Dalian University of Foreign Languages

On Monday I started my Chinese classes at Dalian University of Foreign Languages (DUFL). The school was established in 1864 and has a reputable School of Chinese Studies. I'm taking the short-course, for which the university publishes its own textbook. Although I came to the 4-week course partway through, I found that my independent studies prepared me well enough to keep up with the other 4 students: two Korean university students, a young Japanese "salary-man" and a Japanese retiree.
We are moving through the text book quickly though, doing nearly one chapter every day in the 3.5 class hours. My main teacher, Wang lăoshī ("teacher Wang"), is an excellent instructor. She keeps the class moving along at a quick pace, but pauses enough for us to take notes and follow along. We have a lot of time for listening, but she also makes sure we have a lot of time for speaking and practicing role-plays with other students. I feel like I learned more in the first day of this class than I did in the months of studying on my own, although that probably helped me prepare to hit the floor running, so-to-speak.
The biggest challenge is by far reading the Chinese characters (as opposed to the phonetic pinyin characters I've relied on up til now), but having studied Japanese at least lessens the blow. In many instances, the characters are a good visual cue to remember a word, especially since the same character can be used in different words (i.e. the character for "study", 学 xué, is used in school, student, and the verb to study -- 学校 xuéxiào，学 生 xuésheng，and 学习 xuéxí) and is always pronounced the same way.
In any case, I have another week or so of classes before the course is completed, at which point I'll receive a certificate. Until then, the reward has been that I can actually communicate on my own a little bit now, which comes in pretty handy sitting at the dinner table every night here. With J having been my interpreter, she is probably glad that she has a bit more time to actually eat and not say everything twice.