In other news ...

Not least amused that somehow I end up regretting almost every single occasion on which I didn't listen to my parents, I decided that the pros of taking a Mandarin course outweighs salvaging whatever little dignity I have left from refusing to swallow a half-decade long grudge against Chinese school.

At the moment I'm looking at Mandarin Level 4 for $315 over ten weeks. I'm not entirely sure whether Jez was serious when he expressed interest in joining me, but if he is, the good news is that being currently enrolled in a USyd course isn't a prerequisite.

Description of Level 4 is as follows:

"Level 4: This level assumes you have completed approximately 95 hours of prior study with us or done the equivalent study elsewhere. While this is not a fluency class by any means it assumes you have good basic conversational skills. Students should be able to use present, past and future tenses and make coherent simple conversation about basic topics. You should be able to express feelings, opinions and be able to get around reasonably confidently in the country of language origin - still making mistakes and asking people to repeat themselves occasionally. The teaching method is still structured around grammar and on expanding your vocabulary."

I think it's safe to say that us background speakers are okay with the above.

Awaiting comment from the boy, who is probably busy smashing up a few windows in frustration of having a bad PVP week.