CS 368: First Week

Hi all,

I think that this first week of Chinese has both been a bit daunting, as I fear I don’t really remember the language as well as I should, but also exciting because I am confident that I will get a lot out of the class. My Chinese learning experience has always been inconsistent, as my university did not offer many classes in the language. As a result, by the end of my freshman year of undergrad, I had already finished the Chinese language curriculum. I actually minored in Spanish, but was able to study abroad in Beijing with an intensive language immersion program. Most of my Chinese came from just living in the country and being forced to use it on a daily basis, so sometimes I feel that I can express myself fairly easily in the language, but that I continue to have a very basic vocabulary. I am excited that this class will be more reminiscent of the Chinese courses I took while in China because it is REALLY interactive! I like how we have been forced to do presentations since the first day of class, and I hope that I can regain the confidence that I once had with learning Chinese. Even though I feel that we studied a lot of new vocabulary last semester, I do not think I retained it very well, as we were not continually forced to use it. I am really excited for this class and hope that I will be able to keep up!