This book is simple and short, and it has all sorts of phrases you won't find in a regular travel phrase book, like "I am your mother" "Do you need to go to the bathroom?" "We will take good care of you." The problem is that I am having a very hard time pronouncing Chinese words. I still can't say Therese's Chinese name correctly, and I have been working on that for quite awhile. Since Chinese is tonal, you could be saying a totally different word if you get the tone wrong. I used to teach English to international students and remember how hard it was for them to pronounce certain sounds in English. I have personally studied German, and a little French and Latin. There are a few sounds in German I never got completely correct, and I had a bad habit of using German sounds when I tried to use French. (I'm sure that French people would have LOVED that.) My sisters will probably never let me forget the time when we were in Germany together, and I asked that my bread be circumcised, when trying to remember the word for sliced. There are only a couple of letters different in those two words, which really make a different meaning, ha ha. But, Chinese is by far the hardest for me. I want to be able to say a few soothing phrases, and of course saying the poor girl's name correctly would be good too. Unfortunately, I have noticed in my very limited study that the word for mama and camel are the same--they just use different tones. I'm afraid that when I finally get to China, I will meet my child and say in a gentle voice, "I will take good care of you. I am your camel." She will be so confused. Even though she lives near the Gobi desert, I'm sure she has never met a camel, and certainly not a camel that looks like me.
