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We are booked! China Eastern total for two is $1944.

Dan, don't lock down the Good Ole Boy Porn Room! (at least give us some notice first)

Just recieved Hoyt's book about the U-Boat offshore. Can't wait to start it. Working on a set of books about the Vietnam war first.

I second this. 100% correct. You need to practice daily. I'm personally convinced that the program you use (pimsleur, rosetta stone, chinese pod) doesn't matter. What you need to do can be described as: Step 1: learn some extremely basic grammar vocabulary so that what you learn makes at least a little sense, i.e., there is a framework for your brain to associate new vocabulary and grammar Step 2a: load up your brain with as much raw material as you can Step 2b: review that raw material as much as possible Step 3: use what you have learned/memorized as much as possible, on a daily basis, in a natural language environment I think you satisfy step 1 after you can have an extremely basic conversation for 2 minutes (*not* memorized phrases, and not just "Hello, how are you?"/"I am fine, how are you?") Simultaneously, you need to work on: -understanding the basic pinyin system (so you immediately know how to pronounce zi, xi, and zhi, for example, and can hear the difference between ma1 ma2 ma3 and ma4) -understand the stroke order system so you can pick out a radical from an entire character and look it up in a dictionary (this is less important now with online dictionaries and especially optical character recognition capabilities of smart phones) But you don't have to master these two things to move to step 2 Step 2 is best done by daily drills. Make flash cards to review when you are stuck waiting in line, on the metro to work, or stuck in non-moving traffic, waiting in line at the bank/DMV/Apple store waiting for the new Apple product. Your flash cards should be developed according to character frequency, i.e., study the ones you are most likely to encounter first/most. You can find lists of the most common characters here: This site is great: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/topchars.php First, they offer some hope that if you just fully learn 250 characters, you will recognize 57%-64% of what you encounter in any situation. Just 250 characters!!!! But second, they have a great flashcard/matching game that lets you choose character sets according to their frequency: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-memory.php You need to play a certain character set in pairs: once to learn the pronunciation, once to learn the definition. That's kind of a pain, but it works. I've never used them, but here is the websites online flashcards: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/flashcards.php Step 3 still requires daily practice! My favorite way to do it is to listen to Chinese music. You get to hear the words pronounced correctly, in context. I have learned a huge amount of usable vocabulary (especially for relationship issues) from Chinese songs. * But here's the overall problem: You will gravitate to the language that you have the best communication. You may try to deliberately speak Chinese, but the first time you struggle with a word and slip into English to get your point across, or she slips into English to help you understand her point, you will make it easier to slip into English the next time. So discipline is very, very important. If you decide to communicate only in Chinese on Tuesdays, say, then you must both be disciplined enough to make that stick. And when you can, immerse yourself in a Chinese environment. When you travel to China with her, get out and talk to street vendors on your own...or at the very least, have her let you take the lead in some communications, like ordering food or haggling a price. Fluency is difficult, and takes effort...but is well worth it. *two other helpful methods include watching television serials and reading Chinese novels. Both require determination and discipline. Even being fully fluent, I struggle with the first few pages of a book, or the first few episodes of a serial, because I haven't developed the context enough. By the time you are several pages into a book, you tend to encounter key vocabulary several times...it becomes almost a specific jargon that you can get the gist of. By the time you are several episodes into a serial, you get where the story is going and can predict better what they might say or do...plus you get used to that actors speaking style. So don't get discouraged if you start out taking several hours to read one paragraph because you are stopping to look up characters so much. And don't get discouraged if you take multiple hours to watch one episode of a serial because you have to pause and replay so many times to get what they are saying. The efforts will build on themselves and the speed will pick up. Plus, you will learn quite a bit about Chinese culture from television serials. Many of the best attempt to explain/explore issues facing a specific socio-economic group, like the upper-middle-class college graduates born between 1980-1990, or the same but those born between 1970-1980 (from the two you learn that like the US' Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, etc, China has the 70s kids, 80s kids, 90s kids: they separate them by decade, and there are specific societal reasons for that, and different life expectations and problems for each decade), or the problems of finding housing in the city during the housing boom. No doubt there will soon be a serial out explaining/exploring the bursting of the housing bubble.

