Each section contains an introduction with language-specific information, and identifies students and teachers' common questions, including the capacity of Chinese as a morphologically unmarked language to indicate categories such as tense and mood. Many entries listed in this manual come with an explanation, a commentary, and rich examples.

The Manual for Teaching and Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language appeals to both Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers and students, as well as being the ideal reference for researchers conducting comparative studies of the Chinese and English languages.