欧洲足球锦标赛 (2) 今天我们击败丹麦，但是德国球队不好踢。丹麦球队有一个机会，他们乘机很好。相对德国球队有好几机会，但是仅仅两个进球。 星期五我们会比赛希腊。。。我觉得我们会能击败他们。 德国，加油~!

欧洲足球锦标赛 德国刚刚击败荷兰，我很高兴。当比赛的时候我很心烦，但是荷兰球队不如德国球队。加油，德国~! I know that's not much, but it's late already ;-)

Possessive Words in Chinese So it's pretty simple, right? my = 我的, your = 您的, and so on. But then again, Rosetta Stone has a lecture about this, and the 的 is being left out when talking about family members. So, "this is my mother" translates to "这是我妈妈". Google translator does it the same way. My language partner says this is wrong. I'm confused. 1. Is it correct to leave the 的 when talking about people? 2. If so, why is this the case? 3. Are there any other types of words where you don't use 的? 4. Are there any other types of possessive words?

Chinese names for western people OK, so how does this work? In essence, I've heard of 3 different ways: 1. Look (listen) for the characters that sound like your name. In my case, google translator actually says 卡斯滕 is my first name, and it certainly sounds a bit like Carsten. 2. Look for the meaning of your name. In my case, it means I'm a follower of Jesus (which I'm not really, but anyways), the German word is "der Gesalbte". If I translate that, I get 弥赛亚, which basically means messiah if I'm not mistaken. Seriously? ;-) 3. Look for characters you like. Eeeh...so can I chose a name like 一二三? I'm really wondering what Chinese people think about this. You guys often have western stile names, but what about western people taking Chinese names? Moreover, is there like an official way to get a Chinese name, or is it nothing more than a nickname?

Shanghai in August, 我很高兴 Today I got an email saying I can go to Shanghai in August. Yeah I'm happy, I hope I can get my Mandarin to a somewhat suitable level until then. My goal: I wanna order 宫保鸡丁 in a restaurant by myself ;-) During the next weeks I'm actually going to meet up with some potential candidates to be my language partner. After all the future looks good. I only need to get some money together to buy plane tickets...

How to learn Chinese characters? So who can give me some advice on how to actually learn Chinese characters? There was someone who told me it's all about repetition. Then there are other who tell me it's about learning the system behind it. Quite frankly, I just don't get it right now. Can anyone recommend a good way to learn the characters? Also, there are about 7 billion (;-)) pieces of software to write Mandarin on western PCs. Any recommendations here?

很小 and 很大 = very small and very big? Is that correct? I'm learning with Rosetta Stone, a software that's very good at times, but has no translations at all...everything is done with pictures, and the characters above just make no sense to my ;-)

Finding local language partners - im-f'n-possible?! So I was and still am looking for a local language partner for Mandarin. While I understand that there aren't THAT many Chinese people in Cologne I actually thought there might be a pretty good chance to get in contact with SOMEBODY. After all there are enough students and other Chinese people around here. I think I must have checked every message board, mailing list and every other goddamn possible way to find someone. This is really depressing. Software like Rosetta Stone, podcasts, all that kinda stuff can only get you so far. I just can't seem to get the real grip on Mandarin this way. Oh btw...in case anyone cares...I'd like to write this in Mandarin, but no chance.