This book takes the format of dialogues. After each dialogue, some tips are given. The tips are either about the Chinese language and pronunciation etc. or about everyday life in China. Related words and phrases in the dialogues are also listed for memorization. Some of the patterns are summarized for substitution practice. The patterns will reappear in the subsequent dialogues to make readers more familiar with them. We try to minimize the number of the patters and new words because our book should be truly "survival" type. It contains only very necessary words, expressions and patterns. At the end of the book, we compiled a number of appendices, including food, drinks, Chinese numbers, dates, time, Chinese festivals and etc.