When I was living in China, I was having dinner with an exceptionally beautiful woman and another woman, both who were professional and spoke English. Well, the beautiful woman asked if I was learning Chinese since I was there for more then a year. I replied NO and she then said I was a usual lazy American. I don¡¯t know if she was being rude because she was use to getting her way because of her beauty or it was just the normal Chinese¡¯ way of being rude, which I observed numerous times everyday while living in China. In any case, I was insulted and embarrassed by her boorish public comment. It was the straw that broke the camel¡¯s back. I then decided to learn Chinese. I started with a simple traveler¡¯s book ¡°15 Minutes Chinese¡± and ¡°Living Language Chinese¡±. These two books are worthless especially the ¡°Living Language¡± book since it doesn¡¯t have an index in the back for quick word lookup. I then moved on to both Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone. Again, these non Chinese companies, which are trying to teach you Chinese are hopelessly inadequate and a waste of money. Pimsleur and Stone have slick, crafty and clever advertising campaigns but lack any real substance on the language. I then took 2 college semesters of Mandarin which used the ¡°Integrated Chinese¡± textbook series and audio CD¡¯s. This is a great book and audio CD and gets into the nuts and bolts of the Chinese language. If you go this route, I must warn you, it requires a significant time commitment. There were a couple of US men there taking the course since they had found Chinese wives online. They were hopelessly lost after a few weeks. I would say 30 hours per week is needed. I then moved on too having a private tutor who was from Taiwan. Wow she is great and smart and very different then Mainland Chinese women. I then started to gain a better understand and amazement on just how inadequate the Pimsleur and Stone courses are. I also start working nights and weekends at a local Chinese restaurant just to be around people who spoke Chinese. I also teach the owner's two small kids who just started learning English and they teach me Chinese. My favor place for learning Chinese is at the CCTV website. There are several Chinese language series available there. The important difference between the CCTV series and Pimsleur and Stone is that CCTV series are designed and taught by Chinese, not a western company such as Pimsleur and Stone. The old saying ¡°you don¡¯t know what you don¡¯t know¡± is very true in learning and teaching Chinese. One additional point in CCTV language series favor over Pimsleur and Stone is CCTV is FREE ! My favor language series at CCTV are: 1 Growing up with Chinese ¨C 100 episode each 15 minutes long videos with lessons scripts in Mandarin, Pinyin and English. All are downloadable. 2) CRI Studio (China Radio International) - Over 300 audio lessons on numerous subjects about 5 minutes long each with scripts. The Chinese woman, Yajie, who is the main teacher, has the sexist radio voice I have ever heard. I just love this series. I also use Audacity to play all my lessons. Audacity is a free audio player and editor. It shows you the voice print just like Stone, but has many more features like slow play back and repeat segment playing. Another Chinese language series is on YouTube is ¡°PeggyTeachesChinese¡±. Peggy is a very engaging young girl from Taiwan and a great teacher. You need to start at the beginning for her series or else you will be lost. She is a sweetheart ! Finally, over the years I have seen a number of guys here, go out and buy the Pimsleur and Stone series thinking they will learn Chinese. Then within a few months, they give up and then ask if anyone wants to buy the CD¡¯s from them. It always surprises me how many men go out and find a Chinese wife, then expect her to learn English, while they don¡¯t make any attempt or just a feeble attempt at learning a little Chinese. I don¡¯t have a Chinese wife or girlfriend and don¡¯t have any plans for one in the future. But I study Chinese 2 or 3 hours daily. I am at the library now downloading some additional lessons from CCTV. To learn Chinese takes a substantial amount of effort. The older you are the more you have to study and practice. It¡¯s impossible to explain to you why it is so difficult. After all of this, I am only at the intermediate level now. But it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I never had before when I lived in China. Now, I love the language. I can¡¯t wait until I see that beautiful woman again, so I can tell her off in Chinese. Men in your situation should just learn a few expressions, from CCTV, and let it go at that. Don¡¯t waste your money on those fancy CD¡¯s courses.

Yep total immersion, moving where all that is spoken is Mandarin, and then intensively working on it.