dstarsboy

This should definitely be stickied. I think new members can find a world of information in those links. I've been reading them, like, all day. haha (well, at least while I'm here in class)

Wow, so let me get this straight. An American can go to China and push and budge his way onto line ups and ahead of the crowd and no one will fight him? They will just take it? I find this hard to believe. Also, I wonder how often Chinese visit America and try this resulting in some fights breaking out. Americans have no idea their culture is naturally like this and they really aren't meaning to be rude.

From what I can tell, "Excuse Me" is something like doy-do-chi. Or doi-bu-chi

Amazing!

I practice whenever possible, may it be at resturants, Asian markets, co-workers & I call my wife's family and speak with them the best I can. My wife told me how to say Happy New Year in Mandarin most understood. I also speak while I am in China, at one resturant I requested the waitress to bring the table watermelon, she looked at me, turn around and went to the other side of the post, she wouldn't look at me, the other's at the table laughed and called her back to the table after telling her what I was saying, they all laughed. I usually get mixed results but I try the best I can. 187111[/snapback] Yeah, I'm with you on this. I tried to spit a few Mandarin phrases I learned off of Pimsleur at a waitress in a chinese buffet and she just looked at me like I was a loser and asked "What are you trying to say?". I told her in English then she preceded to say in Mandarin exactly what I thought I had just said!! Tones are such a huge deal. I was hoping that if I use a few words together, they'll "get it" without me having to stick with tones, but I'm wrong. If it doesn't sound close, they have no idea what you're saying. The word that's killing me is "no" which means "Here you go". So if I'm talking Mandarin to a waitress and stop to correct a word by saying, no, it seems like she's expecting me to give her something.

yeah, unlike most people here, my SO speaks no English and I speak no Mandarin, but we're both willing to learn for each other so I guess that's really all that counts. The only difference between her and I communicating and an American girl and I communicating is... time.

Ditto. I have done Mandarin I and now I'm working on II and III. Pilmsleur is hands down the best memory technique for learning foreign languages. Warning though, expect to pay around 200 bucks per Section.