Most Chinese textbooks that I have seen focus on grammar and writing Chinese characters. This is fine if your focus is academic. However, for those who simply want to acquire useful phrases via short dialogues, Putonghua: A Practical Course in Spoken Chinese would probably be useful. Dialogues are presented in pinyin, with the hanzi (character) equivalent at the end of the book. There are also short lists of related vocabulary opposite each dialogue page.

The weak point of the book is that there are almost no grammatical explanations. You have to induce grammar rules from the dialogues. Also, since the book is called Putonghua, the characters presented are the simplified hanzi, not the traditional forms used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Anyway, for the price, it's not a bad book.

This book was my first Tai Chi book, and so I still believe it has some merit. I believe it brings up many valid points which will be very useful for American readers, and the book serves as a good introduction. However, it is an imperfect method in description of the postures and pales in comparison to books by masters of many years. The book I would most suggest to anyone is Complete Tai-Chi by Master Alfred Huang.