zombie_chris on February 11, 2013 (0) | reply
Paging Brendan!

A good starting point is Edwin Pulleyblank's Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar.
zombie_chris on December 13, 2012 (0) | reply
Man, now I feel really old... Actually haven't listened to the lesson, I just looked at it and saw what I imagined the OP thought the problem was.
zombie_chris on December 13, 2012 (0) | reply
The bottom half of the list is garbled :P

high - drunk; excited

PK - player killer; to defeat

hōu zhù - to control

out - outdated

N - many
zombie_chris on December 9, 2012 (0) | reply
@tallmike - have you gotten hold of a copy of Beijing by Foot? There's some good walks in there, I had a great summer following two or three of them a week.

http://www.immersionguides.com/products/15/
zombie_chris on November 15, 2012 (0) | reply
There's a good example of an American woman using IDS with her baby here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYItFpRFqec

If you live in China, I think that if your baby goes to a regular kindergarten and plays with native Mandarin speakers then "teaching" at a such a young age as 5 months isn't going to be particularly productive. My friend's son is three months old and speaks almost exclusively in Chinese (Chinese mother and ayi, father from New Zealand) with little in the way of formal lessons. If you don't live in China, then a private children's tutor and kindergarten would be the way to go.

Interestingly, a friend of mine was born in Suzhou and was adopted by American parents when he was 4 years old. He only resumed his Chinese studies when he was 16 and now at the age of 24, manages to speak flawless Mandarin.

Language learning really depends on the student and the amount of work that they are willing to put into their studies and getting enough speaking practice - an "early start" will make the work seem less like hard work, but isn't necessary to mastering a language in the long run.
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