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1. In Vancouver, the most popular means of public transportation would be the bus or skytrain since its the only things we have, but lots of people like to ride their bikes as well, especially in the summer. Compared to China, you usually need a car to be able to go to neighboring cities like Surrey or Abbotsford from Vancouver because everything is very spread out here. In China, there are a lot more people and a lot more things in one area, and they also have a very developed subway system similar to many Asian cities/countries so it seems much easier to use public transport to go many places. I think air travel is still more expensive worldwide because of all the resources and fuel needed to do so. China is very similar to my home country of Japan with the subways. For taxis, in Vancouver people will usually call ahead or wave one down and pay either cash or by card and leave about 15-20% tip. In Japan, as well as China, it is much easier to flag one down by waving or using the taxi app. For taxis many people will use a card or mobile pay, and in Japan you can even use your bus pass/transport card to pay for the taxis, but tipping is not part of these cultures.

2. For me, I think I had an advantage with the characters because of the similarities between Japanese and Chinese so they were not too hard to learn. The pronunciation, however, was and is still something I have to work very hard at. In all of the languages that I speak, tones and intonation is not something that determines the words I am speaking so that has been a constant challenge, listening and speaking-wise. I am planning on taking CHIN 231/233 so I hope to further learn to speak more and more fluently and expand on all the skills; reading, writing, speaking and listening.

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1a)The most popular mode of transportation in Canada is by car. This is because living in the city requires you to travel longer distances. If you don't own a car another option is to take the bus or skytrain, but this may make your trip longer.  In China it seems taxi and trains is a more common means of transportation. As well when asking my relatives who have been they said they mostly use motercylces or scooters. A car is sometimes troublsome because unlike a smaller automobile it can't squeeze through lanes. In Canada and China, it is cheaper to go by train rather than to fly.
b)In Canada it is more common practice to call a cab than to hail it. As well we have an app that makes it even more efficient to book cabs. If you were to hail a taxi, I see people wave them down in western films. A common form of payment is cash and if you want to pay card you need to inform your driver before he arrives. In Canada, we now have Uber which I find is cheaper and more convenient than taxis as well the uber drivers are rated so they are more inclined to be nice to their patreons.

2)The learning objective I feel like I most improved on is in Interculteral competence. I can now have small talk with my parents friends who dont speak english. As well, I can make friends in online games who don't speak English. I would say to learn from 李老师 because she is a fun and engaging teacher but that you have to practice to keep the skill. I think my biggest obstacle will be retaining all the characters we have learned.

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1. According to the book, train is the most common way to travel between cities, while inside the city it's more common to take the bus. As someone whose bus fees are paid for, with the card through UBC, I can't say whether China is really more expensive or not. Perhaps not, since I don't take the bus often and don't get the full value of the card.

2. I can't say I've ridden in a cab before, not even Uber or Lyft, so there's that on my side of culture. Normally my parents will drive, and when we go on vacation somewhere they'll rent a car. In China, it's common to hail a taxi over by waving your hand at the road, call the dispatch number or use an app like Uber.

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1. I think my biggest improvement was in the characters - of course, my reading is still terrible and I still find I often have a hard time recognizing and remembering characters, but I took Japanese in the past and was too intimidated to even try and learn the Chinese characters that they use in Japanese. Now I'm surprised when I see Chinese writing or hear Chinese spoken and I feel like I have a better time understanding or at least recognizing it.
I think one thing that has made Chinese harder than any other language for me is the pronunciation. Most other languages roll off my tongue, but I am still struggling with making Chinese feel natural, that it often puts my tongue in a twist. Still, I am glad that I can communicate some things and if I need to ask someone something simple in Chinese, I know I can do it. If I were to take the next level of Chinese, I know this among my reading competency would be my biggest hurdles. I guess we'll see where that goes.

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1) In my opinion, the system of transportation is highly dependent on the distance of travel and not specifically on culture. However, in my opinion, public transportation such as busses and subways and taxis are a lot more common in Asia, whereas in western culture, it is more common for people to have their own car and drive places. I believe this is especially because public transportation in asian cultures are a lot cheaper than western cultures such as Canada, where a taxi can be super super expensive, in comparison to China where a taxi is not as expensive. Additionally, for longer distances I believe railroads and trains are a lot cheaper than to travel by air.

As previously stated, I believe it is easier in asian cities to flag down a taxi than western cities such as Vancouver. In Vancouver, it is nearly impossible to flag down a taxi, therefore one must call one. Whereas in my city (Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar) one can usually flag a taxi within 3-10 minutes. From my knowledge, cities in China can vary. It can be common to flag down taxis in cities such as Beijing, however not as common as my city of Ulaanbaatar.

2) Overall, I think I was able to improve myself in all the categories to a certain extent, some more than others. The category in which I think I made the biggest improvement is competence. In my opinion, CHIN 133 does not only teach us the language of Chinese, but teaches us through teaching the Chinese culture, increasing our intercultural competence. For example, the learning logs itself help us compare the Chinese culture to our own or Canada's culture, allowing us to reflect on the culture in addition to learning the Chinese language.

Something else I would say I achieved is an improvement in the intonation. I find it difficult to remember the tones of all the words in addition to the vocabulary itself, therefore I believe that is a huge improvement I made

If I were to recommend CHIN 133 to another student, I would tell them to be very aware of all the assignments on canvas as many of them do not appear on the calendar, however continue to count as a part of our grade. However, also tell them that CHIN 133 makes learning Chinese extremely fun as it does not only focus on the language, but the culture behind the language.

For next year, I do plan on taking Chin 231/233. This is mainly because I find Chinese to be a very important language as one of the most spoken languages in the world. Therefore, this is my biggest motivation to continue taking Chinese. However, in addition to this, I believe taking Chinese as my electives besides Sauder courses allows my days to become a lot more fun rather than academic, as CHIN 133 was extremely fun

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1. Based on the reading and through my relative who lives in Guangzhou, the most popular methods of transportation are taxis and subway. My relative says that people don't bother learning how to drive sometimes since driving is more difficult and aggressive as it is in Canada. She also said that mainly young people use the bus, as bus drivers can be going way over the speed limit and it can be difficult to hold on. In Canada, it is most common for people to travel by plane to further destinations. However in China, if you are traveling to a nearby country or province in china, you are most likely to use the train. This convenient for business men especially or families who live in different provinces as the price of travelling by train is cheaper than by plane.

