Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

The China's Computer Market 2008 Forecast Report has been released recently. It showed that in the first three quarters of 2007, the software industry in China has registered sales revenue of $50 billion, up 23.6% on pcp, accounting for 10.95% of the entire electronics and information industry' sales revenue. As the software market matures, people have higher and higher expectations over software features, quality and reliability. In October 2005, Ministry of Labour and Social Security formally listed computer software product tester (software test engineer) as one of the new professions.

Learning Chinese is becoming more and more popular in the Western nations. However we can see that China's visa policy becomes stricter every year. Are these people learning a language of a country they might not be allowed to enter in the future?

If your understanding of Chinese is limited to takeout menus, you need a friend fluent in Mandarin. With a telephone interpreter and translation service, English-speaking visitors to China can get directions, make reservations and basically avoid embarrassment. We tested two interpreter services in the market: chinaONEcall, a British company started in 2006 that promotes itself as "the interpreter in your pocket," and Language Line Services, which was started by a former California police officer 25 years ago.

Some interesting news over at Ken Carroll's blog announcing that Praxis Language, the folks behind Chinesepod.com, have been hired by the Confucius Institute to design their online learning system. Props to Praxis for landing the fat account, and smart thinking from the CI for going to the forerunners in online language learning.

There is a new Chinese test for non-native speakers of Mandarin who are studying Mandarin.

The test will be for ...

A hilarious post by ChouChou at Sinocidal giving you a number of reasons, with examples, of why NOT to learn Chinese. "Being able to understand Chinese just means that you can understand the lies and excuses fed to you everyday. The more fluent you are, the more elaborate these excuses will become. Sorry, your meal isn’t ready yet because the chef has joined the Black Civil Rights movement. Sorry, the landlord won’t repair your shower because it’s traditional for foreign tenants to repair their own showers during months which contain the letter “r”.

Language podcast, 40 free online lessons to learn mandarin Chinese. Vocabulary, grammar but also character writting.

It ain't easy making a good interactive China map. This bit of software is one way, though it only works if you go one city at a time, using landmarks in the satellite view.

Common mistakes to avoid when learning Chinese.

This is stuff I wish I knew when setting out to learn the language, you may feel the same.