chrisnhong

Yep, no shortage of random acts of government stupidity here either. I think the best one in recent memory was "hey, let's join our friends the Americans on their wonderful adventure in Iraq!".

The best I've seen for learning pinyin sounds is the FSI course which is now downloadable for free. The Foreign Service Institute is the US Department of State's language teaching department. http://fsi-language-courses.com/Chinese.aspx

The old FSI course has a pretty thorough drilling in pinyin. Tape & book. It's available free on the net nowadays. It used to be used to teach US diplomats for overseas postings.

I pay for Chinesepod for one month every six months or so. What I've seen recently is extremely impressive. There are new things being put up all the time. The Fix is a more Pimsleur like recording that emphasizes vocabulary. Qing Wen looks at commonly used grammar. Movie madness takes popular western films which have been dubbed into Chinese and works through some of the language while guessing which film it is. Given that the site is being updated and enlarged all the time, it becomes better and better value.

I've been a couple of times. I find it convenient to travel there using the ferry from Hong Kong. It's a nice little city.

As I understand it, opening a school can take a lot of pull, both money and guanxi. The francise schools charge a huge amount of money to start (eg. English First). Doing it yourself could be problematic, having to grease a lot of noisy government wheels, so to speak. Be careful.

Personally I tend to agree, a diet is more varied and complete when fish and meats are added. For me, a complete absence of these foods would be difficult in a number of ways. I have chosen at this stage just to cut back, which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing. My understanding is that Tao is directing vegetarianism due to the cruelty to animals aspect rather than any possible health advantages. The leader of our group used to be a very well paid teppanyaki chef, but chose to quit the profession.

The overlap with western religion and Tao is interesting. Tao actually regards Jesus, Mohammed as "sages" along with LaoTse, Confucius and some others. If you look closely, many of the requirements of good character and behavior are similar. Tao directs that it's followers should be vegetarian (not vegan, so eggs, milk products etc are allowed). I'm not there yet, but I've cut my meat consumption down to under 500 grams per week.

Unfortunately, much of the texts is in extended pamplet form. And the translations from chinese are often pretty rough. There is some ritual connected to the religious side, rather like the various churches. But the focus is definitely more on the philosophical side.

I've been a practising Daoist for about 18 months. In some ways there is an overlap with other religions, promise of an afterlife, belief in God etc. Where it differs? Mastering your own behavior comes first, faith comes later. In a lot of ways it's been copied into much of the stuff in the self help industry.

In order for best learning: 1. Pimsleur; It's brilliant for learning to speak. Unfortunately, it's only a beginning. What you learn is excellent, but it's only a small part of learning chinese. 2. Chinesepod.com; A massive resource and growing all the time. Start with pinyin, but if you can learn some characters, it rounds out your knowledge. Rosetta Stone has a steeper learning curve than Pimsleur but takes you much further. But if you want to use it, a good electronic dictionary is vital. I use Plecodict on a small palm based smartphone. In fact I'd recommend Plecodict for anyone whose wife doesn't have excellent english.

Skibum, chinese pronouns are very simplistic. For example there is no differentiation between him and her and it. So for Chinese people, who are still thinking in chinese, it's a real struggle. I know from the way my wife speaks around chinese people, she loves flirting and general wordplay. I am certain that she misses that in trying out her spoken english. When you're having fun together, it's more physical in nature.

Ever since Deng XiaoPing told the chinese people "To be rich is glorious", it's been the goal of most of the chinese population. Get used to it. What they haven't worked out yet is that money doesn't necessarily equate to happiness. Yes, they've been told, but probably suspect it's a lie. 1. The Shanghai stock market has increased 170% this year. 2. The Hong Kong stock market is undergoing a similar rise now, in the expectation that mainland Chinese will be allowed to invest there directly. 3. The bank accounts give less than 4% interest. Given inflation ~10%, if you place money in the bank, you lose. 4. Real estate is rising at a similar rate to stocks. Given asset price inflation because of the money sloshing around in China, it's a high risk/high gain proposition to invest there. You've told her you're not rich. She probably doesn't believe you and won't until she reaches the US. To cut this short, give her what you think you can afford. DON'T BUDGE FROM THIS POSITION. Watch her response carefully because it will tell you much about whether you can get along. Remember, money doesn't make you happy, but fighting about it certainly can make you unhappy.

