Hi All! My name is Zachi and currently I'm studying Chinese in Taiwan. I'm a graduate of the department for East Asian Studies and a former student of Zhang Ping. If any of you are having problems with Chinese I can encourage you: it is doable! You can learn Chinese! A Chinese speaking environment is one thing that really helps and that, unfortunately you cannot find easily in Israel. However, I think the studies in Tel-Aviv University have given me a very good basis (a little tip: put extra effort on pronounciation.. it's worth it... and practice the tones.. people really won't understand you if you use the wrong tones and you can get into some really nasty situations such as getting more food when all you wanted is to say that you think it's late and you want to go to sleep (shui3 jiao3 - shui4 jiao4)). I got here (to Taipei) through a scholarship for which you can apply through the mazkirut during your last year of studies for your B.A. (though if you're an M.A. student chances are higher). The University where I study (National Taiwan Normal University. Better known as Shi-Da) gives a program of two hours a day of Chinese studies plus optional courses in Chinese culture (Like Tai-Ji-Quan, Chinese Cooking, Caligraphy etc.) students who are interested and from a certain level of Chinese can add another Chinese class of 2 hours per day. I'm going to try that out next semester and see how it goes. The place where I study has a very nice international atmosphere to it. And since quite a lot of the students are Japanese and Korean I use Chinese quite a lot in daily life even when communicating with classmates (though westerners still tend to speak English among themselves). I get to practice quite a lot of Chinese outside of school as well. Since I have a few Chinese friends and insist on speaking Chinese with all of them. (The only times I speak English to Taiwanese is when I can't express the chinese meaning of a word or when I teach English). I've gotten over the accent barrier (something that troubled me at first, since Taiwanese accent is a bit different than that of Zhang Ping), but any other aspect of learning Chinese: the more you talk to Taiwanese the easier it becomes. Well.. I think that's about it for this time. If any of you have any questions about Taiwan or about studying here or living here feel free to contact me via Email. travelingzach@hotmail.com I'll try to post some more messages here from time to time. In the mean time: Happy Chinese New Year (Xin Nian Kuai Le!) Zachi January, 2002