03-30-2016

One of my classmates offered to sell this paper dictionary to me today because he bought the English version instead of the Russian version. I don't have an immediate need for it because I'm not in the HSK 4 course, but I bought it because it can't hurt to have and it didn't cost much. For those who don't know, the HSK is a Chinese proficiency test.

And speaking of HSK, oh lordy please prepare yourself because here's my take on the Chinese courses here so far.

I've probably mentioned this several times already, but my classmates are WAY better at speaking and reading than me. As far as I am aware, they have all also studied Chinese for a single semester prior. However, I think they all began their courses in China, which is advantageous because the teachers are native Chinese speakers that pretty much talk only in Chinese (at least now they do, I'm sure it probably wasn't like that in the very beginning) and because they were constantly exposed to the language and characters in the city from the start. 

Of course, different people have different reasons for taking the language and thus different goals. This leads to certain objectives being prioritized over others. I only know about my level so this may be wrong in considering the department as a whole, but it seems to me like the goal is to get students to pass the HSK test (specifically the HSK 4 for my level - this baffles me because I've heard/read that HSK 4 test takers have generally mastered around 1,200 characters, and I definitely don't even know half that many).

One reason I feel this way is due to a comment made by one of my teachers - she said that reading and speaking are the most important skills in passing the HSK, you don't need to know how to write.

Honestly, every time I hear her say that (which has only happened maybe twice so far) I get sad because that doesn't feel right to me. I believe part of this is due to the fact that I am much better at writing than speaking (even in English). The other part is that this is not how I originally learned Chinese. At Southwestern, the course truly felt more comprehensive in that we learned vocabulary, reading, grammar AND writing, all the facets of language, at the same time. We moved slower, yes, but each time we progressed to the next lesson I felt decently comfortable with the characters and grammar of the previous. (Also, I don't know if this is how class is handled now Ren Laoshi, but I really liked the structure of learning two lessons and then having a review week). Here in China, we cover one lesson a week but there's never any time to recover or review - we're always moving forward. 

I feel like writing is important. Maybe not as far as the HSK is concerned, but it's definitely a skill which indicates one's level of fluency. Concentrating on writing and especially stroke order has helped me gained a greater understanding of both the process of writing and the characters themselves.

Maybe I'm biased, but I feel like the best way to learn characters isn't to throw them all in front of me. In a way, it's kind of like friends - even if you meet a billion people, it's not likely that you really know all of them. Spending time with each of them individually is what helps you familiarize yourself with others. I like learning about why characters look the way they do and identifying the radicals and phonetics (essentially smaller components of a character). Once, I was studying with a classmate and I got super excited when I realized that the character 篮 (lán - basket) has the radical for bamboo in it (the two identical looking components at the top of the character) because you can make baskets from bamboo, and thus the logic for why it's in the character makes sense! He just looked at me like I was strange. 

This all isn't to say that the historical aspects of the characters trump learning Chinese as a whole. Not only do I find that aspect interesting, but it helps me learn the language - as I mentioned before, rote memorization is silly to me. When I was taking Latin in high school and we had new vocabulary words, I would draw pictures that depicted the meaning of the word and use these to aid in memorization. Also, all my friends know that I love index cards (probably too much).
And this also isn't to say that the Chinese teaching system here is flawed or bad. Every strategy has have its ups and downs, and these strategies may work for some people while not for others. For me personally, it's been a bit of a difficult adjustment, but I definitely have made improvements. I'm not as fazed by the constant lecturing in Chinese and can understand my teachers and classmates better than I could two weeks ago. I believe my vocabulary is expanding as well. No matter how I compare to others in my class, I am learning so I'm content with that and my progress.
So the main thing I'm worried about at this point are finals because I have no idea how those will be structured (we haven't had any tests/quizzes, and I don't know if we even will!) and I would like to pass my classes.
If you seriously read this whole thing, I applaud you - please go get yourself a cookie or something.