2. From my interpretation, it seems like halting a taxi is relatively easy. As long as you try your best to seek out the driver's attention or catch it at the right moment (right when someone is getting off) then it shouldn't be too hard. From the textbook, it seems taxi drivers are pretty friendly towards their customers. I'm unsure as to whether this is just to receive more tips or if it's just the societal norm in China. Most often they will be paid with cash since it's not usually a large sum of money.

Unfortunately I'm not sure why but my screen cannot display the table so I'll be answering the questions vaguely. I think the biggest improvement for me was learning basic sentences from chin131 and expanding on it. For example taking a sentence and saying it another way, or describing my activities in a story format with “先，在，以后，etc." I think my Chinese speaking has also improved, I'm getting better at differentiating tones. In chin 131, I would always need to look at the vocabulary list to know what tone each character has but now I can come up with a guess as to what tone each new character is. I personally think I could've improved on my Chinese writing out of all the components of learning this language. If someone were to take Chin 131/133 I'd definitely ask them to practice as often as they can; languages can seem easy but it's honestly not and if you don't practice it then you could lose it. My biggest motivation for taking chin 231/233 would be my family supporting me, I have a lot of relatives who live in China who I would like to speak Chinese to. (Since Cantonese is slowly dying) My biggest obstacle would my timetable course schedule, as languages take up 4/5 days of school.

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1. The most popular mode of transportation in China seems to be the train/subway. It seems that typically in asian countries that the train allows for several hundred people to to work very quickly. It is most often than not cheaper than owning a car. In Vancouver most people train/bus as our transit system is reliable and quite fast compared to other Western countries. I've never taken a taxi in my life, but it seems that you can just wave them down and one will stop for you? I've also seen taxis parked at hotspots such as skytrain station stops and airports. I would rather use Lyft or Uber because they seem to be less scummy (supposedly). We definitely pay tips as they are expected and it is rude if you don't.

2. I think what most improved from me this term was my vocabulary and sentence complexity. I've definitely made strides to improve my cultural competence. I feel that I improved the least on writing characters. It was and still is one of my worst skill and I just find it difficult to write with that many strokes. Something that I want to learn and that I was able to through the oral practices was speaking more like everyone else, being able to know what to drop in sentences to sound more natural. I would definitely recommend Chinese as the language to take because the teachers are all fantastic and the classes are fun. I thought the language would be difficult but I was proven very wrong. I am going to take second year Chinese courses to fulfill my language requirement for arts, but I am still unsure if I want to take year 3 courses. If I have the time and I feel confident in my Chinese skills I will 100% keep taking Chinese class.

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In China, the most popular means of public transportation are railroads, taxi and airlines. In comparison, the most popular one in Vietnam are motorbikes, taxi, buses, and airlines. Usually, most Viet people use their own motorbike and if they need to use public transportation, they will most likely call a motorbike service because it's very cheap, or call a taxi. Although there are also railroads in Vietnam, people only travel by trains when they need to get somewhere faraway, but usually airline is more preferred. In both China and Vietnam, airlines are always a more expensive option compared to railroads due to its convenience.

In both Vietnam and China, people can easily hail a cab on the streets, and the more crowded the streets are, the easier to get a cab. To call a taxi, people just need to look for the sign (if the taxi is taken or not) and wave their hands or even call the taxi out loud. They can also call a taxi if they cannot catch any. However, the case is different for Uber or other ride-hailing platform, where we have to book online and wait for them to come. In Vietnam, the taxi companies used to dominate the market, but in the present, Vietnamese people prefer Uber because it's more cheaper than the traditional taxi. To address the driver, Chinese people would say "你可以送我去。。。", whereas Viet people would have to use different pronouns based on the drivers' age and gender. In both culture, people often don't pay tips to drivers, and the most common way of paying are cash, e-payment, and credit cards.

Based on the table, I believe I have met all the learning objectives, especially in four language skills category. I can now speak, write, read, listen and understand some of the sentences when I watch a Chinese drama. Another learning objective I would want to achieve is to be fluent and confident in speaking Chinese. If someone asks how do I feel about learning this course, I would highly recommend it to them as the course is very effective, interactive and fun at the same time, and that you can actually communicate in Chinese after the course. I am also planning to take CHIN 231/233 because I want to take Chinese as an elective for all my years at UBC. I think the biggest motivations when advance into a higher level course would be the ability to communicate more, and fully express oneself in Chinese as the vocab and grammar will be expanded. However, that can also be an obstacle because the more complicated it gets, the less motivation to learn and one can easily give up. But for me, I think I will be able to overcome these obstacles, because my goal is to be able to communicate in Chinese in 5 years and I'm on the way to achieve it.

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The most popular means of public transportation here in Canada is driving and taking the bus/Skytrain. There are also a lot of people in Vancouver that like to ride the bike and walk, especially in the Downtown area. However, most places here in the Lower Mainland are not very close together so most people have to drive or take the bus when going somewhere outside of the city. In comparison, in China, a lot of people take the bus, hail a taxi or ride their bicycles. In some more modern cities, there is also the subway. In addition, the railroad system in China is another main form of transportation when travelling to farther distances, such as other districts. This is much cheaper than travelling by air, even though their airline travel has also expanded rapidly. This is quite different from Canada as we don’t use our railroad system to transport people anymore. Most people fly from provinces to provinces within Canada. Secondly, hailing a cab is not as common as calling for one by phone here in Vancouver. In fact, it is even more common to use an app on our phones to call a cab. Also, Uber and Lyft have recently been implemented which have been quite popular. When you first get into the taxi, they will ask you where you are going, and they won’t usually talk to you after that. When paying, most people use a credit card or debit card to pay and tip about 15-20 percent. Now, in China, most people hail a cab on the side of the street by waving their hand. Most drivers in China are outgoing and chatty, and they will probably try to talk to you during the entire ride. When paying, most people will use cash, however most Chinese taxis also accept Chinese mobile payment options such as WeChat Pay.

Based on the table, I have achieved every one of the learning objectives. I believe that I have made the biggest improvements in the characters - knowledge area. I feel that I have improved a lot in my reading abilities. I have also achieved the ability to speak and communicate with native Chinese speakers which I feel is extremely important as communication is one of the biggest parts of learning a new language. I would definitely recommend CHIN 131/133 to other students as it slowly breaks down the Chinese language and guides you at the perfect speed. I am planning on taking CHIN 234 and I hope to improve even more on my speaking abilities. My biggest motivations are improving my communication and writing skills. I think my biggest obstacle is going to be the pace as it will be double the speed of CHIN 131/133.

