Learning English and Chinese Beds

[Lucky °®ÈË]

Does anyone know where I can buy a Chinese bed, the ones that are hard and I am guessing not to many Americans sleep on? A queen or king size would be good.

 

My wife desires to go to college and also find work. First she needs to learn to listen to and speak more English. What is the best way to approach this? Attend ESL classes, online classes, Rosetta Stone English? And how much should I be involved as her "English Teacher?"

[credzba]

Does anyone know where I can buy a Chinese bed, the ones that are hard and I am guessing not to many Americans sleep on? A queen or king size would be good.

 

My wife desires to go to college and also find work. First she needs to learn to listen to and speak more English. What is the best way to approach this? Attend ESL classes, online classes, Rosetta Stone English? And how much should I be involved as her "English Teacher?"

 

I have never found a Chinese bed. One person suggested I get box springs and just put a small pad on top of it I have not tried as my wife adjusted to the american bed. It is a foam matress as hard as I could find.

 

As for English I don't know. Certainly you can help just by using English every day.

Help her get out into the society as soon as possible. My wife learned more English from a job where she had to listen and speak than she did from any class.

There has to be enough English, though, to get the job of course.

 

I have heard mixed results from ESL classes, my wife recently started massage school, and the owner interviewed her to make sure she could understand enough English to be successful in the course. We asked what people do who can't understand English well enough, and he suggested private tutors. He said one lady came who spoke no English at all, and he couldn't accept her, 6 months later she returned and spoke and understood English very well. She had hired a private tutor. (side note she also learned and passed the class material)

 

 

 

 

 

[smokiessky]

We bought a Sealy Comfort Series Bay Island was the name. It is the closest to a Chinese bed i found. My wife loves it and i ajusted to it.It is a very hard memory foam bed.My wife will be here 2 years on Dec 6 it is amazing how much English she has learned.

[Randy W]

What I had done even before I met my wife was to put a sheet of plywood under an "extra firm" mattress with no box springs. Chinese beds seem like just the next step up in firmness from this. Very nice.

[Scott@Hong]

My bed was the first thing to go when my wife came here. We found a Sterns and Foster extra firm bed at Raymour and Flanigans that is surpisingly comfortable for me to sleep on being 200lbs., but hard as a rock for my wife to sleep on at 100lbs., so it worked out great.

It was a bit pricey, but money well spent.

 

New Concepts English books work well, my wifes English is very good, and she has referred the books to others and right now my step son is using the books to learn. You can get these at any bookstore in China or online.

[Highlander 08 09 10 11]

My wife studies, "Learn American English online. org", every night. She uses my old computer on that website, and her laptop on her Chinese translations website at the same time.

[dnoblett]

My wife studies, "Learn American English online. org", every night. She uses my old computer on that website, and her laptop on her Chinese translations website at the same time.

Looks to be a dot com, not a dot org. But seems to be a free site anyway.

 

http://www.learnamericanenglishonline.com/

[donjing]

My daughter took ESl classes for 3 months and they helped some. She took english classes in Nanning in Highschool and at college for two years but she still had problems for a year in JR College. She is doing better with english comp after a year and a half but still can not pass all of her TOFEL tests. There are 1000 students from china attending Missouri State and most were brought here to attend high school so they are ready for college. Your wife will have to pass TOFEL tests to attend a 4 year University , at least in this state. Math is not a problem for her. If your wife can speak and understand and write English at a senior level in High School she should do OK in college. Will you have to teach english? I do every day just answering my wifes questions. Good luck, Don

[Yuanyang]

Just buy some marble slabs and cover them with a sheet.

[foobaz123]

Did I get the weird Chinese wife? Mine is looking forward to soft beds...

[warpedbored]

Did I get the weird Chinese wife? Mine is looking forward to soft beds...

 

When my wife first came she was used to the upholstered rocks they call mattresses in China. After she got used to sleeping on a softer mattress she now complains the beds in China are too hard when she goes to visit. I've heard the same thing from other Chinese women here. We have a Sealy, the firmest one I could find. It's still too hard for me but I can tolerate it.

 

I think sometimes in our wish to make our wives life here easier we go overboard on making all of the changes ourselves. The fact is, this is America and if she is going to live here there are things she will just have to get used to. Compromise goes both ways. No American hotel is going to have a bed like China. If you don't mind sleeping on an upholstered rock then by all means go for it. Personally I need a good nights rest and I can't get it on a Chinese mattress.

[Yuanyang]

Did I get the weird Chinese wife? Mine is looking forward to soft beds...

 

My wife likes the comfy soft bed... softer than I like them. My back needs something more akin to the Chinese stone mattresses.

[david_dawei]

Re: Learning english. It really depends on her motivation and what methods suit her well. ESL is the most common recommendation but there is lots of time at home to study if she wants. I would recommend two particular learning materials both created by chinese for chinese and which will emphasis using audio (and video) so listening skills increase.

 

Here are some links for her:

 

1. Crazy English - 疯狂英语

 

http://baike.baidu.com/view/8883.htm?subLemmaId=8883&fromenter=Crazy+English

 

http://www.verycd.com/topics/25602/

 

http://www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_2337030.html

 

2. Action English - 动感英语

 

http://baike.baidu.com/view/819955.htm

 

http://video.baidu.com/v?ct=301989888&rn=20&pn=0&db=0&s=8&word=action%20english&fr=ala0

 

http://www.tudou.com/playlist/id/1515972

Edited November 28, 2011 by david_dawei (see edit history)

[DennisLeiqin]

Really should have split this into two posts...

 

Regarding Chinese beds, here's a picture of my wife's sister's bed. Don't think that would be too difficult to duplicate here with a sheet of plywood.

http://i43.tinypic.com/eq4fg2.jpg

[dnoblett]

Really should have split this into two posts...

 

Regarding Chinese beds, here's a picture of my wife's sister's bed. Don't think that would be too difficult to duplicate here with a sheet of plywood.

http://i43.tinypic.com/eq4fg2.jpg

Yep, we have a bamboo sheet like that we roll onto the bed for summer months, not to bad getting used to.

 

Baught it in Toronto.