@Christopher Lewis To my untrained ear, I sometimes think I'm hearing Vietnamese when it's Cantonese.

@Tony Marsh Píjiǔ zěnme yàng? 啤酒怎么样？

Thankyou Tony. 谢谢您哪！ Very glad to have found your methods and community. So, to start, of all the courses you offer, which one is the best starting point (for whichever language)?

@Tony Marsh thanks. I was actually thinking in the context of Spanish. My son started on Spanish with Duolingo, as he had a friend from Chile at the time. He has now stopped completely. Thinking about how to get him back into it. Also, my Spanish neighbour who said she has no one locally who speaks Spanish. Which of your Spanish courses is the best to start with?

"We have run out of milk " 我们的牛奶用完了 Wǒmen de niúnǎi yòng wánliǎo

Thankyou Tony. That was a very helpful session and made me realise where I really need to focus. The Question / Answer approach is very effective !

Thanks @Tony Marsh for sharing these wonderful ideas for learning a language through conversations. I would normally use my notebook and write it out by hand, but just to see what would happen (Future Simple ?) I tried generating a Verb Map for Mandarin with DeepSeek. I'm looking forward to practicing with this, and I might even write it out - as writing the characters helps me to memorise. This is what it produced :I