Greetings ... and 恭喜发财 Happy Chinese New Year!

Following is a link to an excellent English/Chinese character dictionary ... if you click on the pronunciation link following the character it will open up your Windows Media program and say the word for you. An excellent tool for learning proper pronunciation...


http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordl...=whole&audio=on

This is one of my favorite Mandarin Chinese language websites ... I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

A gift ... enjoy!

Chinese philosophy ... (and a daily televised program in Hong Kong & China) ... "Language Learned = Friends Earned" ... a "very" good program ... wish we had it in the US!

My wife is Chinese ... she says it will take me 7 years to learn Chinese ... I think she's wrong ... I think it's going to take the rest of my life! LOL! However, fortunately our son’s take after their Mother and are much smarter than me… and better looking too… thank God! They … hopefully … will someday be as fluent as their 妈妈 (ma’ma).

I read online that if a person can recognize 3000 Chinese characters he/she can read a Chinese news paper ok, to read one fluently one would need to be able to recognize 6000 characters. Considering there are over 15000 characters … I’ve always wondered … “How long it would take to sing a Chinese alphabet song?”

WOW! I might need this life and the next ...





ezfriday

Oops!

About me…

I’m 43, and a semi retired builder/architect. I have a beautiful wife and 2 wonderful boy’s Jimmy 12, and Justin 6. Our lives are anything but perfect (not the time or place to elaborate on that). I love my family more than anything else in life. I enjoy snowboarding, skiing, waterskiing, hiking, outdoors in general, kayaking and scuba diving… seeing my boys interests and abilities grow, living vicariously through my boys. Favorite geographical areas are Northern California, Oregon, Alaska, Hong Kong, and Mexico.

I am between stages of my life at the moment … unsure of where or what’s going to happen next… pretty much in limbo. Though I know things are going to change soon I just don’t know whether they are going to be good, bad, same … or whatever. Most of my life I’ve had a sense of whether things are going to improve or worsen … much like a sense for changes in weather. Right now its like there a hole in the clouds, the sunbeams are shining through but its raining all around and I’m driving in a circle … in and out … scantly catching an occasional sunbeam. Does that make any sense?

I think all one can do at times like this is to do their best to remain positive.

That’s me in a family nutshell … nice to meet U all.

It's nice to meet you too. Welcome to Matazone!
*carefully duct-tapes ezfriday to the ceiling* Fear not, you'll fall down soon.
I sort of understand what you mean, and lots of people here are ready to talk if you want. Feel free to poke me if you have questions about something.

Wow, another one over 40. It's nice to have a good representation of age

Plus I get to poke fun at people older than me for a change

Hello!

I've merged your two intro topics into one. In future you might want to use the 'edit' button that appears below and to the right of your own posts, or you can reply to your own thread if you feel it would be better to add a new post.

It sounds like you're in a middle period at the moment. It must be something about my site because non-teenagers often seem to be going through changes in their life when they come here. Happily I can report that (of the ones that I know about) they come out better for the experience.

Welcome to Matazone!

*hands ezfriday a coffee and a sudoku puzzle as welcoming gifts*

Took me five days before i fell down!!! Grr....