I’m big on using the power of the internet to learn Chinese. Actually, the power of the internet is the main reason I’m able to go in the first place — thanks, Al Gore!

The magic of the internet got me signed up for the Chinese class I was taking, provided me with podcast Chinese lessons, and with a great online dictionary, and looks to have helped me find a language partner (the catalytic power of Facebook!).

And then, there’s the power of Youtube. Not only does it provide Chinese lessons with Benny, but there is a crazy video-song of pinyin pronunciation. I’ll need that to counteract what I suspect may be a mish-mash of pronunciation in pop-song music videos. I found a bunch which are subtitled in both pinyin (not all with tone marks, unfortunately) and English, so I can listen and tell what vocab I know enough to hear and understand, and I can pick up some new words, like the fact that one of the words for ‘happy’ is the same as the word for ‘quick.’ Same character, even. And, of course, all those super important pop-song phrases, like ‘You and I’, ‘I love you’ and ‘open your heart’!