Try Shooter

This is good stuff. When first confronted with this, it can really throw you. It takes a lot of courage to respond correctly as it can feel like you're putting your marriage on the line. It's basically a test, of your character and your love. Here in Australia, guys often express friendship with insults. Losing it in response is very uncool. I was hanging with a friend last week, his received a phone call, looked at the number and said to me, "it's my brother-in-law", he opened the phone and said "What do you want, ya fat bastard?". I've seen it happen in the US. SaJiao is broadly the equivalent coming from a female. There is a real need to detach your emotions from her tone and argument. Now if you can come back and give her some playful put-downs in turn, it can get to be really fun. Be VERY careful, because her self-esteem can be an issue.

As I understand it, if you load up Pidgin, it will communicate through the QQ network and most others. No spyware.

Try Chinese Forums, a quick search should get it for you.

There will be plenty of chinese people in Denver. You'll find them. There are a couple of things that are critical. 1. At the start, you need someone to show her around for a few weeks. My mother came to stay with us and took her into the CBD and to the local chinatown a few times. This meant that she knew how to get around, even if she didn't know where to go. 2. Decide early on how you're going to handle her name. My wife still uses her chinese name, which I have no problem with. The problem is that chinese names are surname first. We have her name down in a number of places with either her family name or given name as the surname. Decide which will be which. 3. Patience. You're going to need tons of it. Mountains of it. After 2 years her english still sucks. Progress is slow. My mandarin is much better. But there are some pleasant surprises along the way. 4. Electronic dictionary is vital. Get a good one, they even come with little english lessons in animated Flash format. Very cute. You might even consider getting Plecodict for your own use. I find my wife's difficult to use when I'm in a hurry.

Just for your own education, try typing "LJBF" or "Let's just be friends" into a search engine. You are coming across too needy, too nice. If you don't change this behavior, your relationships with women will generally fail to live up to your expectations. Sorry to be so in-your-face, but if you continue like this your life isn't going to turn out the way you want.

As crappy as you're probably feeling right now, she's just done you a big favor. When a woman says let's just be friends (LJBF), she usually means that your not attractive to her because you're trying too hard. Read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Robert Glover. Go to the web site and hang around on the forum there. If you choose to take it seriously then I think your life will improve greatly.

Se Lang is correct. Your old TV simply won't work in China because it's a NTSC (Never the same color twice) set. Chinese television is broadcast in PAL.

English is easy to speak - badly. Even in the US, just listen to the people around you. Very few people speak it even close to perfectly. It's beauty is that it's fairly easy to speak badly and still have people understand you. It's a long slow learning curve. There are many many exceptions, yes. I just love when I see a native chinese speaker being stumbling over how to write a character and I'm sure they get the same kick out of native English speakers making their own mistakes.

It goes ok, but then I'm not really someone who learns easily off a PC. As a rough guide: Pimsleur: Absolutely perfect for beginners. Gives perfect pronunciation and pushes you hard to speak Mandarin. Nice slow learning curve. The main problem? It covers a small section of the language extremely well, but only a small section. You will be able to make yourself understood, but listening is difficult due to the fairly small range of vocabulary that you've learned. FSI: Dull as dishwater and a little old fashioned. Free. Covers a much wider range than Pimsleur. Chinesepod: The biggest current thing in learning Mandarin. Podcasts are free, web based lessons aren't. Probably the most easy to listen to. There is a mass of lessons of various levels available. Comprehensive. Rosetta Stone: Computer based so I have a little bit of a difficult time there. It has a reasonably steep learning curve, but it's pretty good. You'll need a dictionary. Plecodict: Best electronic dictionary out there for English speakers learning Mandarin. It must be run on a Palm or a Pocket PC. Don't buy one for your Chinese SO, others are more suitable. Best option: Sign up for chinese classes at a university in China or Taiwan. I think I've written this already, but there's a quote out there, "learning Mandarin is a five year lesson in humility. After 5 years your Mandarin is still terrible, but you've got humility down pat".

The other D word? Dentist, right?

If you're male, they're not for you...