Upvote:2
I haven't yet been to China, but I am studying Mandarin. And based on my experience with the language, I don't think you'll be able to make a list that will help you recognize directional signs. Just to look at an example for the word "toilet" (which I'm sure is something you'd want to be able to find), there are many ways of describing it, 3 of which are very common:
But what you could do is make a list of things that you might want directions to, with English and Chinese names side-by-side, so that you could have it ready to show people. I would recommend including things like:
I did this for a trip to the Middle East, where I was unsure of my Arabic and Hebrew pronunciations, and it worked very well.
Upvote:5
Come on folks, it's 2015: there are better ways to do things now, and here's one.
Go to the App/Play Store and install the Google Translate app, which can translate English to Chinese and back. With this installed, you can:
List above courtesy wikiHow, because it's CC-licensed and I'm a lazy git. And you will need a data connection for most of these features, but prepaid Chinese SIM cards are cheap and easy to pick up, and you can download an offline language pack to get the basics even without one.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, although not on translation, and the camera stuff was originally launched as Word Lens by acquisition Quest Visual.)