Zhong Wen

"ni hao, wo jiao dawei," repeated Dave obediently.

This was such a hard book. The hero, Dawei, had just met with the heroine, Xiaoyun, with romance bound to follow. They study together under the watchful gaze of the great Bai Lao Shi. All appears well, but could the introduction of another female, Heilun, supposedly Xiaoyun's friend, be the begining of the end?

OK, so Dawei, Xiaoyun and Heilun were actually all little kids, and the book is a learn yourslf chinese book aimed at three year olds, but that didn't take away from the fact that it was still really difficult. After all, Dave was not used to such complicated subjects. Dave was just your average graduate-with-a-1st-in-mathematics-going-on-to-do-a-statistics-PhD kind of guy. It was just beyond his intellectual level things like, "wo shi Bai lao shi. wo jiao ni men zhong wen. xian zai shang ke." (I am teacher Bai. I teach you chinese. Now the class begins.)

'Urgh, why must languages have to be so messy,' he thought to himself, as he began his next lesson.

"It's wo SHI bai lao SHI, not wo SHI bai lao SHI," announced the ever patient Xiao Lao Jing, Dave's mentor in the challenge ahead, "SHI and SHI, they're different you see."

'Ah, SHI and SHI, yes, of cause, how could I not have seen such an obvious difference. A rookies mistake,' he thought with a blank expression. "Shi?"

"Yes, very good," she said with a beaming smile that just melted his heart all over again.

'OK, that's 50 ish charecters learnt in one little year, very good Dave,' Dave congradualted himself. All his hard work was really paying off and his Zhong Wen was coming along very very well. He had every right to be proud of himself and never missed an opertunity to tell himself so.

'Now only another 5000 ish more and you'll have cracked it.'