Getting Around China
Dialogue simulator · 出行对话模拟
Airport, metro, train station, bus, taxi. Each turn someone says something to you — you pick what to say back. Choose wrong and the page tells you exactly what that sentence would have sounded like, and why it misses.
Pick a scenario选一个场景
Every scenario ends with something going wrong — a gate that changes, a train that's late, a stop you sail past. Those are the moments the right sentence actually saves you. Lines are read aloud by your browser's built-in text-to-speech, not by a recorded voice.
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Phrase kit — see the six lines before you start
Why these five为什么是这五个场景
Because they're the ones where not having the words costs you money or time.
At the airport, the sentence you need most isn't "hello" — it's the one you ask when the gate number printed on your boarding pass stops being true. Announcements are fast, distorted and full of numbers.
In the metro, everything is automated and nobody expects you to talk. That's exactly why the two questions that matter — which direction, and where to change — are worth knowing cold.
At the train station, long-distance tickets involve dates, seat classes and passports, and delays are announced once. On the bus, no one sells you anything and no one looks at you, so asking a fellow passenger is the whole skill. In a taxi, you're negotiating a route with someone whose interest isn't perfectly aligned with yours.
The words themselves are the same ones in the free Core 500 wordlist. What this page adds is the order to put them in.
Read the same conversations line by line
Every scenario here has a matching unit in Level 1, with full pinyin, English and tap-to-hear audio on every line.
Questions常见问题
Do I need to know Chinese to use this?
No. Every line shows characters, pinyin with tone marks, and English. This is written for people who can't yet order a coffee without pointing.
Is the audio a real voice recording?
No — it's your browser's own Mandarin text-to-speech, so the quality depends on your device. It's good enough to get the tones and rhythm across, and it never gets tired of repeating a line.
What happens if I pick a wrong answer?
Nothing bad. The option turns red, the page explains what that sentence would actually communicate — usually it's grammatically fine but wrong for the situation, which is the most common real-life mistake — and you try again.
Can I print any of this?
Yes. Finish a scenario and use the print button: only the phrase list carries over to paper, one clean table per scenario.
Are these dialogues copied from a textbook?
No. They're original The Chinese Path content, written to match the vocabulary of the free Level 1 core list — which is why they reuse the same words in different situations instead of introducing new ones.