Spanish tops out as the most-studied language across U.S. campuses, followed by French and German. Only one percent of those in the U.S. have studied Chinese, but…
Read More
Tag Archives: Mandarin
Rosetta Stone Changed My Life!
Rosetta Stone has been life-changing for me. With no background in Mandarin, I began three years ago with Level 1 and continue to enjoy every moment of my daily…
Read More
Immersion after Rosetta Stone: Movies!
My students here in China often ask what they can do to improve their oral English. Memorizing a dictionary is all well and good for passing their college-entrance exams,…
Read More
A Journey on the Silk Road
My husband,…
Read More
Chinese Level 3: Nailed it!
Well, I’ve finished Chinese Level 3. The capstone is in place, the race has been run, and now I speak fluent Mandarin, right? Well, not quite—although, looking back, I…
Read More
Using Rosetta Stone Chinese to Go beyond Coffee
The first complete series of Mandarin phrases that I mastered after I moved to Taiwan went like this: “Wo yao yi bei kafei natie . . . da bei…
Read More
Experiments with Motivation
In general, I struggle a fair bit with motivation. Add that to the fact that I speak English during my work as a teacher, and it’s no surprise that…
Read More
Counting in Mandarin
Understanding Accents is a Two-Way Street
People in Leshan are wonderfully friendly. If you speak so much as two words of Chinese, they’ll open up to you, ask questions, make conversation. At such times,…
Read More
A Proper Beijing Accent
I’ve already been told half a dozen times that I have a proper Beijing accent. Not that I’m in any way fluent (or even particularly proficient) in Chinese, but…
Read More
