Am I an idiot? I really think so.

[Dragonbones]

I ASKED if I could please drop the kiddie courses and take an adult class at NTU, because the tuition is cheaper than the courses he took at UCSD.

There's your mistake, right there. Don't ask -- you're not a subordinate. You're an equal in the relationship. Tell him you're dropping the kiddie course and arranging something more suitable for an adult.

[Confuzius]

I ASKED if I could please drop the kiddie courses and take an adult class at NTU, because the tuition is cheaper than the courses he took at UCSD.

There's your mistake, right there. Don't ask -- you're not a subordinate. You're an equal in the relationship. Tell him you're dropping the kiddie course and arranging something more suitable for an adult.

Yah, I havta agree with all of this.

You ASK your husband 'IF' you can do things? Are you five years old?

[ironlady]

Japanese upbringing, married to a culturally Chinese man...

[cranky laowai]

If your father-in-law is like a great many other mainlanders of his generation, for a proper bit of mischief perhaps you could take a class in Taiwanese as well. So the next time he proclaims "No English"....

If you don't already have one, get yourself a good Pinyin-ordered dictionary so you can start to look things up faster.

And, as others have said, get out of the class you're in. It's a waste of your time.

Good luck.

[Teddoman]

OP, I did something very similar when I arrived in Taiwan, I took a class at a local elementary school where all of my classmates were old ladies with thickly accented Mandarin. The class is called zheng4yin1 ban1, or pronunciation correction class. It was the only Mandarin class to speak of in my town.

That type of class is completely inappropriate for you. Your classmates ALREADY speak Mandarin, they're just trying to improve their pronunciation. So reading mindless passages from elementary textbooks over and over out loud is pretty much all they need to do.

You are in a different boat. Jump ship. Quickly.

Find a class targeted to foreigners.

[Falns]

Japanese upbringing, married to a culturally Chinese man...

Thanks for understanding, Ironlady. My 'ASKING' on the phone resulted in him buying me dinner and saying 'let me talk to my sister-in-law' so it's a win.

As for the class being taken to improve pronunciation... well...

And to reply to cranky laowai, I put out a feeler to my BiL and my FiL. The response I got was that it was a waste of time. My cell phone has the CE Dict app, so it's searchable in English/Chinese/stroke order input (the last one always felt kind of clunky); it's naturally upgradeable to accept actual stroke input, but I haven't bothered yet.

I do have a Japanese character dictionary my Ojiichan gave me in grade school; it contains the most common post-Meiji 2000-3000 characters, and you can look up a character by radical or stroke count. In addition, each entry shows the multiple readings of the character, a few words/phrases of character useage, and also shows variants (but not stroke order)... all with English output. Sounds like a lot, but it is a fairly small, light book. I was morbidly curious if anyone knows of/has/can recommend something similar but for Chinese.

[Confuzius]

Japanese upbringing, married to a culturally Chinese man...

Thanks for understanding, Ironlady. My 'ASKING' on the phone resulted in him buying me dinner and saying 'let me talk to my sister-in-law' so it's a win.

still sounds like serious unhealthy dysfunction (a "win"?) you have to resort to those tactics to have a conversation....


but hey, its not my marriage.

[Rotalsnart]

I do have a Japanese character dictionary my Ojiichan gave me in grade school; it contains the most common post-Meiji 2000-3000 characters, and you can look up a character by radical or stroke count. In addition, each entry shows the multiple readings of the character, a few words/phrases of character useage, and also shows variants (but not stroke order)... all with English output. Sounds like a lot, but it is a fairly small, light book. I was morbidly curious if anyone knows of/has/can recommend something similar but for Chinese.

The following dictionary has very good reviews on Amazon (though I've never actually seen it myself) and it sounds similar to what you described. According to the reviews, it uses traditional characters but also gives simplified. If I were in your position I might give it a shot:

Far East 3000 Chinese Character Dictionary (Chinese Edition) [Paperback]
Shou-hsin Teng (Editor)

The following reference book is an old one that I (and I think a lot of the older generation of foreign students in Taiwan) used when studying and found reasonably helpful. It has mixed reviews on Amazon:

Reading & Writing Chinese: Traditional Character Edition, A Comprehensive Guide to the Chinese Writing System by William McNaughton

You might be able to find the latter one at English bookstores in Taiwan (try Lucky Books at NTNU). The former one looks like it might be a bit more modern and lively, and it is arranged as a dictionary by pinyin alphabetic order, whereas the latter, if I remember correctly, is arranged by frequency.

Have fun studying!

[Falns]

Wow, thanks for all the responses! You guys are the best. Not that you need to be told... or do you?!

Rotalsnart: Going to check out those books for sure.

Confuzius: I was fed up with beating around the bush, and hearing that I could maybe get accelerated into what would 2nd/3rd grade... well... I kind of lost it. Everything I've learned in that class is an indirect product: rote memorization, or sitting down with a dictionary and borky translator at home. In a way, yes, I'm complaining a lot, but understand that I was asking for an alternative with with a comparable price tag, and being told to stew around even longer.

Besides, I'd say I'm due a bit of voice raising now and then. I'm in Taiwan because he asked me to come. Well, I actually came because I was worried he'd set himself on fire or something, but that's another topic entirely.

[Charlie Phillips]

My Chinese has been progressing nicely since I started using this website: http://iknow.jp

どうぞよろしく お願いします