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There is a nice phpBB forum which reminds me a lot of MasterRussian(they even have someone similar to Friendy, keep your eyes open for "skylee") except it's for all things Chinese.
http://www.chinese-forums.com/
But when you register, be sure to really fill things out. The admins there actually check each person coming in, and at first I was rejected because I hadn't filled out any of the extra stuff.
Xie xie. That site link you gave looks to have potential. They're on holidays now, so I can't register yet. But I need to get a bit specific now and learn one language well. I've been dabbling in everything. Now I want to settle down. My priorities are Arabic and Chinese. I'm yet to decide whether or not to pursue Mandarin more, or Cantonese. I've already bought excellent Mandarin learning items, so I guess I'll go along with that, and suss out whether it can get me by in the Chinatown's and the Chinese suburbs. Then if I find they all say "No, I speak Cantonese", I may have to 'defect' and focus my energy on Cantonese. But, I think as I think you said, Mandarin speakers are the newer breed to be emigrating. So, maybe Mandarin will still be very useful. I have had success with Mandarin greetings in a certain suburb, but that may only be because Cantonese people know the phrases, but not convesational Mandarin. The people who run Chinese restaurants seem like they may be Mandarin. But, I don't yet know. Overall, I tend to think Cantonese may get me further.
Do you know, is reading Chinese the same in both Cantonese and Mandarin. You don't have to learn a further 1000 character for each language do you? :roll:
While I'm here, I might aswell ask a silly question. There's no connection between the word Mandarin and mandarine is there? And, in the entrances to Chinese (or Vietnamese) homes, is it oranges or mandarines that they have as religious offerings to the ancestors?
Can't register because they're on holiday? I thought Roddy never quits. Just fill out your thing completely and he'll sign you up fast; he's on his forums even more than I'm on MR. BTW I'd suggest you learn Mandarin. It's OK if you speak accented Mandarin, since everyone is trying to learn it, but if you speak accented Cantonese(or any other dialect), they might get pissed off at you(they think you're trying to make fun of them). Well, I guess in the case of non-Chinese people it would be all fine and dandy, but I'd rather not try to speak Cantonese since they might think I was some mean ol' Mandarin speaker butchering their dialect.
About Chinese restaurants Brettishka I would avoid them like the plague; maybe you have better stuff in your area but the majority of Chinese restaurants serve made-up crap for Western tastes.
About reading Chinese it's what's kept all the dialects together; generally you cannot write something in any particular dialect, so everyone can understand the written language. Cantonese is an exception in that they've made some of their own characters to represent slang words, but they're rarely used.
As for Mandarin it's from the Portuguese word for "magistrate"; Mandarin was the language of the magistrates, so that's what the Portuguese called it. About religious offerings I don't know, you can put anything you want as an offering, so I suppose they would be whatever oranges were in the area. There's no special rule regarding types of oranges as far as I know.
BTW, Brett, you can register now.
Yeah I had to wait, but now I registerd. They have been pretty nice to me so far :D Might help me learn Cantonese.
Hao! Xie xie. I'll do that. I've absent from my Chinese lately, as my non-participation in this lounge shows. I've been leaning back on my easier or already learned languages. I've returned a pen-pal message to a Chinese speaher on Phrasebase. Hopefully this'll spark me up again. I always need a fresh kick in the pants from time to time. My Russian may start kicking on, too. I just got a cheap computer program. And if There's no snags stopping me from listening on phrasebase's Russian chatroom lessons, I'll definitely be getting a move on. Because, the woman who teaches it is really interesting and dedicated and and explains things really well. The Spanish teacher also. Phrasebase has kick-ass teachers for heaps of languages.