I chose this course as the demand for Mandarin speakers is at a premium, and I thought it would be useful for this reason and because I am trekking the great wall of China for charity and would like to communicate with the locals in their own language as much as possible.

The course is well thought out, with the CDs clearly and succinctly spoken with emphasis on the pronunciation and repetition, as well as explaining context.

The accompanying booklet explains how to pronounce things the way they are written which is of course useful but I would have liked to see it in phonetics too, which is why I can only give it 4 out of 5 stars.

I also think the culture/etiquette advice is really useful and am grateful not to have to lug heavy textbooks around and also to be able to learn while doing other things as I can listen to the CDs while doing housework for example.