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1. The main mode of transportation across Canada is cars, mainly because Canada is vast geographically and a lot of people work between cities and require cars to travel. Whether or not you frequently take public transit like buses or trains depends on the city you live in Canada. A more populated city in Canada like Vancouver has a well developed transit system and therefore more people use it. In China, trains, buses,  taxis and bikes have been very popular to get around cities. When I went to Beijing last about 7 years ago, I remember how packed it was using the buses. Railroads used to be the main way to travel in China but highways have expanded and driving is very popular. For shorter distances, trains are cheaper than flying. China has high speed bullet trains that make travel times between some cities comparable to flight times at a lesser cost.

In a densely populated city like Beijing, it is easy to hail a taxi on the street or taxi designated areas. Vancouver on the other hand has been known as a city that is hard to get a cab in and you usually have to call ahead to book one. To hail a taxi you on the street in both countries, you wave a hand. It is customary in Vancouver to tip but in China tipping is not expected. Taxis in Vancouver commonly accept cash or credit cards. In Beijing, taxis can accept cash or e-payments like Wechat but don't accept international credit cards.

2. I think I made the most improvements in character recognition and character writing. After taking a semester off in between CHIN 131 and CHIN 133, I felt that it was hard for me to re-familiarize myself with Chinese characters. I am very happy that I was able to remember and further learn Chinese radicals and stroke order over this term and now I find that I am able to recognize more characters that I see in my everyday live.

If I was to recommending  CHIN 133 to other students I would say it requires you to be proactive and although it requires a lot of work and commitment, it is very rewarding to extend your Chinese language knowledge. My biggest motivation for taking CHIN 231 & 233 would be to further my learning of Chinese. I want to continue to improve and build on what I have learned so far. Although I also need to fulfill my graduation and co-op requirements, I think I'll be able to continue learning Chinese at UBC and beyond.

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1.

The most popular means of transportation in china seems to be subway, and taxis. When i visit Beijing, I recognized many people drive small motorcycles, and bikes. I realized that it's always good to carry cash in Beijing, as most of the times, taxi drivers will only accept cash or wechat payment.  In vancouver, the most widely used transportation is skytrain, and bus. Vancouver don't have subway, but the skytrain is pretty quick and comfortable. skytrain is bit more expensive than buses, but most students have upass, so they are able to travel freely without worrying about fares. I also like the view on the skytrain, definitely more entertaining than going underground.
2.

In vancouver, and in beijing you can hail taxi on the street easily. Tipping  is considered necessary in vancouver, so we tip even the taxi drivers. Most common way to pay is with credit card, but I know many taxi drivers prefer to be paid by cash. I personally find taxis to be expensive, so I usually would take uber if I need to get somewhere fast. Uber is also more convenient because you can just use an app to get an uber.

3. I think the second semester really improved my ability to express myself through more advanced sentences. I'm really glad about that! I loved learning how to write characters, would love to learn more about writing it with a brush!, just as how we did during the chinese new year festival.
4. I'd recommend the classes as they are small sized and interesting.!

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1. The most popular means of transportation are road-vehicles (cars/taxis, and buses) and airplanes through the highway system and airline travel. It is cheaper to travel via trains/railroad rather than airplane.

2. In China and other Asian countries, it is more common for customers to hail taxis on the street my waving their hands at them or calling out. The most common method of payment is cash. It is uncommon to give the driver tips or money beyond the price of travel.

I think that I have definitely improved my memorization of vocabulary, characters, and patterns. Chinese sentence structure had been much easier for me to understand. However, I think that I need to work on pronunciation and being able to formulate sentences faster verbally. Overall, I have gained a much greater appreciation for Chinese culture and am looking forward to learning more!

If I were to recommend taking CHIN courses to other students, I would say: expect a lot of assignments and content to learn and be consistent and committed to learning the language! It is very worthwhile and the teachers make it fun and engaging.

My biggest motivations for taking CHIN231/233 would be to have the ability to communicate with a larger number of people and be able to fully understand the words to Chinese songs, books, and movies/TV shows! My biggest obstacle would be pronunciation and speaking in a way that sounds "natural" and grammatically correct quickly and without overthinking.

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1. Based on the information in the book, we can see one of the most common ways that people travel in china is by train (in the case of longer distances), when it comes to shorter distance, I think more people would travel by car or maybe bus. From my experience in Hong Kong, because the area is much more dense, everything is easily reachable by bus or short taxi ride making those more preferable compared to private car. In Canada, most people use car/ bus compared to taxi since places are more spread out.

2. I think hailing taxis in both Chinese speaking countries and Canada are very similar. Taxis could probably be called by waving your hand at the side of the road. I rarely take taxi so im not sure if most people pay tips. The last time I took a taxi was from the airport to my house. Since it was expensive already I didnt pay tips :/. Most common method of payment would probably be card rather than cash since its more convenient.

Overall when it comes to the learning objectives I feel like I have improved in all areas with the strongest in character recognition and reading. One area that I would like to have improved more on is proper pronunciation and pinyin memorization. I think another objective that would be important to add to this list is how natural a person sounds. When recommending this class to other people, I would say that Chin131/133 are good course to take because since they are almost everyday of the week, you really pick up the material and retain it compared to only learning once or twice a week.

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1. I agree to the point on how the transportation system is rapidly expanding in China since the city is also becoming more urbanized, and therefore public transportation such as public buses, railways, motorbikes and cars are convenient. The railway system is similar to Japan, where public transportation is efficient and quick. Though, the main transportation method is to take the train or subway. Taking the high-speed railway is usually for traveling to different prefectures which are further in distance. In comparison to Canada, people usually drive and the sky train is the closest to the subway/train, or railway. It is also much more cheaper traveling by railroads/train compared to air.

In China or my native country, it is easy to hail a taxi on the street. However, in Canada, I often reserve a taxi beforehand because I would use the taxi mainly to go to the airport or if I am in a rush.
When I take the taxi in Canada, I would mention the address of the place. Though, when I take the taxi in Japan, I would mention the specific landmark. The biggest difference is that no tip is needed in China.

2. Throughout the course, I feel that I have been able to build and memorize Chinese vocabulary and patterns by creating the vocabulary mind maps as well as practicing vocabulary and conversational expressions during oral practices.
I think intercultural competence was also one of the learning outcomes that I was able to touch on this semester especially by the Chinese Lunar event and more comparison between English and Mandarin grammar structures taught during class.

