Four Ways to say "A"

We had our first Chinese lesson tonight!! Overall, I think it went pretty well. Our instructor is kind, patient, and encouraging. She makes a big deal over the little successes. I sort of like that. :) We're learning the basics of pinyin (the use of roman letters to transcribe Chinese words, so that you don't have to learn characters right off the bat) and the tones. Chinese has 4 tones... each of which gives a word a different meaning. We'll have 3 lessons a week for now, and then scale back once we get the basics.

Hopefully it won't be too long before we can say more than Ni Hao (Hello)!