Mandarin phrases for tourists: the taxi, the price, the order
If you want Mandarin phrases for tourists, you need fewer than you think, and you need them out loud rather than on a list. This page is about the three moments a short trip to China spends most of its language in, the taxi, the price and the order, and how Phrazl builds a phrase set around your departure date.
The trip you are actually taking
You fly to China in a few weeks and the worry is specific: the first taxi, where the driver asks you something you did not plan for and the queue behind you keeps moving. You are not trying to become fluent. You want four or five lines per situation that leave your mouth without a pause, and you want to recognise the one or two coming back the other way.
Mandarin carries meaning in pitch as well as in syllables, which is the practical reason a line you have only read is a line you have not learned. Hearing it and saying it back is the work. Reading it off a screen while a meter runs is not.
There is also the question of which lines. One traveller's review of the biggest of the general language apps put the complaint plainly: the phrases it teaches are "definitely not the most practical ones for travelers". Phrazl starts from the other end, with the situations a short trip puts you in, and asks you to pick three of them.
Three moments, and what each one asks of you
The taxi
The address can live on your screen, and often that is enough to start the journey. What the screen does not cover is the middle and the end: here is fine, stop here, a bit further, thank you. Nor does it cover the question that comes back at you, which is where most people freeze. The useful preparation is producing three short lines without hunting for them, and recognising one or two coming the other way.
The price
Asking what something costs is the easy half. The hard half is hearing the number, and then having a reply ready that is not a nod and a retreat: that is too much, do you have a smaller one, I will take this one. A tourist who can ask but not answer has bought one extra second of confidence and then spent it.
The order
A table for two. This one. Not spicy, or whatever your version of that constraint is, because the sentence you need most at a table is usually the one about what you cannot eat. Then water, then the bill. Four or five lines, and the meal stops being a performance.
Everything else, the hotel desk, the shop counter, the bad day you hope you do not have, matters less often but matters more when it lands. That trade-off is why Phrazl asks you to pick scenarios rather than handing you a language.
How a Mandarin trip pack gets built
- Pick China, then pick your departure date
Setup is three steps: the destination selector, the departure date picker, the scenario selector. China is one of the destinations Phrazl covers. The date is not decoration, it is the deadline the whole review schedule answers to.
- Choose up to three scenarios
Restaurant, transport, hotel, emergency, shopping, and you take three. Transport, restaurant and shopping cover the taxi, the order and the price. Swap in hotel if you are checking in on your own, or emergency if you want the lines you hope stay unused.
- Get a phrase set ordered by trip relevance
Each language and scenario pairing has a pre-curated set, ranked so the lines a trip reaches for first come first. A trip pack unlocks 50 phrases per scenario, up to 150 for three.
- Say each line in three modes
Flashcard to see whether it is in your mouth yet. Listen and repeat, with audio playback, so you hear it before you try it. Fill in the blank, which for Mandarin asks you to complete the whole line rather than one word, because Chinese is not written with spaces between words.
- Let the schedule compress toward the flight
The review schedule tightens as your departure date approaches, so a phrase you met three weeks out comes back more often in the final week rather than drifting off into a polite long-term plan.
- Watch coverage, not a streak
One progress bar, labelled as curriculum coverage completed. No streaks, no XP, nothing that punishes a day spent packing. Coverage is how much of your set you have worked through, not a prediction about how a conversation will go.
Which three scenarios a China trip usually spends
| The moment | Scenario to pick | What the moment asks of you |
|---|---|---|
| The first taxi | Transport | Stop here, a bit further, thank you, plus recognising the question that comes back |
| The price of something | Shopping | Asking the cost, hearing the number, and having a reply that is not a nod |
| The order at the table | Restaurant | A table, this one, what you cannot eat, water, the bill |
| The front desk | Hotel | Your name, your booking, and the one question about the room |
| The day you hope you do not have | Emergency | General communication practice only, never a substitute for contacting local emergency services or a qualified interpreter |
Why this suits a traveller rather than a student
Scoped to three situations, on purpose
You are not asked to cover a language. You are asked which three of the five scenarios your trip will put you in, and the rest is left alone until a later trip asks for it.
Ordered by what a trip reaches for
The phrase set is pre-curated per language and scenario and ranked by trip relevance, so the first lines you practise are the first lines you will spend.
