I have a friend (actually he's my golf pro) who has an 80%+ plus chance of moving to China soon.

He was a bit fuzzy about the particulars. Said he would be in the second largest city in China in the SW part of the country near the ocean. Figure this might be Guangzhou (could be wrong).

Thought I might be able to help him a bit. My husband has used the Pimsleur tapes to learn various languages (including Japanese) at a basic conversational level. Any recommendations for Chinese (Mandarin) other than Pimsleur. FWIW - our friend probably knows about 100 words/phrases in Chinese now - but they tend to be things like "you shanked the ball" - or "the green is very fast" - etc. Would be nice for him to have a more extensive vocabluary.

Also - when we visited Japan - we found a couple of excellent books that explained the food in Japan - and explained how to order it (one useful feature was lists of various foods written in English - with their Kanji symbols - makes it easier to "point and click" when you're in a restaurant). Any recommentations for similar books about food in China? Robyn