There's a way.

I can understand Mandarin Chinese only -w- Although I do hope that I'll be able to learn Cantonese someday (I can sort of understand it if spoken slowly, but I only get the basics >3>)

I have to say that I don't really like the language though, despite the fact that I'm Taiwanese - it's too complex and confusing for me, ha ha, although I guess I'm still capable of holding fluent conversations with people (since my Mom sort of forces me to speak it at home).

I think - well, this is just my opinion anyway - that knowing how to speak a language is certainly more important than learning to write it on paper - it's the oral communicating that's more useful, after all. So the only thing I can really suggest to do is to, I guess, have as many conversations with people as possible. Although I don't know if there's many Chinese speaking people around your area but I'm sure there're some? ._.

Watching Chinese movies will certainly help too, so keep those up! And listening to Chinese music, find some radio stations (do you have those in Japan? I know they have one multilingual one here where I am), sign out tapes from the library, etc., ha ha, I'm not being very helpful am I - suggesting things that're already common sense and all. xD

Your curiosity is unlimited. I was surprised a bit. You have been devoting yourself to English. How can you study Chinese along with English??? You are amazing.....

Hi, there. This time, I visited here. ;D

Well, wow! You've got down to studying Chinese! You're really an active lady! I should emulate your attitude toward langauges.

I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorow's club. ;D

I read somewhere that studying more than one foreign language at a time helps one to learn faster and better, especially if the foreign languages are dissimilar to one another. You'll have to let me know if you find it to be true!

I tried to learn a little Chinese before I visited Taiwan and China some years ago. Mostly without success, since by the time I got there about the only thing I could say well enough to be understood was, "Hi, have you eaten yet?" Someone had advised me that "Have you eaten yet?" is the same as asking "How are you?" and doesn't mean you're inviting someone to join you for a meal. Maybe that person was mistaken or joking, or perhaps I said it badly... because half the time I ended up having to buy dinner for someone! I didn't mind, though, as it was fun meeting and spending time with various people. ^_^

I took a couple of Chinese courses while i was going to college in the U.S., and it was actually not so hard. I didn't take all of the courses there and can only hold a very easy concersation now so I shouldn't conclude that it was "easy," but I knew most of the chinese characters to start with, and the pronunciations are somewhat similar to English (much closer compared to Japanese), so it was not as difficult as learning English to me. I think I could be speaking Chinese better if I kept taking those courses. I had to stop taking them because they were held at the same time as my major classes.
I really enjoyed learning Chinese. Now, I don't have much time for it. I do have a Chineses brother-in-law, and he wants to teach me whenever, so I'll take up on his offer when I have more time. Good luck learning it.

Thank you for your wonderful comment again! Like English, I'd like to speak Chinese. Speaking is the first thing to me. I'm goinf to take you advise!
However, I'm not sure what kind of movies I should pick. I can't tell the difference between Mandarin and others, and this is another problem. What would you recommend to me? Would you please tell me?

I should be careful because they say "Curiosity kills something..." I need to keep up studying English, so I have been learning Chinese for one hour at night. I'm going to buy some films in Chinese.

As you know, I'm an eager learner. XD I'd like to be active. XD That's why I can be alive. XD

Do you know an expression "Have you eaten yet?" in Chinese? That's wonderful. I know "What time is it now?" in Chinese. I've just got another expression: "I don't know." Is this useful, isn't it??

Thank you for your comment. I'm so glad to know that you have learned Chinese. I'm not familiar with any Chinese words, but I'll try to remember. Why not study with me???

Oh I'm Chinese. If you have quetions don't bother to ask me.
China does have a long history of 5000 years and I'm glad that you like our history. Actually in some ways Chinese is quite similar with Japanese especially the kanji part. We have a lot of words in common!:)
I've also learned some Japanese by myself cos I'm in love of Japanese manga and anime!!XD
"Have you eaten yet?"has been a famous joke for years!:-) It's said that western people greet others by saying "hello!", but chinese people say "你吃了吗?"
But actually now we don't say "你吃了吗？" anymore (at least in my place). Maybe it's partly because of the influence from the western world, now we always say "你好！"(which means "hello!")

You're so sweet. Thank you so much! I don't know about Chinese, so I'm very happy to have you here. I haven't had any questions about Chinese because I'm a beginner, but I'm sure I'll be full of questions!
How can I reach you? Is it okay to post my questions on this blog?

Actually, I haven't watched that many Chinese films - in fact, I rarely watch them (since my family aren't into Chinese ones, strangely enough), so I can't really say what the best choices of movies are. x_x So sorry!

And I can't really say exactly what the difference between Mandarin and Canotonese is - to me, I think the Cantonese accent sounds more similar to English comparing to Mandarin, but that's all I can point out. Maybe 'cause I know Mandarin, so it's hard for me to differentiate between them. Again, sorry! TAT

No need to say sorry to me! If you have some TV drama or whatever you recommend, just let me know! I need to watch films and TV dramas to study languages.
In my opinion, Mandarin and Canotonese are very separated! I only know "Hello" in those accents, but they are quite different. Maybe, it depends on a person. Interesting, isn't it?

Well, I know a site where they have a TON of TV dramas & movies, whether they be Japanese or Korean or Taiwanese. http://www.mysoju.com is the place. :) Like I said, I don't watch a lot of Taiwanese dramas (only when I go to Taiwan with my parents do I actually do that, 'cause I'm not very familiar with the place and it's so hot during the summer that I don't go out often), so I can't really say which ones are good picks.

Ones that I HAVE watched a bit of though, are "Brown Sugar Macchiato", "Devil Beside You", "Hana Kimi", "Love Contract", "Smiling Pasta", "Why Why Love", "X Family", and "Ying Ye 3+1", though a lot of them are quite poorly directed, in my opinion, ha ha. I dunno, maybe it's 'cause of the fact that I'm Taiwanese that I'm more critical towards T-dramas? Who knows. Oh, and I think some of these are based off of Japanese dramas or manga too, ha ha - for example Devil Beside You and Hana Kimi (I liked the Japanese version for the latter though :) It's really cute).

Thank you for your wonderful info! I can't see all of them at once, but I'd like to try one by one. XD I'm looking forward to seeing a Chinese film from Hollywood right now. It's coming next month here in Japan. Do you get which movie I'm talkning about?