Originally Posted by Casiopea

Amazing! I've heard Chinese is somewhat difficult given it's a tone language, not to mention that fact that it takes a body 18 or so years just to get the kanji down. Is that true? I'm in Japan, and I gotta tell ya, I've been studying kanji(What's kanji? All I know is Japanese is subject-object-verb, like "I fish eat".) for going on 4 years now, which means to say I know about as much kanji as a fourth grader in elementary school T'morrow I am giving a speech in Japanese to the Mayor and the City council, and I gotta tell ya, I'm shaking' in me boots just thinking about it. (Not so bad, give my regards to them!) My hat goes off to Shane!


Dalian sounds wonderfully peaceful, not to mention eye staging gorgeous. I'm considering a trip soon. Japan ain't that far away from China. :D I had Chinese speaking students in Canada. They taught me a few words--I just can't seem to get around the dialects, though.(Don't worry about dialects. Every Chinese (99.9%) understands Putonghua, i.e. "Mandarin".) When I greet someone in Mandarin, for example, they reply in Cantonese Ni haw ma? Shei shei lee How'dya like my Chinese (Nope, not Cantonese but excellent Mandarin, though in Hanyu Pinyin (romanized Chinese) its Ni hao ma? Xie xie ni.)

Cas :D