Chinese whispers

Tom Meltzer:

A British language teacher claims he can teach people to speak Putonghua in just two days. Can it be done?

''In theory," says language teacher Paul Noble, forming a steeple with his fingers in true professorial style, "you should learn Chinese today and tomorrow quicker than anyone has ever learned it on the planet."

In theory, because I'm the first student to take his intensive two-day course in Putonghua, which he is teaching me with his wife, native speaker Chou Kaiti, in the basement of a north London art gallery. If their prototype course works as well as they are hoping, then two days from now I will, as the spiel on Noble's website boasts, "have learned to speak Chinese the way it is really spoken".

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 3, 2011 1:57 AM
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