I've been wondering whether I should take some actual Mandarin lessons at some point — though this is mainly because I want to be able to understand Chinese cookery programmes! Conversationally, I can just about manage 你好 (nǐ hǎo, which as I expect you know means "hello"). The cookery programmes have also taught me 對 (duì), which seems to mean something like "yes, that's right".

Your conversational sessions sound pretty interesting! Do you know why most of your partners are Chinese — are there a lot of Chinese people at Imperial?