Learning French in Baltimore I just created a private group on FB for people in Baltimore who want to meet up and learn French together. I also joined the Baltimore French Meetup Group. I am actively looking for others in the Greater Baltimore, Maryland area who wants to learn French over the winter break! Message me if you're interested! Peace.

Michele Thomas French Learning I am going through the Michele Thomas French program and interested if anyone else is currently going through this course or wants to go through it with me and we can be study buddies? http://www.michelthomas.com/learn-french.php

I would like to listen to more music that is popular in Europe and specifically, France. I listen to Rock, Techno/House/Electronica, Jazz, and Classical. Can people recommend artist names, album names, Pandora stations, or YouTube Playlists. Esperanto music welcomed, too! Thanks!

Introducing Myself... Greetings. My name is Shawn. I am a U.S. citizen, native English speaker, and currently live on the east coast of the U.S. in the state of Maryland. I lived in Bangkok, Thailand for a year in 2009. I learned some very basic Thai. However, while living there I had a Mandarin tutor because I wanted to travel around China and go to Taiwan. I was interested in learning BaGua in Taipei. I have studied some Aikido from Japan. However, I am not studying Wing Chun 詠春拳. My girlfriend is Taiwanese from Taipei. She speaks Mandarin and English fluently. My goals are to be conversational in Mandarin Chinese by the end of this year with my immediate goal of being able to SURPRISE my girlfriend at the end of August with a 10-minute all Mandarin conversation. She is in Taiwan and does not know I am studying right now. I prefer to work with people who have a southern Chinese or Taiwan accent since Taiwan is my goal for where I will live and the people I will be talking to the most. I am learning pinyin now, and then will learn zhuyin (bopomofo) and traditional characters. I am more interested in speaking at this point, then learning hanzi. That will happen in time, but right now, it is to speak Mandarin.

What does 按ㄌㄡ! mean? I see it on Facebook. I saw this on Facebook and I think/assume it means "press like" for the "like button" on Facebook. But, I do not know. Is it Zhuyin? 按ㄌㄡ!

Book, website, references for Mandarin Chinese Slang or Idioms from Taiwan? My girlfriend is Taiwanese. Her and her family do not speak Taiwanese Chinese, just Mandarin. I would like to learn slang or idioms from Taiwan. I have a Chinese slang book but it is for Mainland, mostly Beijing, terms. Are there any books or websites that I can use to find these words/phrases to learn? Please use English, I can not read hanzi.

Mandarin slang/idiom for "you are silly" = "tai sha le" My Mandarin tutor said one way to respond (informally) to someone would be to say "tai sha le" which means "your preference is different but lovely". Something my girlfriend would say to me as a response. I am just trying to confirm the pinyin for this phrase.

How do you say "Chinese food" in Mandarin? My tutor said, "Zhong chan". I was looking it up for the pinyin tones but could not find zhong chan. I know it is general wording, but in English we would say, "let's go get some Chinese food" meaning anything from a Chinese restaurant or if we cook some Chinese dish.