John Wilkes Booth

i find cardboard with chinese writing on it at work and i cut it out and take it home with me. my coworkers know me well enough to expect this kind of behavior but i do get some strange looks from the people at the security checkpoint when they check my bag

fiddler

Yeah, if I was working the security checkpoint I'd give you some strange looks too. Have you tried searching for immersion software such as Rosetta Stone? Check with SourceForge, you might be able to find something there. Better yet see if you can make a Chinese friend and then communicate with them via Skype, if they're willing to help you. The biggest thing you have to realize is that when you say "Chinese" there's a dozen different sub dialects. Same thing with Korean.