My main foreign language is Mandarin Chinese and it is a very rewarding language, especially if you use a set of course books such as New Practical Chinese Reader.. It teaches you a lot about Chinese culture and history. I started learning at SOAS, University of London and they use the Chinese in Steps books, which are great for learning grammar. Chinese in Steps was created by staff at SOAS and SOAS is one of the best places in Europe to learn Chinese. Definitely the best in the UK.

I am not a fan of Cantonese.. If I listen to it in a film or in music, it is very hard for me to listen to it and enjoy it. To me, they are just making very unpleasant sounds with their mouths and I dislike it how they often make words at the end of their sentences go on for a very long time when they seem to be trying to make a point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYS9Cj96C3U

Listen to the way they pronounce every last word of a sentence! IRRITATING!!!!!!!!!!! Fortunately for Chungking Express, it is a masterpiece and one of my favourite films.

I have the week off work this week and I am going to try and get back to studying Japanese, although unfortunately I missed the cut off date for the Japanese language proficiency exam that I was hoping to sit this weekend. I did a Japanese course when at 6th form college and got taught by a Japanese person as if I was a young child, which I found really enjoyable. I have recently been using the Japanese for Busy People books and I am trying to transition to Minna no Mihongo I and II, which is proving very difficult, but I hope to get there by the end of this week.Smile Japanese is a very big struggle for me as its grammar must be the most complex of any language. It is almost like several languages in one and speaking these different languages and transitioning from one to the other is like doing maths.. letters and sounds change depending on who you are talking to and how you are saying it. The actual verbs and adjectives change structure! Basic Japanese teaches you to speak politely. You need to know the rules of changing those pronunciations in real time. It's probably of not much use to me, but I don't want to be beaten by it.