Specialized · Arrival-Week Survival Mandarin
Survival Chinese
ProYour first 100 phrases for arrival week in China — Land in China and function from day one. The highest-leverage phrases for taxis, restaurants, the pharmacy, the metro, and the moments when nothing goes to plan — each lesson built around a real arrival-week scene.
What you'll be able to do
Outcomes after completing the 10 lessons in this module — concrete, role-relevant, and cultural in equal parts.
Land and function from day one
Move through arrival week — taxis, hotels, restaurants, the metro — without freezing at the first 你好 you hear back.
Numbers, prices & change
Order, pay, and verify your change in Mandarin so a 50-yuan note never becomes a 5-yuan misunderstanding.
When something goes wrong
Pharmacy, lost passport, blocked card, wrong stop — the specific phrasing for the moments your plan breaks down.
Polite from the first hello
Use 您 / 你 correctly, thank a host the way they expect, and read the small social cues that mark you as a guest, not a tourist.
Voice Cast for Survival Chinese
Each section of every lesson is voiced by a specific persona from the Mandarin Temple cast — a podcast host, a learner co-host, two dialogue partners, and a teacher — chosen to fit the register of survival Chinese.
Every voice on Mandarin Temple is an AI-generated persona. Each speaker has a written biography, a fixed voice model, and a consistent register across lessons — but they are synthesized, not recorded by a human actor. Their bios, accents, and personalities are designed by us; the audio is rendered by a TTS model.
AI"Your guide through every word"
Taipei / Vancouver
AI"Learning it live, with you"
Melbourne / Kunming
AI"Stories behind every street"
Xi'an
AI"Learning alongside you"
Beijing
Topics Covered
The 10 lessons spread across these 10 themes. Each topic gets one or more dedicated lessons with vocabulary, dialogue, grammar, and exercises.
Lessons
10 lessons across 2 units. Each lesson weaves vocabulary, dialogue, grammar, and cultural context into a single guided session — with audio from your cast, microphone speak-back, and a roleplay drill.
Lessons coming soon
This module is being authored now. The 10 lessons will cover the topics above — check back shortly, or request priority access.
Recommended books
Books that pair with Survival Chinese — hand-picked, and the same list you'll find on the Survival Chinese books page.
The First 100 Chinese Characters
Basic Spoken Chinese
Chinese for Dummies
Chinese Made Easier
Chinese Through Tone & Color
Colloquial Chinese
Complete Mandarin Chinese
Contemporary Chinese (当代中文)
Conversational Chinese 301
Developing Chinese
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about Survival Chinese — who it's for, what it expects of you, and how to get the most out of it.
Yes — it is the starter module. We assume you have never spoken Mandarin before. Every example shows pinyin and English; lessons stay close to a single arrival-week scene each.