Focus is placed on the practical functions of language. The contents are diverse and include both graphics as well as text. Learners are exposed to authentic and common written Chinese in the goal of broadening their horizons. The signs and posters in this book have been selected from a collection of over two thousand photographs and are commonly seen in Chinese society. Readers may see these signs in mainland China, Taiwan and Chinatowns worldwide.This textbook was written according to the core concepts presented in the standards for foreign language education in the 21st Century by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Included here are the 5Cs: Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparison and Communities; and the three modes of communication: interpersonal, interpretive and presentational. Please refer to the table in Appendix I that shows how the textbook content corresponds to the 5Cs. Simplified Chinese characters, Pinyin, English.