I think pronunciation is a skill that I still need to work on, especially by being more confident and consistent when reading the pinyin. This can be achieved by mimicking the audio recordings and listening to them carefully. The pronunciation aspect however, has also been introduced in my Music Psychology class under the topic of Language and Music which was an interesting connection between my courses that I observed.

I would say that students must be diligent and motivated because there are lots of weekly homework and assignments. Chinese was perhaps one of the subjects that I put the most time. An effective learning method is to review Chinese everyday, and familiarize yourself with the characters. To study for grammar structures and sentence patterns, reading examples from the textbook and workbook is a good reference. Watching YouTube videos on grammar structures which are less than five minutes is also helpful. Overall, if I were to go into 231/233, I would have to bring more commitment and motivation.

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Read Lesson 8 Culture Highlights on pg.223. You could also watch Lesson 8 Cultural Minutes video on Canvas (L8_Culture Minute) for more information and/or interview your Chinese-speaking friends. Compare between Chinese and English/your native culture and comment on at least one or more of the following aspects.

1. What are the differences in letter format, addressing someone and common form of closing at the end of a letter?

2. What are the differences in school systems in terms of the semester/term duration, from which month/date to which month/date, breaks, etc.?

3. Are expressions of modesty considered culturally appropriate in Chinese and English/your own culture? How do you express modesty in English/your native language(s)?

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https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/35460/assignments/500098

1. Read Lesson 10 Cultural Highlights on pg. 270, check online or Interview your Chinese-speaking friends. Compare between Chinese culture and English/your native culture and comment on at least one or more of the following aspects.

What are the most popular means of public transportation? Is it usually cheaper to travel by air or by railroads?

Can people hail a taxi on the street easily or do they have to call one by phone? What expression/gesture would you use to hail a taxi? How would address a taxi driver and how do you tell him/her where you are going? Do you pay tips? What’s the most common way of paying, cash, credit card, e-payments, etc.?

2. The following table lists the designed learning objectives for this course. Take a look at them. And comment on ANY or All of the following.

How much have you achieved any (or every one of them) learning objectives? In which category did you make the biggest improvements?

What other learning objectives that are not listed here have you achieved or would want to achieve in an introductory Chinese language course?

If you are going to recommend CHIN131/133 to other students, what would you say?

If you are going to take CHIN231/233, what are your biggest motivations and/or obstacles?

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1) In China it seems that the rail system is a very popular and affordable means of transportation around the country. In my native country, the US, train service between cities is incredibly slow as the US has no high speed rail and passenger cars have to travel on cargo train lines. Almost nobody in the US uses trains as a means of transportation because they're slow and expensive, so usually we will either fly or go by car.

2) I believe that in most of Asia you can wave at Taxis to get service and don't really have to plan beforehand, but pretty much everywhere in the US outside of NYC you need to call a taxi company beforehand to use their services, and they're usually expensive and annoying so mostly people who got a DWI use them, but Uber and Lyft and more convenient so people usually use those services now. In the US whenever I've taken Taxis I just tell the driver where I need to go when I get in, nothing else, then leave without paying a tip. Americans tend to tip for everything, but there's no way I'm tipping a driver who is charging me over two dollars a minute. Also they NEVER have the AC on so it always puts me in a bad mood.

3) I believe I improved in all of the outlined respects, but mainly in recognizing patterns/vocabulary and characters. I believe the subject I least improved in was pronunciation, as I (admittedly) sometimes find myself just doing my best guesswork while speaking as to what tone I'm supposed to be using. It's quite embarrassing to say "I'm want to dumpling" instead of "I'm want to sleep." One thing I would've liked from this course would be more emphasis on how to write characters by hand properly. I would only really recommend this course to students who are willing to put more time into this class than most require, as I found I would put more time/effort into this class than math, econ, or accounting. I plan on taking CHIN233 summer term two if that doesn't get cancelled, as my main motivation is becoming proficient in Chinese.

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1. In somewhere like Hong Kong, public transportation like the MTR (their subway system) and public buses are some of the mot popular methods of transportation. The tram used to be very popular but is less often used now. The MTR in Hong Kong and buses are very cheap and the subway is very fast and convenient to get around Hong Kong easily. I find in Vancouver, buses are still very useful but they are much more expensive in comparison to Hong Kong buses. I also find that the train in Vancouver is not very convenient because it does not have a lot of stops for example, to get to UBC.
In Hong Kong it is really easy to hail a taxi on the side of a road. In Canada I find I always have to call a taxi because it is hard to hail a taxi. In Canada you can use cash or card to pay for taxi journeys, whilst in Hong Kong you can only use cash.

2. I have found over this term I have learned a lot of new character and pronunciation as well as vocabulary patterns. I think this term I have improved the most on vocabulary patterns and grammar. I usually find vocabulary easier to learn to I tried to work hard at practising grammar techniques and using them in speaking situations. Next year I really want to take Chinese 231/233, and I think my biggest challenge will to be keep up with the new grammar and measure words. I find the more measure words I learn, the harder it is to remember all of them, and know which to use for which.

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1.     The most popular means of transportation in China is public buses, taxis, and bicycles. Since Vancouver is quite large and also has very accessible public transportation, buses and the skytrain are very popular means of transportation here, especially amongst students. Personally, I rarely take taxis because they are so expensive in comparison to public transit but I know that many people like to take cabs when they go out late to drink. In comparison to China which has a more developed railroad system, people in Canada don’t ride trains as much. However, trains are clearly much cheaper to ride than airplanes. Ridesharing systems like Lyft and Uber are beginning to gain more popularity in Vancouver as well, since it has been allowed.

2.     It is possible to hail a taxi on the street but only if you are in a high traffic zone such as downtown. Otherwise, you won’t often see cabs driving around casually and will most likely need to call by phone. If you are hailing a cab on the street, you can step close to the edge of the curb and raise up your hand while the cab is close by. Here, it is common courtesy to pay tip to your cab driver as you would at a restaurant. The most common payments are usually cash or by card.