Heard before it is said
Listen and repeat plays audio for each phrase. With the trip pack that audio runs at speed or slowed, alongside a written pronunciation guide. It is a synthesised voice rather than a native speaker, and the screen says so.
A schedule that answers to your flight
Reviews compress as departure approaches. The question is not whether you practised today, it is whether the taxi line is due for a run-through before Thursday.
No streaks, no XP, no praise
One coverage bar and nothing else. Nobody congratulates you for showing up, because you are an adult with a boarding pass.
One payment, not another subscription
A trip pack is $9.99 once through Stripe checkout for one destination and up to three scenarios, and a returning traveller discount of $5 applies to your next destination. If a purchase does not unlock what it named, the support form on the account screen is the route to a fix or a refund.
What a China set costs
Free preview, free
The first 20 phrases of your trip, with one trip set up. Three-step setup, audio on every preview phrase, and the departure countdown and review schedule, so you can judge how a Mandarin set reads and sounds before you pay anything.
Trip pack, $9.99 once
One destination, up to three of the five scenarios, 50 phrases per scenario and up to 150 for three. Three learning modes, synthesised-voice audio on every phrase at speed or slowed with a written pronunciation guide, a review schedule that compresses as your departure date approaches, and the $5 returning traveller discount on your next destination.
Full bundle, $19.99 once
Everything in Trip pack for every destination Phrazl covers, all 10 languages, with new trips set up any time and no further purchase. For people who have China this spring and somewhere else after it.
Questions
How many Mandarin phrases do I need as a tourist?
The honest unit is per situation rather than per language. A Phrazl trip pack gives 50 phrases per scenario, up to 150 across three, ordered by trip relevance, and the free preview shows the first 20 of your trip. In practice the lines you spend hardest are the handful at the top of each scenario: stop here, how much, a table for two, I cannot eat that, the bill. The rest is depth you grow into if the trip is long.
Do I need to learn Chinese characters first?
Not for the job this page describes, which is saying a line out loud. The work happens in the spoken modes: flashcard, listen and repeat with audio playback, and fill in the blank. One China-specific note on that third mode: because Chinese is not written with spaces between words, fill in the blank asks you to complete the whole line rather than a single word.
Is the audio a native speaker?
No. The audio is a synthesised voice, and we would rather you read that here than discover it after paying. With the trip pack it plays on every phrase at speed or slowed, with a written pronunciation guide, and the free preview carries audio on every preview phrase. For a tonal language, hearing a line and saying it back still beats reading it, which is what listen and repeat is for.
Can I try a Mandarin set before I pay?
Yes. The free preview covers the first 20 phrases of your trip, with one trip set up, so you can run the three-step setup, pick China, pick your departure date and three scenarios, and see how the set reads and sounds before the $9.99 trip pack unlocks the rest.
My trip is only three weeks away. Is that too late?
Three weeks is a deadline, which is what the schedule is built for. The departure date you enter compresses the review intervals, so phrases come back more often as the flight gets closer rather than being spread out over a tidy year. The progress bar reports curriculum coverage completed, how much of your set you have worked through, not a prediction of how the conversation will go.
What about emergency phrases in Mandarin?
Emergency is one of the five scenarios, and you can pick it as one of your three. It carries a disclaimer on the selection screen and matching language in the terms: the phrases are for general communication practice only and are not a substitute for contacting local emergency services or a qualified interpreter. The same framing applies to every destination, including the Thai set covered on our emergency phrases page.
Is this a subscription?
No. A trip pack is a one-time $9.99 purchase through Stripe checkout for one destination and up to three scenarios, and the full bundle is $19.99 once for every destination Phrazl covers. Buy a second destination later and the returning traveller discount of $5 is applied at checkout. There is no support email address, so a purchase or refund problem is raised from the support form on the account screen instead.
What does Phrazl store about my trip?
Your email address, name and a hashed password to sign you in, your trips, meaning destination, departure date and chosen scenarios, your review history per phrase to schedule what you practise next, purchase records from Stripe, support requests you send from the account screen, and funnel milestones: one timestamped record per trip when you set it up, finish the free 20, see the paywall, start a checkout or complete a purchase, so the product can be improved where travellers stop. It is held in a managed Postgres database on Amazon Web Services, kept while your account exists, and you can delete a single trip and its review history from that trip's edit screen or the whole account from your account screen. There is no data export of your review history and no two-factor authentication yet.