I have a CD from a book called "Read and Speak Chinese for Beginners" that I got at Costco. Its nothing special, but it was inexpensive and looked fairly basic, which is probably all I could handle in the short time we have before the trip. I keep the CD in my car player so I can turn it on anytime Igo for a long trip or get stuck in traffic. I haven't gotten too far, just some basic greetings and words for a few common objects. Its very helpful to hear the pronunciation, and, being in my car, I can easily reach over and play it again, and again, as I try to repeat the words. The book also teaches how to read and write the characters for these words, but I haven't spent much time doing that yet. However, I do need to do that because, being a visual learner, I remember best by seeing the words and then matching them to the sounds.
Of course, the big problem is I have no one to practice with, so I'll just have to spend more time rehearsing around my house. I'll probably not use much of it anyways, because I'm always afraid of using any foreign words or phrases I know because I think I'll either offend the other person, or they'll think I actually know the language. I probably shouldn't think that way, but I do. Hopefully, I'll at least be able to use a few greetings. I've also learned a few of these in Japanese. I like learning them even if I don't use them (that probably sounds odd, but its true.) Anyways, I can always use them in my classes, like I did when I did my unit on Japan. For example, I found out that because the Japanese call their land Nihon, which means "land of the rising sun," they write it in Kanji with the two characters that stand for sun ,and source or root, both very easy to write. I always think its fun to find out why things are the way they are. I guess that's one of the reasons I like history.
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