3.     I would say that during this semester I made the most improvement in paying attention to using tones while speaking as well as reading characters. I feel that since last semester I was just beginning to learn in CHIN 131, I could not focus on using tones but this semester I am much more comfortable with speaking and trying to accurately use tones. I also feel that I’m much more accustomed to reading characters and I can read (and type) a lot faster than I would have been able to at the start of the semester. I also feel that I learned a lot about Chinese culture from course materials as well as 李老师. The Chinese New Year festival was a fun experience and motivated me to learn Chinese better. I do plan on taking CHIN 231 and 233 next year and I am motivated to learn how to better write characters because I’m not very good at that right now. If I were to recommend Chinese courses to a friend, I would tell them that it is a very fun course. Though you must be very committed to learning the language, you learn very quickly in a fun environment and also learn lots about culture. 太好了！

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1. I found this lesson really useful because it provides a lot of new vocabulary that is used in everyone's daily life. For example, how to correctly discuss money and methods to pay for things. I found I learnt a lot of new vocabulary in this lesson, which was at first quite challenging, but after practising it a lot and reviewing the grammar I think I was able to understand it much better and now feel confident to be able to talk to someone in a shop.

2. When I used to live in Hong Kong, supermarkets and famous brands like Topshop; you could not bargain with. But when I went shopping in markets and smaller shops I always bargained. It was very much the norm. But in Canada and other westernized cultures, bargaining is not very acceptable and usually people won't allow for others to negotiate prices.
In canada most people will usually use a credit or debit card to pay for things, especially clothing. People will rarely use cash. But in somewhere like Hong Kong, if you want to go shopping in markets most stalls will only accept cash not card. Although in places where cards are accepted, Apple Pay is very popular and most people will use their phones to pay for items.

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1. I read an article that China’s major mode of transportation is via riding the train/railway. This makes sense, if you think about how big China is. But, due to the expansion of roads and airline systems, it is now easy to access use all kinds of transportation to fit your travel needs and destination. However, the railway system in China remains to be one of the most-used and loved mode to travel. It is similar to Vancouver’s skytrain stations, only with more lines, options, and stations. In Canada, however, I think a lot of people also bike and walk as well, especially during the warm and dry seasons.

2. In China, it is really easy to catch a cab. I think generally Asian countries (most highly populated cities) are convenient to catch a cab on a curb or by a quick phone call. You don’t pay tips, which is different from Canada because tips are quite common here. Cab drivers in China, with all due respect, are known to be quite talkative, and when you get on you most likely only mention the address that you will like to go. In Vancouver, although taxis are becoming more common, there is not many outside the downtown area and some refuse to go to far locations such as Burnaby or Coquitlam. Instead of cabs, Canadians prefer to use ride-share apps such as Car2Go and Evo.

3. If I were to recommend the introductory courses of CHIN to students, I would tell them of the wide range of activities our class participates in. Just this term, we made a video, we performed a skit, a presentation, and we were also able to speak to native volunteers every week. I think all of these helped me to speak and practice my Chinese with a lot more confidence, and the ability to review and preview the course four days a week also helped to enhance my Chinese abilities. Overall, it’s a very fun course that you get to learn a lot from.

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1.     The most popular means of public transportation in China are the public buses, taxies, and bicycles. While some cities have also developed subways, light rail, and Maglev trains. In Canada, specifically Vancouver, the most popular mean of transportation is definitely cars, bicycles, buses, and the sky train. However, there is no subway in Vancouver. It is usually cheaper to travel by railroads in China and also in Canada/US. I often take the train from Vancouver to Seattle and a ticket is around $35-$45, which is not that expensive.

2.     In Vancouver you can hail down a taxi but they are not that common unless you are downtown. It is easier to wave down a taxi than call them by phone, as calling taxis can be unreliable or have a long wait time. In China they suggest that you wave down a taxi by standing on roadside or at a designated taxi stand. They say to avoid intersections, otherwise drivers won’t stop. This is similar to how you would hail a taxi in Vancouver. In Vancouver you address a taxi driver by being polite, but it is not seen as rude if you do not engage in lengthy conversation. In Vancouver/US it is common to leave a tip and pay by cash, credit card or debit card. Just recently Canada got Uber, so with Uber you can pay by e-payment. In China they do not have Uber but have Didi Chuxing, a different ride share app.

3.     The learning objective I feel I have achieved the most is learning and recognizing patterns in vocabulary. I think I have made the biggest improvement here, as I can recognize most of the vocabulary/characters from Lesson 1 – Lesson 10, and this covers quite a lot of useful topics. Even though there is a lot still to learn, I am proud of what I have learned this past semester. The learning object I feel I struggle with the most is pronunciation, because the tones require a lot of practice and correction. Although I do think I have improved since the beginning of the course with the help of the oral practices. I would absolutely recommend Chin131/133 to other students! Although there is a lot of work, if you are dedicated to it then you can grow so much by taking these courses. I am planning on taking 200 level Chinese next year. 谢谢你们！

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The most popular means of transportation in Vietnam is motorcycles, it is very usual for you to see a road crowded by motorcycles. But in China, public buses, taxis and bicycles are the most popular. For travelling long distance, it is very cheap to travel by railroads in Vietnam, it is fast and you can buy train tickets that include beds if you are travelling overnight. But of course, air travel is also popular in Vietnam if you want to save time. Unlike Vietnam, China has high speed trains which have the time of travel roughly the same as air travel but provide more comfort than air travel and cheaper. It seems like railway travel is growing more than air travel in China.
In Vietnam, it is super easy for you to just wave at a taxi that is available to accept guest and just hop on which seems to be the same as in China. You just need to wave your hand up and down and look at the taxi and they would come. In a Vietnam, we just say hello+a word to indicate their age, gender (ex:Chào+Chú= Hi uncle) and say where you want to go. In China, people use 师傅(shi1fu) to address the taxi driver(usually male) and say where you want to go (我要去。。。). In Vietnam and China, it is not a must to give tips, usually don’t give tip and in some place it might be illegal to do so. In Vietnam usually we pay by taxi card if your company partner up with that taxi company or cash, or credit card but the most common is by cash. In China it is still very popular to use cash to pay for taxi but now they also accept payments through apps. Unlike China and Vietnam, in Canada it is not easy to just wave at a taxi and they will come to you. Usually, you have to call through their system. You just need to say Hello ,and don’t need to worry about the special appropriate pronoun to use to address them like in Vietnamese and Chinese have, and justsay where you want to go. It is more common to tip in Canada but not a must. You can pay by credit card, Apple Pay, it is not as common to pay cash in Canada.

