Part 2: A long way traveled, and a long way to go...

Where were we?... Oh, yes. I was talking about how I thought I had found the "Chinese Learner's Bible", after I bought a grammar book from Amazon (For the curious reader, the book happens to be one in a series of study aids provided by Schaum's. A simple amazon search will quickly yield results, and fetching the price of around $20).

But to get back to the main point. It wasn't that easy. Like many ideas which start out, I had the vague notion that buying a grammar book with all the rules for the language, would give me a guide. Then, I could just follow the grammar... Subject + verb - object = sentence... like math, right?

Wrong.

What I began to discover, was that unlike many western languages which have been studied to death for several hundred years, the study of Chinese language and its grammar is still quite young... to add to that, Mandarin Chinese simply just doesn't follow the rules and terms that western scholars try to use to describe it. Without being too nerdy, but still explaining, I have to ask you to remember back to high school English. Every sentence needs a Subject, verb, and object... Or think of it this way: you need the "race-car driver", the "engine", and the good ol' race-car which is moved by the engine... To make a sensible sentence in English, we need all these things, with very very few exceptions (such as "Stop!", "Help!" or other exclamations).

Now that we have our race-car model of language, we can talk about Chinese... In Chinese, sometimes the race-car is both the engine and the car, with no driver. Occasionally, there is only an engine (just rattling around making lots of noise by itself).

Upon realizing that I might have been in over my head, I stopped, held my breath, then relaxed as I exhaled. I felt better, but I was still in over my head. So what did I do? What any sensible guy would do... I stubbornly kept going in the wrong direction, trying earnestly to cast out in every conceivable direction, grasping at any straws that seemed to offer help. I needed advice. I needed direction. I needed a language partner. And so I began to cast around, looking for different options, before finally finding a two-birds-with-one-stone website, called www.studypond.com (which offers both lessons, and a study-partner area).

There, I would find the next step of my journey.

Part 1: A long way traveled, and a long way to go...

I'm Max, and I have a story to share with whoever wishes to watch my life unfold...

But first, there is a bit of catching up to do.

Exactly 0ne year, 5 months, and 2 days ago, I started the process of learning Chinese. Why Chinese? Well, one day, I was bored after school, and like any person who is properly bored nowadays, I was surfing on the internet. In a crucial, random moment of fate, I clicked on an ad for Rosetta Stone, explored the website, and saw that they had a trial lesson for Mandarin Chinese. I was intrigued... after all, isn't Chinese one of the most difficult languages? So, I started the lesson, guided by the automatic features and slick interface of Rosetta Stone, and after 20 minutes, realized that Chinese was like any other language. I mean, sure, it has that strange "tones" issue (where if you say a word while raising your pitch, it means something different than saying that exact same word with a lowering pitch), but after the trial lesson, I knew how to say "The boy runs", and "The girls sit", and understood what the different parts of the sentences meant....suddenly, Chinese seemed like a very real possibility.

And I ran with it.

Slowly, I began to tell people that I wanted to learn Chinese, and I checked-out a few websites about Chinese... Oh, and let's not forget wikipedia! (speaking of wiki, I donated $5 during their last fund-drive).

But I was poor, too poor to afford Rosetta Stone... Difficulty can breed ingenuity. So of course, I downloaded an illegal copy of Rosetta Stone, through a popular peer-to-peer filesharing network (In a hypocritic stance, I don't suggest other people do this). Et Viola! I was in business.

Or so I thought.

I, a language enthusiast (tried to learn arabic on my own too :P, and speaking passable Spanish), realized that I needed some sort of a manual. So, I went to Amazon and gazed at several grammar books, and a vocabulary book. Two weeks later, I had my books in hand, and was eager to learn.

But alas, such things are never easy. I still had quite a way to go, in order to find my current path...