> >>As to the benefits of the increased flexibility imparted to the brains
> >>of those learning the imperial system, by virtue of its incredibly
> >>'human' divisor system, I'd recommend going all the way and learning
> >>Chinese. I am sure that that will impart even more flexibility, on
> >>account of its reasonable number of glyphs.
> >
> >Hi Peter, have you tried this? I'm a single-language
> >English speaking person and genuinely curious as to the
> >cost in money and time to learn to write Chinese. Is
> >there like a course you can buy? :o)
> >-Roman

There is a free Chinese font available at
http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/english/chinese/dictionary/
near the bottom third of the page, 13.7MB Arial unicode.

I recently downloaded their free software for my son who will be
taking high school Chinese next year in the 9th grade.  The software
looks pretty good, so I ordered their "Chinese for Beginners" and
"Chinese Homework Trainer" for US$42.50, but it hasn't arrived yet.

John DeFrancis has a series of Chinese texts in the Yale Language
Series which are commonly used in U.S. colleges and high schools.
I recommend his "Beginning Chinese" (US$32) and "Character Text of
Beginning Chinese" (US$32) from Amazon.com.  There is also an
audio cassette set that goes with this course.  Available for
free copying at many universities.

Good luck,
  -Nick T.

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