[ScottSolomon]

I don't know if anybody here is qualified to give you grammar lessons, but you seem to have a farily good grasp of our syntax. I wish I could learn Chinese. The idea that the language is composed of tens of thousands of characters is a little confusing, though. How do you accomodate shifts in language or new terms?

I have listened to Chinese speakers and I cannot make out any individual words. I don't know if spoken English sounds that way to a non-English speaker, but I am curious to find out. Do you have a broadband connection? If so, you could make a broadband call to an American ( or maybe an Australian would give you a better Ping ) - to practice spoken English.