All of these are valid methods for Learning Chinese although I can't speak personally for the osmosis system (I do think you learn well by playing a Chinese MP3 just before going to bed though). The point here is to immerse you in the learning and the Chinese Language. To Learn Chinese intensively, even to listen to Chinese radio stations or watch Chinese films. I find listening to Chinese news very helpful ? you get a good mix of different stories and the subjects are constantly changing. If you have the facility to record them you can play them back with Chinese to your language dictionary at hand. Even if you don't get all of it, you'll be surprised how much sinks in if you do it regularly.

This is the essence of the immersion technique and it works very well, but clearly it's not practical for everyone. The expense involved is a stretch for some, the time commitment is another drawback and the availability of suitable courses can prevent some from taking Chinese classes ? though I would urge you to do so if at all possible.

So if we have to make a choice of one style of Chinese Learning, which should it, be? Not long ago we would have been restricted to either trying to learn from a book, a tape or a class. Now we have the additional resource of the pc and the internet and it's a revolution in teaching.

For the first time we can buy a single program which will allow us to listen to MP3s in the car, on the train or just walking around. The same program can challenge us with games and puzzles on the PC and give us written exercises as well. It lacks just a physical teacher to be the complete educational resource.

So if you were looking for a single method to learn to Speak Chinese fluently I would recommend one of the downloadable systems available online. If you've been looking into Chinese CDs you'll probably have seen price tags in the $300 range but there are much more affordable and more extensive programs available for a third of the price or less.

I spent several years, and some of your tax dollars, trying to Learn Chinese, so I need to say something about a new campaign to get that language into U.S. schools and colleges.

The Asia Society just put out a report (see the internationaled.org Web site) on how more Americans can Learn Chinese. There was a world conference on the subject last month in Beijing. Chinese Language instruction is, obviously, a good idea. China is our biggest trading partner, after Canada and Mexico. The country reminds me in some ways of America in the 1870s. It is recovering from horrid domestic events, getting stronger, with the potential to be the most important nation in the world. Chinese, along with Arabic, should be among our top foreign language priorities.

But let me -- just this once because I don't like recalling the pain -- tell you that Learning Chinese is not going to be easy.

Chinese culture -- its philosophy, its art, its code of conduct, its food, and its literature -- is one of the wonders of human civilization. It is so humane and so productive that I share few of the fears that the rise of Chinese economic and military power inspires in some Americans.

But the Chinese, despite all their good points, have a very difficult and in some ways inefficient language. Those Americans ready to pursue the worthy goal of Learning Chinese it should be ready for a long, hard march.

Unkind people are saying at this point: Mathews may have been too dumb or too lazy to master Chinese, but the Chinese themselves seem to be handling their language fine. That is true. It is one more indication of the drive and ambition of those 1.3 billion people that most of them have become fluent and literate in a spoken language that includes four tones and a written language based on ideographs that give few clues to pronunciation and sometimes drive typists mad.

But it is also true that having to learn thousands of ideographic characters instead of just the two dozen or so letters of the Western alphabet has forced Chinese Language education into a deep, narrow groove. Chinese students and teachers have grown accustomed to relying on memorization, the way they learned to read. There is less creative thinking in the schools as a result, some scholars think.