Becoming fluent in Chinese: March Goal Check-In

Date: 2012.04.02 | Category: Chinese Language, Me | Response: 8

It’s time for my monthly Mandarin goals check-in!

Listening

13 episodes of Chinese TV and 24 episodes of American TV. A big fail! I finished with 幸福三颗星 and found a new series I enjoy called 夫妻那些事, but I still haven’t managed to get hooked on it as well as to my American TV favourites.

I think that the best part of watching those English language series is to get a small break to my other so full of Chinese life. I will continue to let myself to have those breaks, but I also want to get the numbers more even.

Besides watching TV I’ve also started to occasionally listen to the radio. Beijing Story Radio is excellent listening material because it’s mainly talk and there isn’t any visual clues.

I don’t have a listening course at the university this semester, but because all of my courses are in Chinese, I get to listen to a lot of Chinese daily. It’s a new challenge to listen to a lesson about Chinese history in Chinese.

Writing

I published two blog posts in Chinese this month: 吃惯中国菜吗? and 最近怎么样?

At the university I have a writing course where we learn to write opinion essays.

Reading

I have to finally admit that my book (失恋33天) is too difficult for me at the moment, there haven’t been any progress this month. I’m going to the book store during this short holiday and try to find a book with a similar level to 单身公主 (which I read last year). I will try 失恋33天 again later this year.

Skritter

I’m not skrittering daily but recently I’ve been skrittering more than last month. I used Skritter for 8 days this month, total of 2,3 hours.

Speaking

I had a presentation about my travels in China at my spoken Chinese course. Unfortunately our teacher doesn’t really give us feedback and the course in whole isn’t has helpful to me as I would like to. Luckily I chose a selective course 中国国情 (China’s current situation) and there are plenty of opportunities to speak. We can give small presentations about different topics and have discussions.

Conclusion

All in all this month didn’t go as well as I planned. I’ve been feeling very busy with my courses, but still haven’t been as hardworking as I should be. I have a feeling all the time that I’m not improving as fast as I should.

Goals for April:

• Find a new Chinese book that fits my level and start reading regularly
• Shoot more short video clips of myself speaking Mandarin

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Poor China Expat

Date: 2012.03.31 | Category: Expats, Life Abroad, Me | Response: 13

Living in China as a s Westerner broughts up things you never considered before.

Chinese people think foreigners are rich. Foreigners think that all of us have a lot of money. Welcome to the reality check.

Life is about making choices. Do I take a taxi once or ride the bus 10 time? Do I go to an international meeting and buy a 30RMB can of coke or drink 12 cans at home? Do I go to a Nordic BBQ event (next month) or eat lunch for 15 days? (Ticket to the event is 200RMB, one delicious lunch with potato, tofu and cabbage is 13RMB).

The hardest question of all is: Do I want to live a comfortable life in a nice apartment near the university or do I want to go home once a year?

I’m lucky to be a Finn and my government have supported my studies and life (in Finland and in China) for the last four years. The final year is beginning and after that, well, I have no idea. I’m trying to get a scholarship in order to finish my studies (Jan 2014), I’m trying to work part-time in order to make a living. Both of them not so easy to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I am living my dream. But living a dream doesn’t always mean it’s a rich dream.

Kunniaani on loukattu (Message to my Finnish readers)

Date: 2012.03.23 | Category: Me | Response: 17

Guangzhou feels like home

Date: 2012.03.20 | Category: Guangzhou, Life Abroad, Me | Response: 12

I’ve visited more than ten Chinese cities, but only lived in Guangzhou. It’s hard to compare different places when you haven’t lived in all of them, but I would still say that Guangzhou has a personality of its own. Compared to Beijing, where I stayed for two weeks two years ago, Guangzhou feels more laid-back, relaxed and unorganized. Guangzhou and Hong Kong share the Cantonese language, but besides that they are totally different worlds. Hong Kong is international city, but Guangzhou feels more local, more like home.

During these two years in Guangzhou I’ve started to call Guangzhou home. It’s the feeling that I have when I get back to Guangzhou from Hong Kong for example. Even though this city is huge and there are numerous districts I haven’t visited, but I still feel like I know this place. This is my place, my Guangzhou.

Besides Mandarin I’m also studying Cantonese. Even though my progress is painstakingly low, but I hope that in the future I would be able to have at least simple conversations with the locals in their own language. That would get my roots deeper into the soil of this city. But by settling down in Guangzhou I make it harder for my self to leave. What is I have to move to Beijing or Shanghai to work when I graduate? What if I have to go back to Finland?

Living in China might sound exotic, but it’s full of ordinary daily tasks like washing the dishes and doing homework. Only once in a while I wake up and remember that I’m actually living in China, I actually did accomplish my dream. That dream have just changed into daily life with it’s own annoyances.

