Last Updated on 2016-05-19 , 1:53 pm
While there are people who do extremely well in Mandarin, there are those who struggle to even form a coherent sentence. Studying Chinese was one of the hardest subjects for most of us and if you can relate to any of those mentioned below, we feel you.
听写
Just why? I mean what exactly is the purpose of writing down what you hear?
Writing Chinese Compositions
Let’s face it, without the English-Chinese dictionary, you’re doomed. That dictionary is your life saviour and because of that, you always bring an extra pair of batteries to the exam hall with you.
Being forced to memorise ‘成语’.
Remember how your Chinese teacher will get you to memorise an entire book of them and actually test you to make sure you know the meaning of them?
Staying Back for After School Lessons
For my school, we had extra school lessons during the O’Level year. And on days where it was Chinese lessons, we spent the entire four hours doing compos, exam papers and orals. It was an absolute nightmare.
Oral Exams
Honestly speaking, half the time when you’re reading the passage, you’re just skipping words after words in hopes that the examiner do not notice. But she did, obviously. And when it comes to picture reading, you just wish that the floor would open up and drown you instead. That would probably be less embarrasing than trying to find relatively proper words to explain why the girl was crossing the road.
That said, having to hold a conversation in Chinese with the examiner was a killer
You don’t understand a single thing she’s saying and she doesn’t understand what you’re saying too. Most of the time, the only sentence you say in Chinese is to ask her to explain what she just said.
Having to Sit Through 1 Hour of Chinese
15 minutes into the class and you already feel your soul draining out from you. And you wonder how you ever survived one hour classes for four years.
When you have to answer questions
Especially when your teacher calls upon your name to answer a certain question in class, it’s a whole bunch of ‘errrr’ and ‘erm’ before you TRY to sort of answer something believable. Or either that, you just start smiling and look sheepish in hopes of her calling someone else.
Or when you’re asked to read a passage out loud in class.
If there were ‘han yu pin yin’, it’s totally fine but during upper secondary, there isn’t any and you spend at least a good 5 minutes reading 3-4 lines of the passage. Because half the time, you’re looking at your teacher for help.
Doing the Exam Papers
Yes, practice makes perfect but not everyone is cut out for Chinese. And doing a whole bunch of Chinese Exam Papers isn’t going to make understand Chinese any easier. If anything, it’ll only make you more demoralised when you see the grade that you got.
Over in TikTok, there’s a drama involving property agents that’s caused by us. Here’s what happened:
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