Lesson 1: I have [a] (Mandarin) I decided to take a different approach to this. I'm really enjoying it, too. I asked a friend to give me 5 words and put them in a sentence for me. I'm going to learn 5 words every few days until I can name every item in my bedroom. Then, the living room. After that? The kitchen, and so on. So far I have: 床 Chuáng [我有一张床 Wǒ yǒu yī zhāng chuáng] (Bed. I have a bed.) 椅子 yǐ zi [我有一张椅子 Wǒ yǒu yī zhāng yǐ zi] (Chair. I have a chair.) 电脑 diàn nǎo [我有一台电脑 Wǒ yǒu yī tái diàn nǎo] (Computer. I have a computer.) 电视 diàn shì [我有一台电视 Wǒ yǒu yī tái diàn shì] (Television. I have a television.) 桌子 zhuō zi [我有一张桌子 Wǒ yǒu yī zhāng zhuō zi] (Desk. I have a desk.) 台灯 Tái dēng [我有一盏台灯 Wǒ yǒu yī zhǎn tái dēng] (Desk lamp. I have a desk lamp.) Courtesy of JASSICALEI. Any errors are my own, not Jassicalei's. I'm really enjoying this. Also, if you type it into Google Translate [http://translate.google.com/#], it will say it for you. It seems fairly accurate, though I'm going to cross-check it with a friend tomorrow. If anyone likes the way I'm learning and wants to follow along, feel free. I will not be online again until Wednesday, though, so I will not have posted my 5 new words until possibly Thursday or Friday night.

Tones in Mandarin, yikes. Tones, accents, diacritic marks, whatever you want to call them. I need help with them. Recently someone talked me into giving actual pinyin and the tones a try. It helped SO much. I can pronounce things better now. Not great, but better than before. But here's my issue. Seeing the little marks: à, ǎ, REALLY helps me. But when I see it replaced with numbers, I freeze like a deer caught in the headlights. Is there a program that will put the little diacritic marks I love so much in for me? Without them, my notetaking on the computer is practically useless. Should I switch over to numbers? Does it really matter? Am I just being difficult? Either way, without SOME form of marking, I cannot pronounce ANYTHING. Ideas, suggestions? Thanks.

My real introduction. I decided to rewrite it. It looked sloppy and I had no idea what I was doing really. 你好 我叫 carrie. 我正在学 可是 我会说一点. 明年我就要搬家去中国了. 我发型设计师. My Mandarin is terrible. I am sort of taking a crash course, learning as much as I can, when and where I can. I know some people will speak English in China, but I figure if I'm going to be living there, I might as well learn to speak the language. I currently don't have the money for an actual course, so I'm using the Internet until then. I'm not really trying to learn to read or write, but I prefer to learn the han zi along with the pinyin. It seems to help me. Ex: 你好 nǐhǎo "hello" I am still learning the tones. I can't decide if I like using the numbers or diacritical marks yet. Probably numbers, in the future, but for right now I kind of rely on the marks. Any help would be appreciated. I have QQ, MSN and a microphone. Also: any idea how to delete my last entry? Thank you.