A lively, practical way to develop and improve basic foreign language skills
This audio-based language series from Teach Yourself is an entertaining, non-intimidating way for you to begin building conversational proficiency. Each course covers ten key situations--from greetings and buying food and drink to shopping, asking for directions, and visiting locals--and includes two conversations per topic. The explanations and instructions are simple and bite-size, making this a very accessible program.
I picked this up as I specifically wanted an audio cd that would let me review conversation practice for travelling. This was a nice resource for that. There were quite a few useful phrases I'd not heard before and I really liked the style of the conversations. With pauses so you were given an English prompt for the next part of the conversation and then heard the Chinese to see if you'd done it correctly. The third CD built more on the vocabulary and situations in the first two offering further listening practice. I don't think this would be a great resource for absolute beginners but used alongside a course that teaches reading and writing it would be a valuable resource.