Well, I've been married to a Chinese girl for about 6 years now. Been to China 5 or 6 times since 2005. I spent some time getting a little tutoring in Mandarin, but only used Pinyin, I didn't learn any characters. Since I work at a university, I decided to take advantage of that and I enrolled in the beginning Mandarin class this semester.

It's killing me!

It's a 5 semester hour class, so I expected a little more effort, but this is ridiculous. Class 4 days a week, listening comprehension and writing every night, and weekend tasks to complete. The biggest problem I'm having is that I can easily understand everything the professor speaks in class; I can formulate answers in Mandarin, and I can pretty much recognize every character we've learned so far when I am reading.

The big problem is that when I sit down to write, I can't remember how to write 95% of the characters I've painstakingly practiced writing every night at home. It's driving me nuts.

So, to make a long whine even longer. How many of you folks living in China are fluent in reading and writing Mandarin (Not to mention the endless dialects out there)? Up till now I've relied on my wife to be my translator, and it's worked OK, but the day is going to come when I won't have her around as I travel.

We're going to (eventually) "retire" to China in a few years. Am I unnecessarily beating myself with this attempt to become literate, or can one live nicely without more than a few phrases?

Cheers,

Dan K.