Specialized · Travel & Hospitality Mandarin
Tourism Chinese
Pro PlusPractical Mandarin for travelers — Essential phrases and vocabulary for traveling in China. Navigate airports, hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions with confidence.
What you'll be able to do
Outcomes after completing the 12 lessons in this module — concrete, role-relevant, and cultural in equal parts.
Move through China confidently
Airports, high-speed rail, hotels, taxis, restaurants — every transactional encounter, smooth and fast.
Ask the locals
Beyond menus — order off-script, bargain at markets, get directions when GPS fails.
Cultural sites unlocked
Read temple inscriptions, museum captions, and street signs at imperial palaces and old towns.
Emergency-ready phrasing
When something goes wrong — pharmacies, lost passports, language for police or hospital intake.
Voice Cast for Tourism 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 tourism 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 12 lessons spread across these 7 themes. Each topic gets one or more dedicated lessons with vocabulary, dialogue, grammar, and exercises.
Lessons
12 lessons across 3 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 12 lessons will cover the topics above — check back shortly, or request priority access.
Recommended books
Books that pair with Tourism Chinese — hand-picked, and the same list you'll find on the Tourism Chinese books page.
A Chinese Text for a Changing China
Basic Spoken Chinese
China in Ten Words
Chinese for Dummies
Chinese Made Easier
Chinese Through Tone & Color
Colloquial Chinese
Complete Mandarin Chinese
Contemporary Chinese (当代中文)
Conversational Chinese 301
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about Tourism Chinese — who it's for, what it expects of you, and how to get the most out of it.
Yes — it's designed for HSK 2 and assumes only the alphabet and basic hello/thank-you. If you're a complete beginner, do Survival Chinese first — that's the absolute starter — then this module gives you a deeper second layer.