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Learning the language
Mandarin is a difficult language to learn. It's a tonal language; when it's in pinyin (romanized) form, a word can have four different meanings, depending on the type of accent mark used.
There are some things which can make the language easier on foreign tongues to learn: there are no singular or plural nouns, and there are no verb tenses. Modifying words such as today, tomorrow and yesterday serve to indicate tense. There also are no a's, an's and the's in Mandarin. These three words were the ones I put in the most and took out the most when I worked at China Daily.
Not knowing the language makes it difficult to get around China, but it's not impossible. Armed with a limited vocabulary and a good phrase book, I traveled extensively around China. When both of these failed me, a Chinese person who spoke English always turned up to help me.
If you can learn a few basic words and phrases, it will make your visit easier. Start now by signing up to have words and phrases emailed to you in Mandarin every day. You can also test your knowledge of Mandarin online.
Puzzles, pictures, games and stick-on labels help make learning a few basic phrases fun. Two books which I found particularly helpful are Learn Chinese in 10 Minutes a Day by Kristine Keshul and Barron's Learn Chinese -- Hanyu -- the fast easy and fun way by Lifei Ji.
There are a lot of good phrase books out there. My favorite is Essential Chinese for Travelers by Fan Zhilong, but whichever one you choose, make sure it has words and phrases in Chinese characters. Most Chinese cannot read English or pinyin, but they can read characters.
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