Pleco is excellent. Been using it for over 10 years.
It is a work in progress with 81 lessons online. Also has MP3 files for pronunciation help.
Alien is quite right. My trips to the wet market was fun, bargaining, arguing, joking with the ladies over prices. You also get to experience local speakers accents and dialects.
BTW Pleco on your mobile can be very useful but do realize many people in the wet market can't read much.
Yesss, nothing like practice!!! Ahhh, I remember my first weeks-months in China when I had no idea about anything and in the place I lived everyone spoke in local dialect... So much fun : )
Translator for your mobile - google translate - or simply, Translate. The app has downloadable dictionaries (eg Chinese), voice input AND output, and you can use your camera (clunky) to translate text.
It's machine translation - so results are dubious - but should be good enough to get the general gist of a phrase, label, or sign.
I do pretty well with standard conversational Putonghua, but have made no real attempt to learn local dialects and have picked up next to nothing in many years here.
Machine translations have their uses but as michael says, they are indeed clunky and aren't really sufficient for learning to read - well, helpful maybe, but not really good enough in the long run.
