First Step is an elementary Chinese textbook for students with no previous background in the language. Focusing on the basics of modern Chinese phonetics and grammatical structure, the book uses everyday topics to help students establish a solid foundation in the Chinese language.

The textbook, which includes color illustrations, contains thirty lessons, each of which can be covered in a week's worth of classes. Each lesson features a lively dialogue or a short essay, representing a real-life situation, which is then followed by vocabulary lists and grammar notes. Explanatory...