Dear David, i am glad to know from your email that you will come to lanzhou and study Chinese. Chinese is an interesting language. It's a little difficult for you to learn it but not impossible. Many foreigners speak Chinese very well . That varies in people . You can be an excellent Chinese speaker if you make your effort to learn it. You should learn Pinyin firstly ,and work hard on writing practice. You also can make some local friends and talk with them frequently. I wish you have a good trip in China and will be good at Chinese.