I am now identify the structure and components in a character and use the information for character learning but sometimes I still forget if I don’t look at the character often. I am able to write new character accurately if I can look at the character but still struggle to remember how to write characters. I can now pronounce words in Chinese correctly but sometimes my tones are off because I don’t always remember what tone I need to say. I think I am able to make basic conversation with native speakers and understand and empathize with the culture’s point of view. I have memorized lots of vocabulary more than I expected and able to recognize Chinese word order, patterns and use them to make new sentences.

I believe I was able to learn so much way more than I expected from these courses, not only the language itself but also Chinese culture.

If I were to recommend this course to other students, I would say: These courses are the perfect starting points for you to master Chinese language and immerse in Chinese culture.

My obstacle would still be being able to memorize and write down the 汉子. My biggest motivations would be to be able to achieve professional working proficiency level, being able to speak to my Chinese friends naturally and achieve a level where I can come to China and live there without having to use English.

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1. My understanding is that China has a large and convenient high-speed rail network. I assume that more people travel by rail, given that it is cheaper and possibly faster than flying. Here in Canada, almost no one takes the train in between cities, given how slow and yet curiously expensive it is. Most people fly between cities, or drive if it is practical.
2. In China, I think it is easy to hail a taxi, probably by waving at a passing taxi with your arm. Chinese taxi drivers are apparently talkative, so small talk with them is acceptable. Here in Canada, you can likely hail a taxi in busy areas, but most people book a taxi pickup in advance. You wave at them in any way to hail a taxi. You tell him where you're going upfront. Most Canadian cab drivers don't engage in small talk. You tip your driver usually, and most people pay with their credit card through their card or perhaps through tapping their phone.

I think I have achieved all of the learning objectives. I am the most satisfied with the character-related content I have learned. Before studying Chinese, I couldn't make any insights from looking at characters. Now, I can read a solid amount of characters, and understand radicals & structures in those I can't understand. I wish hand-writing characters was a higher-priority learning objective, but I understand how handwriting is becoming less important given the proliferation of phones and computers. I would recommend that others take this course. The content is very interesting, and the professors make it enjoyable. My motivation for taking 231/233 is being able to learn more Mandarin. 131 and 133 made me realize that learning Mandarin is fun.

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Through reading about the cultural highlights on page 270 of the textbook, I have gained a lot of insight about Chinese citizens. Usually in western cultures, the taxi drivers aren't typically very chatty - at least based on the taxi drivers that I have had. The place where taxi drivers are extremely friendly/talkative are the ones that live in touristy cities, such as New York. I loved chatting with them about all the fun places to visit and the best streets for food.
In Vancouver, driving or taking the bus/Canada line are all popular means of transportation. Since I don't know how to drive, I usually take the bus and the skytrain to go places. Taking public transportation is extremely convenient and also cheap! As we have our UPass, we don't need to pay any additional fees.
Unlike China, North America doesn't have the liberty to travel to places by trains/railroads, therefore, we must travel by plane. I assume that travelling by railroads would be a cheaper alternative to flying, but as we don't have that option, we must stick to flying.
To hail a taxi in Vancouver is actually quite difficult during the day. All the taxis are occupied, thus, we need to call the taxi company to specially order one. But as the nightlife here in Vancouver is pretty alive, it is easier to hail a taxi outside of clubs/bars at 2-3am at night. Generally, right when we step into cabs, we would immediately tell them the location we are heading to, and paying for the taxi ride is very convenient as well. We can use cash, debit, or visa to pay. Tips are generally paid as well.
As for hailing a cab in a city like New York, you'd flag them down bu stepping onto the edge of the sidewalk and waving your arm in the air - it seems like something out of a movie.

Learning Objectives for this course
As I took 131 in the summer and 133 during a winter semester, I feel that I got more out of the course this semester. Nothing was rushed and the professor made sure that each concept was engrained into our memories. I felt that my biggest achievement was developing competence. Isolating characters, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical patters are indeed helpful, but practicing by combining all of the elements for communication was always a challenge. As the prof always told us to practice, practice, and practice, it gave me more confidence in speaking Chinese - and also making mistakes.

I would definitely recommend this course to all students who are interested. Speaking another language is always intimidating initially, but both of the Chinese profs that I have had made it extremely easy to participate and have fun.

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1. I think that lesson 9 was a really practical lesson and has given me many tools I can use when I go shopping for various things. However, I found the vocab in this lesson to be quite challenging and hard to memorize. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to go to China and can use this lesson to buy things in stores.

2. In Canada it's really not acceptable to try and haggle prices. The only time it's somewhat ok is if you're buying something directly from someone else, like on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. In China, however, it is common to haggle over prices with vendors. When I was in China I was personally really bad at that because I feared I was being too pushy, so I probably ended up paying a lot more than I should have. Also, when I'm in a store (or restaurant) and need to get the attention of the person working, I usually just say "excuse me", because it's rude to address a server or shopkeeper by their title, but in China it's more normal to address someone as 售货员 or 服务员。

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1. The videos are extremely useful to learn what (I assume) an actual Chinese sale sounds like. I work in sales so this unit is extremely helpful for me as there are moments when I'm working where they only speak mandarin and what I've learned only helps a little. This chapter has been one I've been most excited about because I find that it's super useful and it really enhances my daily conversation. I noticed that the salesperson seemed a little aggressive for my taste, but as we discussed in class that is just cultural.

2. I know that in Canada even in the Richmond Night Market many Western Born do not haggle at all, simply because it's seen as weird and we never really do it either way. I've watched these Youtube videos about this guy just haggling shop owners in China and it's really cool to see how much things actually cost. I think it's because these shop owners need a quota to make and if they don't they are unable to have a living. Since they are not linked to big companies they must sell even if they are losing a profit.

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This lesson might be one of my favourites, since it taught us all the colours and how to buy/ask about items in stores. I think that this chapter will be really helpful if I ever go to a Mandarin speaking country/area on a trip. It was something that I had wanted to learn so I'm glad we got to it.

In Canada, we don't haggle over prices, and I think one reason might be because we don't have any markets like many other countries do. The closest that I would say we get to haggling would be asking for a discount if you're buying from a place where you know the owner really well, or you're buying a lot of things in bulk, usually for business. I do know that not only in China but in most countries in Asia, people will haggle (to different degrees) over prices.

In Canada, you can almost always return things, because stores all have their own return/exchange policy. You can also return/exchange things in China, etc.. but only in larger chains or department stores. I think this goes back to the price haggling, because if you bought something from a market, haggled the price and paid (usually) in cash, then it is much harder and also makes no sense for you to need to return something. So we have different situations for returning items.

