Blogging while burning Pimsleur's Chinese (Mandarin) The Complete Course - Beginner/Part A

This is a blog entry. I'm not trying to be cute or funny. If you read something "cute" or "funny" into this, great, but uh, it's really about experimenting with this new form known as "the blog." What? It's not a new form, but a diary entry put in a public forum? Two words: Bah Humbug. -KV

Pimsleur should rename their course. These 9 CDs for Beginner/Part A are nowhere near the "Complete Course. This is a little intimidating - in Beginner/Part A there are NINE HOUR LONG CDs. Yes, nine. One can only assume there are the same number in Beginner/Part B, Beginner/Part C, and so on, up through Beginner/Part Z, at which point you finally start Intermediate/Part A... unless it is akin to Tetris the arcade game, on which my friend Cy gets to levels like AA, BB, CC...then I might never get to Intermediate/Part A!

Two thoughts: One: it could take forever to learn Chinese. Two: holy smokes, Cy is good at Tetris.

(Third thought: I should learn how to use colons properly.)

[Pause]

[Resume]

Still burning the 9 CDs. That ain't no hay. Check it out for yourself if you like. I recommend at your local library. So you can take them home and burn them.

Not that I'm doing that. No. I'm playing Tetris. I will beat Cy.

Ha, okay, done dreaming. And my computer says "Lesson 13 - Paul Pimsleur" is done. I'm not sure how much Paul is involved with each individual track. It's mostly a Chinese man and a Chinese woman speaking - who get no credit on the tracks: well done, Paul!. They state a number of phrases for you to repeat, interspersed with a very white voice (VWV) saying things like, "Now say, 'I do not speak Mandarin very well,'" a phrase I now know, and can use to confirm the assumptions of everyone I meet in China. I'm not sure I'll need that phrase as much as "Where is the bathroom?" which I have yet to learn through six lessons.

Ah, just one more CD to go! Oh, the last disk is the "User's Manual." Not sure what is on it. Perhaps I'll give it a listen, before I learn more useful phrases like, "I am American," or "I do not understand."

To be fair, I've learned some useful phrases too, such as "Excuse me, may I ask you a question?" which would go great with phrases like, "where is the bathroom?"

Don't you think?

-KV

ps. I am not pleased that "Tetris" - the most popular video game in history, yeah it is, look it up - was flagged during Blogger's spell-check. Get with the times, Blogger.