Hey everybody,

thank you very much for your contributions. I really appreciate the time you spend to discuss that question.
Some clarification:

• My kids are 10 and go to the Catholic High Primary School in Singapore, Primary 4 level.
• They speak Chinese to their grand parents who don't speak English.
• What they are learning is "higher Chinese" (AFAIK a term not used outside the Singaporean educational system) that is supposed to put them on equal footing with native speakers on university level at end of Secondary 4.
• They learn Chinese since Kindergarten.

So we are beyond the stage of the first 500 chars -- and it is still a chore. Therefor I was asking.
Summing up responses so far (in no particular order):

• Flash cards (the physical thing)
• Rosetta Stone
• Anki
• Nciku
• Buzan
• Dating Chinese girls (I like that one)
• Mnemosyne
• Zon (the MMO to learn Chinese while playing) read a review
• Found some nice books: Fun with Chinese Characters
• iFlash for Mac (I wonder is there a Linux or OLPC version too)
• PinYin Info
• ByKi
• Zhong Wen (for unaware readers: that means Chinese in PinYin notation)
• WenLin Software
• SuperMemo (with a comparison to Anki and a store to buy Chinese content
• VeryPracticalChinese (found via this blog
• Skritter
• I found ChinesePod. Not sure what to make of it
• Lao Shi (Chinese for "Teacher") - OpenSource

Again, thx a lot! (and sorry for the caveman English -- don't get it? Read the comments)

all 400000 of them?
ROFL

Ok. That was imprecise of me. What I meant: I roman alphabet based languages you have a limited set of sound rules, basically the alphabet and some combination rules (th, gh etc.). So if you don't know a word you still can read it aloud. If you don't know the special pronunciation rules you still can read it aloud to someone to get corrected. Seems like the radicals in Chinese characters have a similar function, but less obvious.

I'm a native German speaker, so this sentence will sound like caveman speak: Compared to other languages Chinese grammar *is* simple: Want to form a question? Just take the statement and add a "ma" at the end, no shuffling of words in the sentence required. No past, no future, no conjunctive, no declination, no conjugation. The only "special" are the counting words (you say one *of* something, where the word for *of* varies with the thing you count). Expressing finer points required word selection not grammar lifting.

> Quite the forward thinker, huh? Nope. Just currently living in Asia and having Chinese in-laws. The kids are aiming at university level Chinese within 5 years. Part of "mother-tongue" lessons which are mandatory in their school (If it would be father-tongue they would learn German :-) )

Of course I talk to the teachers. However teachers are few, often not tech-savvy and might not know all possibilities. Crowd sourcing widens options. Btw. I forwarded the URL to the teacher, so she is following.

Old enough to understand what the grownups do when dating. Still young enough to find it gross :-)

Doesn't help. The kids complaining "Mother always wants us to sit and learn and it is no fun"

Doesn't work when you want to date a Chinese girl and whisper sweet or nutty things in her ear.

Lotus Forms (not to be confused with Lotus Notes or LotusLive Forms Turbo) is a XForms implementation that has an XML extension for pixel perfect form rendering (there's an add-on that even allows you to scan your empty paper forms for conversion. It can run off a forms server or even without a connection using a forms client. It allows for overlapping digital signatures (you sign your stuff, I cross sign, so you can't change your mind) including signing of attachments. Two aspects are remarkable: Since the form is kept in every file you always will see the original as filled in (so both form and data is signed). Since data is stored in an XForms instance extraction of data is easy using XPath. Disclaimer: I work for IBM.