As the first self-teaching course in Jimmy Du’s Natural Language Works, Jimmy Du’s Essential Chinese is an audio-companion book specially designed to help you master Mandarin Chinese in the shortest time possible. The promise is that you will simply “pick it up” if you just spend a little time following this course while relaxing at home, taking a walk, commuting to work or travelling. You don’t have to sit in a classroom, consult the dictionary, study grammar or do any written exercises. This least-effort principle is based on the understanding that we human beings all have an innate aptitude for picking up any human language, native or foreign. All you have to do is keep listening to what you can immediately understand, imitate, and put to use. For the highest efficiency, we have provided easy-to-understand explanations and translations of everything in the text. The text contents are carefully selected so that they will not only serve as a basis for you to expand your vocabulary, but also help you learn the nature of the Chinese language and how it works.