You are learning first words and the four tones: you will read the scene it happens in, learn 10 words and phrases, take apart the pattern behind them (四声 sì shēng — the four tones of mandarin), hear them in a conversation, rehearse them, and finish by saying one thing out loud to be graded.
Jia Jia Tang Bao (佳家汤包), Huangpu district — one of Shanghai's most beloved xiaolongbao shops. 7am queue, steam rising, the city already awake. Your first four words of Mandarin.
Jia Jia Tang Bao has been making xiaolongbao on Huanghe Road since 1995. The dumplings are hand-pleated with 18 precise folds each, filled with pork and hot broth that arrives as gelatin and melts during steaming. The queue starts before 7am.
The stranger joins the queue. Steam fills the shop front. When he reaches the counter, a woman in a white apron looks up. He has practiced this moment.
「你好！我要一笼小笼包。」 She writes it down without looking up. 「几笼？」 How many baskets? He holds up one finger. 「一笼。」
Four minutes later, a bamboo steamer arrives on a metal tray. He picks up chopsticks, pokes a small hole in the skin, waits for the steam to escape. The broth runs down his chin. 「谢谢！」 She nods. She has already moved on to the next order. He has communicated, perfectly, in Mandarin.