Friday 30 November 2007

考试考完了!

Hmm I hope I wrote the title up correctly - tell me if I didn't! I've
learnt so much over the last 11 weeks I think everything is all mixed
up in my brain!

...So, you might have guessed that I have just had exams, so have
been pretty busy preparing for that. The 综合考试(Comprehension
class) turned out to be pretty easy. the 听力考试(listening) was
quite challenging - mainly because it was a multiple choice exam, all
written in Chinese! We not only have to listen, but quickly read the
answer choices in Chinese as well....a lot of it I can read (or
guess), but I am so slow at reading- not fast enough to comprehend
the meaning of the different choices and then listen to the next
question. 口试 (oral exam) was OK - we had several topics to
prepare, as well as answering the teacher's questions and read a
portion of a passage (with pinyin - pretty painless).

Anyway, 11 weeks have flown by very quickly. I only have 3 days of
lessons left. What will I do on my last week here? I have a lot of
friends to catch up with, may be need go shopping and buy stuff and
decide what to pack and what to leave in Beijing. I will be back in
February and don't really want to bring things back and forth.

I think one of the best thing about coming to Beijing is of course,
that my Chinese has improved a lot (from next to nothing) and I feel
more confident speaking it. I really enjoyed the course and the
teachers are really great. 谢谢老师们! The other really
wonderful thing is that I am able to meet and make a lot of new
friends from all around the world. 认识你们我很高兴!The only
thing is that with a 12 week course is that by this time you're just
getting to know friends or form closer relationships then you
already have to say goodbye...but hopefully we will be able to meet
again at some point in the future!

By the way, "Vanto" left a comment on my blog - thanks for that! : )
I was going to leave a comment on "Vanto"'s blog but I couldn't
because blogspot is blocked in China. I could only view blogs through
a proxy server...anyway, looking forward to reading more of your
blog, Vanto.

2 comments:

shirls said...

Hey ! Congratulations on finishing the exams and the course !!! You are truly amazing !! Learn Chinese from nothing to today able to speak and read! Chinese is not an easy language to learn, and you have done it! Well done ! This really inspired me :)

Unknown said...

Hi Shirley
Thanks for your comment - I have been trying to learn mandarin on and off for ages...to no avail. It's definitely a lot easier to learn when you're living in China and studying 6 hours of mandarin per day! Having said that, although I can more or less get around now, my level of mandarin is still pretty basic, hence I decided to go back for another course in Feb.