WELCOME

 To cut a long story short, we wish to help you learn a foreign language in the best possible way.  To do this we wish to place at your disposal the benefits of our experience.  This desire comes from having been a failing language student myself in the beginning and with the guidance a high school teacher later excelling.  I got into teaching by helping my friends who were also failing in their language classes.  I didn't teach them, I just passed on what I had learned from my experience with Miss Arbour.  You can read all about this if you wish to take the trouble.

There are several fine products on the market to help you learn.  My experience as a student has been that there was never only one product that I used.  I wanted to use whatever I could find that would be helpful.  As a result, I used texts from many different sources.  The basics or bottom line of learning a foreign language can be found on this link.  What you use to accomplish this is your choice.

Our products are stories.  They are very helpful, but you will also want to use other material in addition to them.  We will recommend those products we believe to be the best and encourage you to make use of any or all of them during your studies.

Refer to the article on the bottom line of learning a foreign language for you will want the products you choose to possess any or all of those requirements.

You can use the products from any of these companies below at any level.

CHINESE POD   These lessons originate in Shanghai, China.  With this program you will learn Chinese from elementary to advanced on the Web.  It consists of a text, vocabulary, dialog, conversation between two people.  You can sign up for these lessons.  I believe they give you a free trial period.

TRANSPARENT LANGUAGE has a series called NOW.  We would recommend Chinese NOW.  In addition they have Before you Know It.  This is an electronic CD flash card format for learning vocabulary.  Personally I don't care for learning vocabulary on flash cards, but you may.   I like my vocabulary to occur in complete sentences.  This way I absorb the structure, also called grammar, of the language without having to study grammar.  This is a CD T  A new addition is that you can subscribe to a Word of the Day at no charge.  It will give you a word, translation, sentence using the word and ability to hear the word and sentence which contains it.  What I like about this subscription is the emphasis upon learning a word and sentence a day.  The secret to learning language is really just that.  Learn one perfect sentence a day and to do not stop.  You can read my experience with Hindi.   They also have many languages available in the NOW series.

QUINTESSENTIAL LANGUAGE STORIES.  These are CDs which contain several stories in a format that includes everything you need to learn them.  We have originated a system of color coding to help you match the phrases of one language with the other.  A sample CD will be sent upon request.

The three programs above will give you enough material and choice to be very successful.  Keep in mind, however, the old saying:  "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."  and "If you are not hungry, you will not look at a banquet table."

For the serious student of Chinese we strongly recommend you purchase WENLIN software.  This program is a Chinese English dictionary and a software program which will show you beautifully how to write Chinese characters, stroke by stroke. 

.With this program you will be able to read any text in electronic form.  It has reduced the looking up of characters in a dictionary and converted it from a tedious, task to a piece of cake.  You can easily create a text in Chinese traditional or Simple by typing in the pin yin and converting it.   Will wonders never cease.