Mandarin

My senior year of high school a friend lent me a copy of the Dao with the Chinese calligraphied on the facing page. I liked the philosophy well enough - and still do - but the fascination was with the characters. I got Wieger's Etymology of Chinese Characters and the Rose-Innes Dictionary of Japanese and Chinese Characters (both Dover) and started a deciphering project. I also fussed with Modern Chinese (from Peking University, again through Dover).

My Chinese and Arabic studies at that time period sort of run together. And they share that aside from translating a little bit of classical text, I didn't get too far.

A few years back, I returned to Mandarin after tinkering with Japanese characters (and Heisig's guide to memorizing them). There's a website at Gbarto.com where I started to put up the first nine books of the Dao. As so often happens, life intervened.

At one point, I ran across a Pimsleur Mandarin set that I had on my computer. I had listened to the first two or three lessons several times. Last fall, I decided to take it a little more seriously. Since I now work at a language school, dedicating serious time to it didn't seem quite so frivolous. I did the first level, joined a Mandarin group at work, then took lessons. I'll be stopping lessons fairly soon - my goal for Mandarin is barebones and I'm getting relatively close. But it's still a fascinating language.

Recommended for serious students:
Pimsleur Mandarin, Level 1
Chinese in 10 Minutes a Day (sticking with it is the hardest part)
What Chinese Character is That?
Ultimate Chinese from Living Language
byki.com Chinese lessons
and, of course, Chinesepod.com