Phil’s blog

Our Mandarin teacher never came back to Beijing after spring festival. I think there just wasn’t much keeping her there since Keen and I were her only students and teaching was her only job. She probably tried to contact the school but while she was gone the management changed and things slipped through the cracks. I hope she found a good job in her hometown. Anyway, we have a new teacher who is actually much more experienced. She rarely speaks a word of English during the class, which is great. I’m far enough along that I usually understand what she’s saying though not every word. Am finally learning to write characters again. Actually since entering them on a mobile phone or computer only requires you to recognize the characters from a lineup, nowadays writing isn’t as important. One of my Chinese coworkers said he forgets how to write characters sometimes since he always uses the computer.

I know basic grammar now and have a handy program for looking up words (and a lot more). Maybe I’ll try writing the next entry in both English and Mandarin.