Minimal introduction to everyday Mandarin.
Can you suggest a textbook (say, no more than 200 pages) which would allow me to learn quickly basic Mandarin so that I would be able to have some very basic everyday conversation in China (like ask for directions, reserve taxi, buy groceries etc)?

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I'd recommend Elementary Spoken Chinese by Dai Guifu and several others. It's got 2 CDs and really useful daily dialogues.
http://www.skritter.com/vocab/list?list=list26

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Having some classes on italki.com could also be a good idea. To practice both listening and speaking. Most of the teachers are more than willing to tailor your classes according to what you want to learn.

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A phrasebook perhaps. Lonely Planet has a good one.
Otherwise I would suggest chinesepod.com - they have loads of podcasts, from beginner to expert level on all kinds of topics. It's not free though, but definitely worth it :)

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