This consists of two phrasebooks: "Chinese at a Glance" (Seligan, Chen) and a very similar credit-card sized version. The tape does nothing but read from the smaller phrasebook. The larger book makes a small attempt to explain pronunciation. But neither makes any attempt to explain the grammar or anything about the language except by giving whole-sentence examples. The larger book has a small C-E E-C dictionary in the back.The two phrasebooks cover the same material, but with the phrases in a different order, making it impossible to follow the tape in the larger book. The type in the smaller book is very small, making the intonation marks almost illegible sometimes.Either book is very portable on a trip. The smaller one is really tiny, so if you're looking for a highly portable phrasebook, this isn't a bad choice. But this is a poor choice for learning the language.