manofkent
I note from your profile that your kung fu style is choi li fut. If that is the style you intend to continue, then you should be looking for a school in HK or Canton province (you may not find too many CLF schools in the north)… therefore learn Cantonese.. in my opinion anyway
and mandarin 
eventually you may or may not decide to seek roots and history etc…alot of it is only found in chinese…well..maybe not alot…just the stuff you really wana know
Oh ok! AND Mandarin too… 
If you go to a Choi/y Li Fut/Fot (cantonese (sounds lik faught without the u~)) friendly area With cantonese, the National language is still Manderin and I might think that the people who live there can understand if not speak theirs plus the national language. Along your paths to getting to China you might find the more user friendly Manderin (four tones) helpful to get you to China. But pick up the Cantonese (perhaps, sixteen tones) as you go.
They read the name different but they understand the characters pretty much the same. Learn the characters. Listen on cable There might be an international channel that has Chinese news report or a repot in Chinese…)and while you are out (Chinese resteraunts (sitting near the cash register or the kitchen))…
Learn reading and writing. Use Manderin. Pick up Cantonese.
Rent/buy/get videos with english Speak and Chinese Subtitles and associate characters with the English meanings. After this method. Get video/audio recording VHS/BETA/DVD showing Chinese subtitles and having Manderin speak. The characters for the same meanings in general would be there and you can now associate a Manderin phrase to characters you suspect to mean such and such because of the English spoken during a scene to which you understood the relationship dynamics so you got what was going on-ish. Now or either subtitles Chinese (not the short (abbreviated) way (but pick this up as you go too)), and Cantonese speak.
A DVD is good for this as one may add subtitles in different languages and choose the Speak…find DVD With Chinese subtitles and Cantonese/Manderin (some might have both don’t be too picky from here) speak.
Thank you to every body for ur help. got lots of ideas to go away with. As luck would have it my girlfriend got a job this week in a shop owned by this lady from hong kong, her husband is a realative of cheng man ching (not sure of spelling). so im really looking forward to meeting him. she told me of this flat they have above their gung fu school, i may be able to rent it for the yr. dont know much about there gung fu yet so i’ll find out in the week.
Man of kent
you study choy li fut right?
in kent right? (just call me sherlock holmes)
where exactly and with who do you train and do you know anyone in London who teaches it? I ask because a Wing chun friend of mine desperately wants to learn it after our teacher showed us some. Its got to the point where he even has dreams about it :eek:
Thanks in advance
nick
Nick
Did u get my email? i did send it, let me know
Originally posted by Losttrak
Are you married yet? Get hitched to a Chinese girl and its like bringing China into your home. lol I try to learn a new word or sentence a week. Then I listen to her chat on the phone or with friends and try to pick out the words, then I ask what the sentence was. Then I look for those words… and the cycle repeats.
Wow. If you were a Mormon you could learn a ****load of languages!