Right now when thinking about all of this, going over the last two years, it feels weird to say out loud that my life is in Guangzhou now. It’s so normal and extraordinary at the same time. There are lot of things I don’t get in China and it can be frustrating at times, but when I look at my boyfriend and my cat Lucy, I know, that there’s no place I would rather be.

Have you found your new home abroad? How does it feel like?

Courses of a Chinese language undergraduate student

Date: 2012.03.03 | Category: Chinese Education, Chinese Language, Me, Sun Yat-Sen University | Response: 8

As most of you know, I’m studying a undergraduate degree in Chinese language at the Sun Yat-Sen University. There isn’t really many full-time Chinese language students in the blogosphere, but perhaps some of you are interested to hear what kind of courses I have.

I’m on the third year of my studies and chose Teaching Chinese “major”. The official name of my major is Chinese language, but my degree also includes some courses about teaching Chinese to foreigners. Other option was Business Chinese, but I thought Teaching Chinese is a better pick for me.

Let’s take a look at the courses!

Basic language courses

口语， Spoken Chinese

My teaching-Chinese-group has only four students so for spoken Chinese and comprehensive Chinese we were put on the same class with advanced non-degree students. There are over 20 students in total which is too much for spoken Chinese course. Even though the aim for the course is to learn to make presentations, most of our time is spend on dialogue. There just isn’t enough time to let us all make more than one or two presentations this semester.

The level of the course (not the students’) seems to be lower than my spoken Chinese course last semester, where we had presentations every other week. At the moment this course is the one I’m least happy with.

综合， Comprehensive Chinese

This is the basic core course which includes vocabulary, reading and grammar. There is 50-60 new words in every lesson and we learn maybe one lesson per week. Our teacher is quite demanding and she wants us to be well prepared for every class. She asks lots of questions from students and it’s not nice when you have to admit you don’t know because you weren’t prepared.

写作，Writing

Our goal for the course is to learn to write opinion pieces, essays that shows our opinion about something. We will write ten essays during the semester and grades from them will have an effect on the final grade. The same teacher use to teach me Cantonese last year, but seems to be good at teaching other subjects as well. This course is only for my group so there is always maximum of four students at class.

Teaching Chinese special courses

对外汉语技能教学， Teaching Chinese for foreigners（teaching different courses）

On this course we learn how to teach different courses to foreigners. We learn on what to pay attention to when teaching comprehensive Chinese, spoken Chinese, listening , reading and (if we have time) writing. During the semester we will also learn to make lesson plans.

语言学概论， Introduction to linguistics

Our teacher said that this course’s aim is to understand languages, including our own, a little bit better. The teacher always asks a lot of questions about our own native languages and sometimes I find it hard to answer. I have never thought about Finnish in that level and this course makes me think in a new way.

现代汉语， Modern Chinese

This is an demanding, but interesting course. It teaches us more about the language we have been learning for years, it teaches what is Chinese language is really about. This semester we will concentrate on aspects of spoken Chinese and vocabulary. Other parts of the language will come up on a different course next semester. With this course I hope I would have learned the grammar terms well when I was in high school, now I finally have to learn what attribute means.

对外汉语教学引论， Teaching Chinese for foreigners

I’m not sure what would be the proper translation for this course, but for example we will learn what is this “Teaching Chinese for Foreigners”, it’s a major, it’s a profession and even a mission. The most important part of this course is second language acquisition. During this course the teacher also hopes us to find a topic for our bachelor thesis.

Selective courses

中国国情，Current situation of China

The topic of our first meeting was Chinese New Year and especially the rush to get back home to celebrate the festival. We discussed what it means to migrant workers and how hard it’s get to tickets for buses and trains. Our other topics will be from different aspects like economy, politics, culture, people, education, religion and so on. I hope this selective course will help me to understand China better and to learn about recent happenings in the country.

现代汉语虚词学习，Modern Chinese function words

This course will be a headache! A full course on those little function words which doesn’t have meaning, but do have a grammatical function. Like 的，地，得 and 了1 + 了2. So why did I chose this course? It will help me in so many levels: speaking, writing and with my modern Chinese course.

中级粤语，Middle level Cantonese

A better name for this course would be Beginner Cantonese 2, because that’s the level we still are. Luckily or unfortunately all of my classmates on this course seem to have a Cantonese parent or grew up in Hong Kong. But optimistically thinking, it means I have more than one teaching at the classroom!

中国历史, History of China

History used to be my major back in Finland so I of course had to choose this course. I really like the teacher and we will learn the basics of the 5000 years of Chinese history. I’ve been concentrating a lot on 20th century Chinese history, so even during the first meeting I learned a lot.

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So here are all of my courses for this semester. Do you find them interesting?

In total it’s almost 22 hours of Chinese classes per week. On top of that comes the homework of course (exercises and reading), then add some self-study like reading books and watching Chinese TV. And don’t forget that I have a Chinese boyfriend and cat at home.