Because of her father's occupation, Lydia Lin has lived in a few different countries during her childhood and youth. Whenever her family moved from one place to another, she and her siblings had to deal with the issue of learning the language used at the new school and, at the same time, maintaining a working knowledge of their native tongue, Mandarin Chinese. Consequently, Lydia has rich first-hand experiences to draw on for compiling this Chinese language instruction book, even though her studies and job functions have been in the fields of science and technology.