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I know this is an extremely stupid question, but my Chinese teacher doesn't teach any grammer...so...I'm just wondering if the word order in Chinese is the same as in English.

Definitley interested I am. I'm sick of Mandarin, but Cantonese I like.

By the way, what guild? I haven't seen many good language guilds around.

Yup, that's right. And I've just finished moving all 6 lessons onto the FLG!

My Chinese teacher was like that too. She was totally crazy, and nobody learned a thing.

What I always do for Kanji (worked for Chinese too): Just write the word over and over again, while saying it as you write it. Then after you've done a dozen or so different words, go down the list backwards and forwards and every other direction and make sure you remember how to say each and what they mean. Then sit there and make sentences out of them. By then, you oughta know them all.

Does it seem to be working?

Sorry for text wall.

I find that writing a word over and over again doesn't help me much. When I used to go to Chinese school, I had to do that, and I remember that it really only helped me to memorise the word while writing that 4 lines of it. After that, it flew out of my brain, ready for the next word to occupy the space. I feel great admiration for little children in China. crying

Anyway, since I'm so bored, I'll make an effort to start up some potentially interesting conversations! And add in a lot of rambling with it! twisted

So everyone... simplified or traditional??

Personally, I like traditional characters more because they look a lot more natural. I don't like the.. empty look of the simplified ones. I also find it's easier to work out what new words are in traditional because the bits of the words generally fit together logically, and the things in it allow you to work out the meaning.

I also think that if you're going to take the time to learn such a complex writing system, where there's so much to memorise, it wouldn't really make that much of a difference whether it's simplified or not anyway.

I do realise that it's a lot quicker to write simplified, but should we really sacrifice a writing system to allow this? To me, this reasoning is like saying txt spk should be adopted as the 'correct' way of writing English since it's quicker, more logical and more efficient. Perhaps this simplification will result in a sliding slope situation, where the characters will be simplified to 26 handy phonetic ones?

How many characters do you all know?

Do you find that your reading is a lot better than your writing? I certainly notice that. Obviously, it's easier to remember the general gist of something than to get into all the details, but I think it's also because it's a lot more natural for people to practice reading-wise than to write it, unless you go to school in China or something.

I think I can read less than 1000 characters, maybe somewhere around 500-700? I really don't know how to improve apart from looking up several characters each day. Learning to read in Chinese just seems so unattainable since the words never stop coming! Living in England, I can't see any oppurtunities where I'll be able to learn all the quirky words that aren't in the most common '5000' or whatever.

The worst thing is, my parents aren't exactly supportive! Although my mum did say that she was impressed that I could read the amount I could without anyone teaching me properly.

I'm seriously aiming to be able to read a magazine in Chinese in 4 years time (well, 3 and a bit) but I just don't see how people can do it. After schooling, what do people do when they see a word they don't know? I find it extremely daunting that I can be crippled by one uncommon character in a magazine article which happened to avoid being in my learning regime.

And proper nouns! All those crazy names that are as rare as hell! gonk

Another thing, I find it a great hazard when you learn words that are vaguely similar at the same time. I get them mixed up A LOT! My only consolation is that given a context, I'd probably be able to work it out.

Last thing, stroke order. Y/N?

I don't follow the correct stroke order. I might be doing it subconciously though, since it's pretty much normal for people to write from left to right, top to bottom. It might be a psychological thing, but I do find that writing with the correct stroke order makes things a lot prettier. I realised their importance when I looked at some calligraphy. You notice that some bits flick and stuff, because of where the pen/brush is supposed to go next. As a result of not strictly adhering to stroke orders, my writing looks messy messy, not messy neat. sad

However, I really can't be arsed to follow these rules. I have enough trouble learning to write, so as long as I print it like a baby and reproduce something that looks like what it's supposed to, I'm happy.

On an ending note though, I did find that 口 looks a lot better when you use the correct order, than drawing a square with one continuous line.

So yeah... your opinions on the topics, and your opinions on my opinions.

Edit: Oh and another thing. Can someone explain what happens to tones when you're singing in Chinese? I tried it myself, but I can't explain why you still understand what you're saying.. sweatdrop