied by downloadable mp3 files which include audio recordings of the text vocabulary and listening exercises.