Placement Tests, oh my!

I have a rather large pile of laundry currently staring me in the face, but I'm going to 'do more important things' and ignore it. AKA, blog.

Recently I got a letter from my college telling me that since I expressed interest in the Asian Studies department, specifically the Chinese department, I would have to take the placement test. Normally, that doesn't faze me, because really. It's a placement test.

But this... Oh, man. I am so on edge about it, for multiple reasons. One, I have to write an essay in Chinese, 200-300 characters in two hours or less. I don't KNOW 200 characters! This will be the most repetitive essay they have ever read.

So that's rather daunting. I wrote about 80 characters last night, just to see how many I remember. I don't remember a whole lot. I needed a reminder on how to write my own name in Chinese, for crying out loud!

Oh, summer. You ridiculous thing you.

Anyway, that's not even the worst of it. I also have to do an oral test during Orientation week. Yikes. I get nervous speaking to new people at the best of times, speaking English. But this? Knowing that the future of my Chinese speaking career rests on how well I'll be able to do tones correctly, with the head of the Chinese department is pretty terrifying.

So, I practice. And practice. And practice. I picked up an old textbook yesterday that'll help with reading/writing, so I'm going to review for a bit before I sit down and write the whole thing in one sitting.

I am so going to upload it, along with an English translation after I'm done. Wish me luck!

Tones and Pinyin - Chinese Lesson 1

Learning Chinese might seem totally out of your ability, but truly, it's not. Once you get the hang of the basics and practice a little everyday, speaking Chinese comfortably can be in your grasp. So, I've decided to start uploading basic Chinese lessons here for anyone who wants to learn! This will probably be the longest one, as others will be 'How to Say' types of posts.