Week 2: First Week of Classes

Before classes began, there was a placement test to help sort students into levels, but I didn't end up taking it. I put it off for a while because I wanted to study first. I knew it would be hard for both them and me to figure out which class I should take. I took two years of Chinese at Amherst, but that ended three years ago. Besides listening to the occasional song and trying to spit out one sentence to a foreign classmate or Chinese waiter, I really haven’t touched it since. I felt like I remembered quite a bit, but would it come out right away? I didn’t want to repeat what I’d already done. In the end, I explained my situation and only did a small portion of the test. We'd be allowed to switch classes during the first week, anyway, once we got a better idea of the level of the classes.

Upon starting class, I soon discovered a few things about my Chinese: first, I could say much more than I could read, and I could read much more than I could write. Second, there a whole lot of incredibly simple words I couldn't remember and some strangely difficult words which stuck (why could I not remember how to say ‘soft’ or ‘reply’ but could remember how to say ‘self-contradictory’?) Third, my pronunciation is decent, such that if I only say a few things, my listener thinks my Chinese is a whole lot better than it is. This probably helped me get the recommendation I wanted for an intermediate class. Especially because my results this year don’t mean a thing, I figure I might as well err on the hard side. In the end, I chose to take Intermediate 2, mostly since that was what my roommate and neighbours decided to take. Being able to work together on homework and use new vocabulary words in conversation sounded really good to me.

I've got five classes basically:
1)汉语：Chinese (reading texts and learning difficult vocabulary) - 4.5 hours/week
2)口语： Spoken Chinese - reading dialogues and focusing on common expressions - 4.5 hours/week
3)听力：Listening - distinguishing between similar sounding words, between tones, and listening comprehension - 3 hrs/ week
4)写作：Chinese writing and grammar - 3hrs/week
5)HSK: preparing for the Chinese equivalent of the TOEFL - 2.5 hrs/week

The first is incredibly difficult - the teacher speaks very quickly and doesn't stop to ask us questions or make sure we understand, and the vocabulary is tough. I got really excited though when the first text was about apes and humans. Also, the book for this class translates the vocabulary words into both English and French, so besides learning the Chinese, I also find it interesting to see how they have decided to translate it into both English and French. The other classes vary in difficulty...the listening teacher speaks painfully slowly and I am impatient. The writing teacher is very demanding and holds us all responsible for having prepared for class and knowing something.

My class has about 10 people in it, though it's hard to say because a number of them come irregularly. There's me, my roommate and neighbors from Korea, and then the rest are from Uzbekistan, Krygystan, and yes, Kazakstan. There are a lot of students from Central Asia here. I've met a couple others from the US (though not in my class), but by far the more common language spoken among foreign students is Russian, followed by Korean. I know I have trouble thinking beyond Borat when hearing someone is from Kazakstan. I am looking forward to getting beyond that and maybe helping you to as well...

For now, these classes are overall very challenging. There are a million characters to learn, it seems, and sometimes I just want to close myself into my room and learn them all before coming out again. I know it doesn't work like that, though.