chinesepod.com

I have been trying to learn Mandarin my whole life. I remember cringing in fear when afternoon Chinese classes are about to begin back when I was in grade school. It was hard not to go into terrorized mode when you had no inkling as to how to go about surviving the whole afternoon. Primary source of fear would be an old, fierce and ointment reeked teacher. Second, would be the fact that these lovely educators are licensed to do me bodily harm. Nothing serious though, just the usual ear ringing and wrist slapping. Third, was that I don't undertsand a word the teacher is saying. The literature being taught was in Mandarin but since the Chinese in the Philippines are predominantly Fukien, then everything had to be translated into Fukien. Ha! As if an eight year old doesn't have enough problems with math, English/reading, Filipino, civics et. al. So each and every afternoon, I really felt like I was blind, but the strange thing was, I COULD see. Sure I was able to pick up a few words and phrases along the way as I miserably toiled the halls of our school but that's about it. I have a vocabulary of a four or six year old at best.
About a month or two ago, I saw a segment on CNN about the Mandarin learning site chinesepod.com. I got a few of the free classes that they offered and tried them out. I had fun repeating the phrases and trying to get the correct intonations. Too bad I'm no longer a kid with a sponge for a brain to absorb and remember all the information but I am hell bent into learning as much as I can via chinesepod.com. If any of you are interested to learn just go to their site or you can also download some torrent files of their past lessons here. Just look at the lower left part where it says torren downloads. Good luck. I know I'll need it.