Last Day of Chinese Class

Yesterday was the last day of Chinese class. I am going to miss it! Having Charles as our teacher was an amazing opportunity to get to know the language. He has been teaching Chinese for twelve years! We honestly learned so much in such a short amount of time. He taught us some culture behind some phrases and words. For example, it is always polite and encouraged to answer a question by direct substitution. If a Chinese native asked me, “Tomorrow at noon what will you eat for lunch at the restaurant?” Then I should answer, “Tomorrow at noon I will eat (replace with food) for lunch at the restaurant. This is more polite instead of just answering the question with the food. Charles told us that someone who would just simply answer the question or in another way is considered “reckless”.

In a few hours is our language written exam and oral exam. I think it will be an easy A. I hope! The language written exam will be to translate sentences, answer questions, and asks questions in pinyin (the standard system of Romanized spelling for translating Chinese). The oral exam will just be a conversation with Charles about myself such as my name, nationality, family, and favorite place to go in Kunming.
        Although I can form sentences, it is still hard communicate with the natives because I have a hard time pronouncing words with the correct tones. It is really frustrating.  I often use an app on my phone called Hanping Pro and I can easily look up any word and have it translated into Chinese and I’ll show it if I need someone to understand me.