Dictionary, anyone?

We've been using the Better Chinese program, mostly online for learning Mandarin. Today, my parents visited for the first time after their return from a trip to Florida. I'd had a bunch of things shipped to them while they were there, so the Better Chinese print materials, CDs and games arrived at our house today. I'm so impressed.
I also received a DVD I'd ordered called "Play and Learn Chinese with Mei Mei" which was a huge hit, especially with my daughter.
While I was preparing supper tonight, I heard something really amusing. Both the older kids were watching the video, but my daughter was talking--I'm not sure to whom; sometimes she carries on little conversations with imaginary partners--and she said, "Le monstre à manger le gâteau." Throughout dinner, she carried on in French, and was quite intent on educating grandma and grandpa about the meanings of words in French, but also came up with a variety of things to define in Chinese.
I have just one frustration. I am often called upon by my children to serve as a walking French dictionary, which is fine, because I often know the things they're asking, and if I don't, we've always got our trusty French dictionary.
Now, they're starting to do the same with Mandarin, and I almost never know the answers, which is also fine, but how does one look them up? I'm really not good enough with Pinyin (the romanization of Chinese) to guess at the pronunciation of words. I suppose that will come, in time. We have already started our classes in Mandarin, but I'm finding I'm learning just as much or more from the things I'm doing with the kids.
Actually, it's interesting, because at our first lesson, I was much less overwhelmed than my husband, who hadn't had the same opportunity to interact with the kids' materials.
Back to the dictionary, I guess we'll have to make ourselves some Mandarin-speaking friends really soon after we move so we can find our own walking dictionaries!

Chinese and French

Well, I never would have thought it possible, but yes, we are learning French and Mandarin. My husband and I begin Mandarin classes tomorrow, I've signed up to a couple of internet sights for Mandarin learning. I also found a reasonable used copy of Rosetta Stone. (I'd still love to find a copy of Pimsleur cheap, but I've settled for borrowing a copy from the library.)
I've found a wonderful, very comprehensive curriculum for my children. I may still use some of the resources I mentioned in the previous post, but after a LOT of Googling, I found Better Chinese. It's an incredible interactive curriculum including songs, stories, rhymes, games, animations, character and oral learning. It's simply wonderful, and the kids LOVE it.

So far, we only have access to the online segments. Since shipping from the U.S. to Toronto can be expensive, I've had some of the things shipped to my very accommodating parents while they are in Florida on vacation. It'll be like Christmas when they get home!
The Better Chinese program is brilliant because it has programs specifically designed for four distinct age groups, and uses so many different kinds of input, no child could ever be bored with it. It's so good, it's being used in some immersion programs.
I'm thoroughly impressed. My kids can already say, "I love my daddy/mommy/big brother/big sister/little brother/little sister/family." We're working on "grandma" and "grandpa" and they can recognize the words and characters for all of these as well as "cat" and "dog."
I'm really excited about what I'm seeing in my kids. First, they're doing all of this, and still speaking French around the house. And what's especially exciting is there seems to be much less resistance about learning Chinese than there seemed to be in the initial stages of learning French. That could be a lot of things--maybe because we've borrowed a ton of books from the library about China. Maybe because the anticipation of being there is starting to kick in (our flights are booked now--we leave May 19!). Whatever it is, I'm delighted.