Blathering opportunities in the smoke?

Hi all,

I live near Oxford, work in London and HK. I love the language big time (started a year ago with ex SOAS tutor and CP) ... off to see the total eclipse in Shanghai next month. Has to be done.

Take it easy.

@yarajeev I've just completed year 1 of Mandarin with Languages@Leicester, and looking forward to year 2 next year. Are you at DMU or Leicester?

Will

@thinkbuddha:

there's a group of us doing Mandarin at Languages @ Leicester (Leicester U/DMU), Levels "1" (newbie) to "2" (Beginner), although a few students seem to be a bit more advanced than this.

@others:

I'm going to be taking Lower Intermediate at SOAS starting April.  Anyone here doing their courses?

There seems to be a few Midlanders around these parts. We should meet up at some stage. I'm in Leicester (half the time at least). Birmingham might be good as it's pretty easy to get to. Having said this, there's also a meetup.com Chinese language and culture group in Birmingham that meets regularly, and seems friendly, although I've not made it to any of their meetings yet.

Best wishes,

Will

Hi all

I live in Derby but do come down to London from time to time. Are there any groups getting together for chats etc in London?

Cheers

Hey all, I'm in Bermondsey in SE London. I organise Mandarin language get-togethers from time to time usually via the Facebook group Learn Chinese in London. We've done karaoke, dumpling-making and ma jiang in the past, or just met up in pubs.

Maybe there's enough people on here to organise something or a coordinated effort with the Facebook group?

Wow, there are others in the UK learning Chinese :P

I've always assumed we were few and far between.

Peterborough??

Now thinking about it, probably not.

I live in the Midlands, anyone else from round there? :)

Hi, Success! I've found another course in Uxbridge through the local adult learning centre, cheaper/longer/and the day is better for me. I also emailed Brunel Uni students and am meeting up with someone this week! How is everyone else doing? Are you using CP only or do you use other stuff?

I work at Imperial College in London (South Kensington), and there are Mandarin evening classes available once a week  which are open to the public. I can't vouch for them personally, but registration for the year is happening soon if anyone's interested:

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/humanities/eveningclasses/coursesavailable

Berko is nice, as is St Albans. At least you have nice bars and restaurants (and the Rex - any cinema that serves up cheese and olives is good in my book). You should go up to Durham, I imagine you'd like it there, it's very pretty. It would be infinitely superior if it was down south though!

aiyo

Unfortunately my chinese is terrible :(

Really? Oh dear =/

I really like St albans though... which is east of hemel. Hey you seem to actually have a little understanding of chines. Can you check out my post and help me out?

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/3360

Your memory is broken? 你的记忆不好？

I think Hemel would have been a much better place if it had been blown up and rebuilt, however it is apparently going to be the place to be in 2013, claims The Times. I know, I was shocked too.

去 。 我去了 Hemel Hempstead

我的忆是坏

Apologies my anwser is not more lucrative...my chinese is close to appalling :P and no doubt that second sentence is wrong so feel free to correct ^_^

And yes...Hemel isn't exactly the town you would show case for the counties haha

(Or should I say, due to today's QW, Jonsnow,  你从来没去过 Hemel?)

Jonsnow, did you never make it to Hemel?! "Beautiful" is not the word! (I'm from Hemel).

Oh yes and the home counties are probs my fave place. It's beautiful out here in Herts :)

clean air, friendly people and rolling hills

From berkhamsted :D

Which is like juusst outside london. Only a half hour train ride to Euston.

I'm not a fan of London though. I think I prefer the cities like Oxford, Cambridge and Norwich.

If anyone wants to meet up and attempt to talk to each other that'd be cool =]

I am from North Essex, about an hour away from Liverpool Street station, LONDON.

This takes the count to 7 people....

Did you go to Warwick or something? Yeah, I have just resigned myself to not having anyone to speak to at the moment, which is a problem because my speaking is resoundingly awful. Are tutors that expensive? The problem I have with Chinese schools/courses is that they only run during term-time, and the adult course round here is between 3-5 on a Saturday afternoon, which is just the best part of Saturday gone!

Hi sebire, yeah I've had a look around. I had a great tutor up in Leamington and I think I was a bit spoilt with her. They seem to be quite expensive and its hard to judge how much experience they have down here. I've got a great chinese restaurant by me too and I've had a go there, but they have a job to do and I feel a bit uncomfortable keeping them talking. I guess I'd just like to meet a girl of my age to chat over lunch or something - I'm trying the local uni and had a few emails so fingers crossed. Love dim sum too :)

Wow, Greater London/Home Counties 6 - Rest of the Country, nil. Except for Bazza who lives up north somewhere.

Valleygirl, have you tried a tutor? There are loads of Chinese people in Harrow. I even went to Chinese school in Pinner as a kid. There are some really good dim sum restaurants round there (where Chinese people go!)

Hi, I live in Beaconsfield and work in NW London. There's a new Chinese course starting in Brunel Uni in 2 weeks but it's full :( Everyone wants to learn Chinese! Anyone know of another course in West London. I love CPOD but need to chat to a real person and they are thin on the ground by me... I think we should all meet up for a drink it'll be fun.

I'm living in North West London and working down in Crawley (Three Bridges).

I'm in Woking, Surrey...25 mins by train to London Waterloo.

Just for more info, Central London or South West Surrey are all in reasonable reach, in case anyone fancies a natter. In Chinese even!

I live near Farnham, Surrey, an hour or more from London

Yes surely there are more of us in the UK

I live near London (outside of the M25!)

Are there really only 20 poddies from the UK? Maybe we should round some more up.

seems I can't edit that, unlike the Comments in lessons. Grrr!  But I _can_ edit this comment to the post, say what?