Mandarin Monday: My contribution to Chinese essay competition
Every semester Sun Yat-Sen University has an essay competition for us foreign students. Last year I came second among us advanced students and this year I participated too. The results aren’t out yet, but I’m not too hopeful. There were many advanced class students this year.
We had 2 hours and 20 minutes to write an essay. We could choose from ten topics (or perhaps even something else) and could use an electronic dictionary (I used Pleco). I didn’t have time to go over my essay so I’m sure there are plenty of mistakes in it.
Click the pictures below to see them larger.
The competition also has prizes! Last semester the first got 200RMB, second 150RM and third 100RMB. Besides that your essay will be published in the university’s magazine!
What you think, do I even have a chance?
14 Comments
Vyara Gylsen
woah your hand writing is so neat, will i learn how to get my characters into those boxes when I am in China too ? : P
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Sara Jaaksola Reply:
May 27th, 2012 at 9:47 am
Thanks, for some reason lot of people seem to be complimenting my hand writing, I think it’s not that special. btw, in China you can buy those writing pads where you practice someone’s hand writing. You can choose a hand writing of a famous person and learn to write beautiful characters.
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ordinary malaysian
Interesting to read that your interest in the Chines language began even when you were in your mother’s tummy. But I am not going to rate your essay because my command of the Chinese language 水平 is anything to shout about. I will leave this to others more qualified than yours truly.
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Ivy
I think your essay is really good and quite impressive for someone who has not been in China that long. 加油！
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Sara Jaaksola Reply:
May 27th, 2012 at 9:44 am
Thank you, but it wasn’t good enough in the contest. Have to do better next semester :)
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Youbeautyhe
写的很不错，有几个小错误： “能用汉语交际的机会很少” 应该为“能用汉语交流的机会很少”
“以经”应“已经”
题目没啥问题，“实现的梦想”可以改成“梦想与现实”，最好是“梦想成真”
很有文采，加油！
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Sara Jaaksola Reply:
May 27th, 2012 at 9:39 am
谢谢你改我的错误！在比赛我没有拿到什么奖，作文还不够好，哈哈。
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Youbeautyhe Reply:
May 29th, 2012 at 6:50 am
Oh! your competitors are better than you. 中文有句话来形容这个情况叫做“强中自有强中手，一山还比一山高” 看来你们参赛的选手都很厉害啊！加油，你的中文很不错，基本达到中国小学毕业水平，在初中一年级左右，估计再过一年半载的你的水平会有质的飞跃，而且你很有文学潜质。
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Sara Jaaksola Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 9:42 pm
谢谢你鼓励我继续练习，继续学习。
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jerry
wow!!! its hard to believe that you have been in China for only 2 years!!!
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Sara Jaaksola Reply:
May 27th, 2012 at 9:30 am
Thanks, even though this essay wasn’t good enough in the competition. When I came to China in Feb 2010 I could only write simple sentences and could write maybe 200 characters by hand.
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Jamaica wong
move on to improve your Chinese handwriting again… you can do better than before~
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Wang
“生活一段时间”应为“生活过一段时间”
Good Job！ I think your handwriting is better than some chinese. And you can improve it by learning calligraphy.
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Peter Hu China
或许下次我能为你捉刀
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