People in Canada usually pay with cash or card I think. Or, people will pay by card but through their phone because I don't think we have anything like alipay or wechat or specific apps for money. For example, in Japan my homecountry, we have lots of apps/cards that combine the train/bus pass and mobile money so you can tap for transit and then tap in stores to buy stuff and when you run out of money you reload it by adding cash to a machine which syncs to your card/app. We don't have anything like that here but it is kind of similar to what people might use in China.

In Canada, we usually ask "excuse me" or we'll be told "let me know if you need anything" from the clerks and they generally will leave you on your own, but it seems to be the opposite in China, where the clerks will follow you around and initiate the conversation.

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1. It was really useful to learn about shopping in Mandarin. It was helpful since I work in a clothing store. When I get a chance, I will try to practice it with my customers. I also feel that I can go to a store and communicate about what kind of item, the size and the colour I'm looking for. I don't feel confident enough to haggle in stores.

I think price haggling is really uncommon in western countries. Most of the times, the workers in the store are just employed by the store, thus don't make decisions about the prices of goods. However, I feel that I can try haggling in small vintage and thrift stores, since most of the time the owners are the ones working in the store. I've heard that in chinese markets, if you try to price haggle you can get it lowered by almost half. I'd like to try that in future.

In Canada, stores usually have a really good return policy, which make it easier for the customer to return if they change their mind. Usually it's you can return a good for cash or credit in 14 days in most stores. I've never really shopped a lot in China so I don't know much about their return policies.

In Chinese speaking areas, I know that wechat payment is pretty popular. But I mostly use my credit card. Most of the times, I find that the sales clerk come and ask if I need help with anything. I usually approach them by saying "excuse me, I'm looking for...."

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Lesson 9 has been a rather interesting experience for me, with a great many challenges. I have unfortunately not been able to attend the last week of classes which has made learning lesson 9 quite the challenge. If I have learned anything from this lesson, it is how important classes have been in creating an active learning environment to use Chinese, and that I must do my best to immerse myself in an environment of Chinese.

I find the haggling culture interesting, for I think there is a significant difference between haggling in China versus Canada. In Canada, haggling tends to be accepted when doing business on big price items, such as vehicles, or a house. However, with smaller item purchases, especially from a standard style storefront, haggling looks to be quite rude and awkward. I’ve had this experience with some Chinese friends who will try to haggle for prices, it comes off as quite rude in certain Canadian stores.

Merchandise can quite easily be exchanged, provided you remember to present a receipt with the proof of purchase. This also depends on whether the item was or was not on sale, for usually on sale items are not allowed to be returned.

Most people in Canada have made the switch to credit cards or debit cards, yet some people such as myself still prefer to use cash. I know that in Chinese speaking areas of Canada, WeChat has become quite the popular payment method for businesses.

In order to get the attention of a sales clerk, one would usually say “Excuse me...” followed by their request they were asking. In Chinese it appears that rather than getting the attention of the clerk, the clerk is more likely to be one who initiates the greeting. The saying of “你要什么” what do you want, while coming off as rather rude in english, appears to be quite a common way of greeting coming from a clerk.

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1）I found learning lesson 9 interesting but also difficult. This is because although the contents of chapter 9 was fun and useful to learn and know, the amount of new words took me longer to pick up on using them in sentences. I found I had to change my learning style. Instead of trying to remember all the words at once I had to over a few days memorize the words in sections. I enjoyed learning how to say colours because colours is a versatile adjective that can be incorporated into a conversation in many ways such as to say what your favourite colour, or to describe your hair colour, or to describe the colour of your clothing. I hope to be able to apply my knowledge at Aberdeen after social distancing is over.

2)

Do people haggle over prices in stores?

I find that in department stores here or at supermarkets the price is usually set and can not be haggled as well as in China. I wouldn't say it is impossible to haggle in Canada but you would get more weird looks as it is not customary here. But in some markets in China, you can often haggle with the sales clerk to bring down the price.

Can merchandise usually be returned or exchanged?

Yes merchandise here can usually be returned or exchanged within a certain time frame. While reading the dialogue in the textbook, it seems as though you can exchange your items in China. Also here, for some stores if you pass a certain date you can ask for store credit instead of returning.

How do people pay for their purchases: in cash, with a check, or with a credit card, or with e-payment methods? What popular e-payment methods are there in Chinese speaking areas and here in Canada?

From watching videos on youtube and viewing areas in Richmond, using Wechat is a popular form of payment. Here in Canada we often just use tap from our card or phones. Although some stores only accept cash to avoid getting the fee charge from the bank.

What expression(s) or sentences do you use to get the attention of a sales clerk in Chinese and English/your native language? How to address a sales clerk in Chinese? What expression(s) or sentences do you use to decline and/or stop a sales clerk from his/her promotion?
In China it seems that as soon as you enter the store the clerk addresses you and asks if you need help,"请问，您找找什么？“. Where as in Canada you need to approach a store clerk and ask them, "Excuse me, can you help me find ...".

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Learning lesson 9,  although it was a bit challenging at times, gave me more helpful ways of communicating to other people in Chinese. I feel like I can discuss my daily life more because we learned about paying for items and colours. At first, I found some of the new grammar structures we learned to be a bit hard to remember, like using 一样 and 比较 properly. But, after practicing a bit, I have found it very useful to be able to compare things.

Most people in Canada do not try to bargain over prices in stores. In China there are many street shops and it is common to bargain over prices there. In Canada, most items can be exchanged without much hassle for the most part. Of course some stores have different policies and sometimes items purchased at a discount cannot be returned. Some major department stores in China also operate like this.

Nowadays I find that most people in Canada use either their phones (mostly apple pay) or credit/debit cards to pay for items.  In Chinese speaking areas, most people use Ali-pay or use WeChat to make purchases with their phone.

I usually approach a sales person and say “excuse me”  if I am trying to get their attention. In Chinese, you can say 你好 to get the attention of a sales clerk.
In Chinese, you address a salesperson as 售货员. In Chinese you can say 我只要看一下 to decline a sales clerk's offer.  Similarly, In English you can say something like “I’m just looking” to politely decline a sales clerks promotion.

