How learning Chinese has been made easy

Joshua felt a bit hesitant before deciding to learn Chinese when his school in New Jersey introduced courses in the language two years ago. "I had heard Chinese was quite difficult and decided not to give it a try," says the 17-year-old high school student.

But he changed his mind a few days later after receiving a letter from a girl living in China. The girl from his pen pal group wrote: "The Chinese language is very interesting and hope you can have fun learning it." She had drawn two Chinese characters, asking him to guess which was "cry" and which "laugh".

The answer was given at the back of the letter, but "I didn't have to see it because I found something that resembled a drop of tear in the character 'cry', and 'laugh' looked like a smiling face," says Joshua. "That was the impetus I needed, and I joined the class."