An update on how my family tree is budding: https://www.mccallie.org/ftpimages/309/download/download_group11565_id370783.pdf then turn to page 16...... or a shorter version if the first URL wraps around on you: http://tinyurl.com/6cq9k6 By the time 2nd grade ended here, two months after our return, our daughter was chattering along in English and Spanish. For me Chinese was somewhat like learning Greek, although I found Greek harder. One has to learn the symbols, the Pinyin which is a phonetic spelling of what the symbol is pronounced as, and the dreaded tones. Context is everything. One word spelled the same in Pinyin with the same tone can have 40 different meanings depending on its use. Our daughter was having trouble telling the difference between he and she because in Chinese they are spelled and pronounced exactly the same, while the character is slightly different. Being in my 50s and having had a burst ear drum in the last few years, I was not as able as my 7th grader counterparts in hearing the fine difference between the tones. There are first, second, third, fourth tones, a neutral tone and the one the boys coined - the stupid tone! The word - ba - depending on tone can mean - eight, to pull out, target, dad. Their sentence structure is different than ours so one feels like one is speaking in broken English. They do not use verb tenses as we do. A character can be translated as a phrase or it may take more than one character to create a word. From a genealogy standpoint it gets quite interesting as well: We would have grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces and we might say which side of the family they come from. There are Chinese words for these individuals - grandfather, grandmother, father's elder brother, father's younger brother, wife of father's elder brother, wife of father's younger brother, father's sister, husband of father's sister, brother's son, brother's daughter, sister-in-law, and about 8 words for cousins. This cover's just the father's side, for there are an equal number, but different words for relatives on the mother's side. Tim Stowell The UNEXPECTED always happens.