Phase 2 hit a major snag. I couldn't find a tutor. There were a few candidates, but they either wanted to meet at a distant location, or wanted a lot of money. One guy asked me for $100 per hour. Ta1 feng1 le.
So on the advice of my Friend Joe, I invested in a headset, and installed Skype. I knew from the beginning that a language partner wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I placed an ad on craigslist for a Skype Mandarin teacher. I got several responses. Amazingly, the cheapest was also the most appealing. The price is $10 per hour. $5 per hour for the offline work I'm having her do - writing up the days vocab list, and recording a sentence for each word. We're using Greg Thomson's excellent article Language Learning in the real world for Non Beginners for a rough syllabus. The goal is to learn 20 to 30 words per day, and get comfortable with speech.
Phase 3. Yep, this is a new phase. I've decided to take an intensive 1 week Mandarin course in China immediately before meeting up with my friend in Beijing. In order to see more of the country, I want a course that's not in Bejing, preferably an hour or so away by plane. I'm looking into homestays, since this seems to be a better immersion than just staying at a hotel.
