CHINESE: Learning to speak Chinese - at last - I've got t!

Problem
I've tried to learn Chinese about four times. From books. From recorded discs. All too tiring and difficult.

Answer
At last I've found an easy start. Tiny cards from Duolingo. The lessons are short. Four cards in five minutes. You get to see the words but don't need to recognize them. The only one I know is the one I remember which was a horizontal oblong with a vertical bar down the middle, like a double flag on a flagpole.

Symbols
I saw that sign in Hong Kong. My friend who spoke Chinese (that means Mandarin) said it was the sign for central, meaning China.  The Chinese in the old days considered themselves the centre of the world, their world, the universe. Doesn't everybody!

I don't need to recognize the words in picture writing. I only need to learn the pinyin, the phonetics and 'English' writing.

Similar Sounds
You are given a flash cards which reverses and try to remember it. Then you see three sets of phrases in Chinese which you must match to the English.

Some of it seems obvious. The phrase for 'tiger mother; includes the word ma, like mama.
The word for boss looks like ban. Both words start with the letter b. The bad boss bans everything.

Some you half know from memory and process of elimination. The one phrase I know is happy new year (Chinese New Year). It sounds like Gong Chi Fa Choy. I can eliminate that from a which of three is this phrase guessing game.  I know lots of girls have names which sound like way or May, meaning beautiful.

If I get it wrong, only two more chances, then I know the right answer. I can only get it wrong two times out of three, then I win again.

The Tiny Cards are currently (Oct 2017) on laptops, not on the small screen of your phone. But they will be soon I'm sure.

If you want to learn Chinese and could never get started, try it.

Best of all, it's free. Nothing to lose. At the end of the day I can read through my emails and see the reminder to use the Tiny Cards. If I am too tired to do anything else, I can learn a few words of my chosen language. It's good to end the day with an achievement.

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Language teacher.