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.