I'm completely unsure which of the myriad lessons-hawkers I've seen online. I'm just wanting to get a sense of the language, not a complete course in how to speak it. I'm wanting to hear the language and get some everyday phrases under my belt. Anyone got something to offer? There are so many "language" lesson experts online, I don't know what to choose or trust.

Thanks,
betsy

Hi Betsey,
Is there a language school in your city? My son and I hired a Chinese tutor from the local Chinese school, and it was just what we needed. My son is 12 so he learned faster than I did! It was really helpful to be able to say some Chinese phrases. I found "excuse me" to be particularly helful since I always seemed to be bumping into someone!

I don't know about Mandarin or any other Chinese language, but I used a Pimsleur CD series to learn a bit of Thai for an upcoming trip to Thailand which I would highly recommend... They did a good job of getting you used to listening and speaking the language, and you actually walked away with quite a bit of language under your belt... the problem was that I wound up speaking a little "too good" - so that when I'd try my Thai here and there, the natives thought I was fluent and would start chatting back to me in Thai!

If the Pimsleur Mandarin series is 1/2 as good as the Thai series, I'd recommend it in a hearbeat...

Ken

I've taken 2 Mandarin classes. The 1st was at USC and was only speaking and Pinying. The second was at a local community college and was reading, writing, and speaking. I took this course with my wife (native Korean) and we had a lot of fun with it. I got a much better understanding of the language after taking the 2nd course.

I would highly recommend taking a course in person vs. on-line or at home. The interaction with other students & instructor is invaluable.

I agree with Ken on using the Pimsleur series. I took a course and while it was fun most of us also used the Pimsleur for the basics. I would put it on in the car and it really helped with pronounciation and tones.

While i usually got smiles when I tried to say something (in Taiwan) the people were glad to hear me try. Mandarin is a very interesting language and I hope I will go back to it one of these days.

Good Luck