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I think so far this is one of the most useful lessons from our textbook, as even though I don't really like shopping it taught me a lot of adjectives which I can use in a variety of ways to increase my fluency. I also like that I would now be able to shop in non-touristy places in China which may not have any English speakers present. One thing I noticed about the videos though is 李友 looks terrified every time the 售货员 approaches her. It seems that based on the textbook videos Chinese salesmen are a bit more aggressive than I'd be used to.

In Canada/the US haggling in stores is incredibly rare, and in my experience only a practice done at pawn shops and flea markets. It seems that haggling is a fairly common practice in China outside of department store settings, which would be something that I would personally find somewhat tedious/annoying, especially since I'm terrible at haggling. It seems that merchandise is usually exchanged in China as well, whereas here people generally get a cash or store credit refund.

Generally here when I want to get the attention of a salesperson I will just say "excuse me..." and if I want them to go away I just say "I'm just looking around." I assume in China to get the attention of a 售货员 I would just say something along the lines of "请问，你可以帮我吗？“ which would be pretty much the same as in English.

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I have really enjoyed this lesson and have found it extremely helpful. In fact, I work at a clothing store and have been in situations where Chinese customers come in speaking no English. Before, I had no idea how to respond but now, I can use all the vocab we learned in Lesson 9 to converse.

There are a lot of differences between shopping here in Canada versus in Chinese speaking areas. Firstly, bargaining is a large part of the Chinese culture when shopping. The prices that the salesperson gives is almost never a solid, non-negotiable price. The customer is expected to bargain for a lower price. However, this is very different here in Canada. The price that is listed on the product is always a final price and bargaining for a lower price is rarely ever accepted. Further, return and exchange policies are quite different between Canada and Chinese speaking areas. Here in Canada, most places allow for return and exchange within a certain time frame. However, in Chinese speaking places, most items are final sale. Also, the forms of payment are different as well. In Canada, we accept cash, credit cards, Apple Pay, and some places accept cheques. However, in China, the most popular form of payment is We Chat pay. At smaller vendors, they also accept cash but most Chinese people use We Chat pay since it is super convenient.

There are both similarities and differences between using Chinese and English in a store. Firstly, both languages welcome customers in the same way. In English, we say “Welcome!” and in Chinese, we say “欢迎光临” which means welcome. However, in Chinese, when we ask the customer what they are looking for, it is a lot more aggressive and in your face. In Chinese, we say “你要什么” which translates to “What do you want?” or “你在找什么” which translates that “What are you looking for?”. In English, we tend to be less direct and ask “Would you like any help finding something?” or even simply asking “How are you doing?”. So, there are both similarities and differences between shopping in English speaking areas and Chinese speaking areas.

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·      I have really enjoyed learning the shopping vocabulary in lesson 9. It’s nice to learn colors, clothing items, and monetary units as they are extremely common day to day topics. I feel this would also be very useful to know if I ever visited China, or a Chinese speaking region, as shopping is a common tourist pastime. Using size and color, I feel like if I went to a store, I could more comfortably describe what it is I am looking for after this lesson.

·       In the united states people do not tend to haggle over prices in stores. In China, in the street markets, I think it is more common to haggle the price of something. The one main exception I can think of, in the united states, is when buying cars. When buying cars it is common to bargain with the salesperson to lower the price. It is very common for merchandise to be returned or exchanged, in fact it is less common to buy something that doesn’t have a return policy in Canada/The United States.

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1 I feel that there are a variety of measure words for each clothing item that are strictly followed. There is also a sense of formality and directness with the shopping experience in which the customer and store-clerk relationship is restricted to that, and no more and therefore there are less conversations involved but only based on the intention of the customer's needs/wants.
2.
a) Often when I go to Chinese-speaking countries such as Taiwan, its night markets, I would haggle over prices, but less often in department stores.
b) Items can usually be returned for a certain period of time, but it is highly unlikely that items can be returned when it is on sale.
c) In Canada, I feel that people often pay with a debit card or credit card, and less with cash, because it is more convenient. In Chinese-speaking cultures, I feel that people often pay by their phone.
d) I feel that in both Chinese and my native language (Japanese), the sales clerk and customer relationship is polite and restricted. Therefore, as long as the customer seems to be looking through the clothes, the sales clerk will naturally gravitate towards them. Though, in Canada, we are encouraged to small talk. In terms of declining the sales clerk from their promotion, in Japanese cultures, customers would talk their way around it indirectly, but in Chinese cultures, customers would directly say 'no thank you'

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1. As a person who shops for things a lot, I think that lesson 9 is very useful in my everyday activities such as buying grocery, clothes,... However, in my opinion this lesson is one of the harder ones as it contains more vocabulary which I find a little more difficult to memorize such as the new measure words (件，条，双, ...). I also find the money system is not very easy to stay in my memory if I do not come up with a logical strategy to memorize (块，毛，分).

2. Same as in China, in Vietnam, people bargain in street-side stalls and small shops, we also bargain in markets and it is usually not negotiable in supermarkets and larger department stores.  However, since when I first came to Canada until now, I have never seen any bargaining here.

In Vietnam, people usually can change the size if not fitted well in more upper scale stores but it is not common to return the items completely. But in Canada and China, returning items and changing items are both very common.

Vietnam is also similar with China in that people often carry cash and pay by cash rather than using cards and apple pay. However, in Vietnam we don’t use WeChat Pay, but we have another similar app created by Vietnamese. In Canada, people don’t often use cash, they usually pay by credit or debit card or by Apple Pay which I find a lot more secure and convenient.

Chinese people usually say “请问” or “对不起” to get the sale clerk’s attention which is same with English speaker “excuse me” or “sorry”. However, to get the sale clerk’s attention, Vietnamese people usually address the person with Vietnamese pronouns that state their sex and age such as “Chị ơi!” (meaning a female who is older than the person speaking, which is kind of the same meaning and pronunciation as Chinese “姐姐” but does not have to be family member）or “Anh ơi” （meaning a male who is older than the person speaking,same with “哥哥” but does not have to be family member).
To decline the sales clerk's promotion, I think that English, Mandarin and Vietnamese speaker often say sorry and reject the offer.

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Lesson 9 is probably one of my favorite lessons so far, since I found it very practical. Learning how to describe clothing items by color, size, length, price, etc. and how to communicate with the salesperson is so fun, and I look forward to using these knowledge when I have the chance to go shopping in China. Also, through the videos, I noticed that the salesperson in China responds to customers' needs very quickly, which I found it convenient but sometimes it might be a little bit annoying. Overall, I enjoy learning this lesson!

In terms of haggling over prices, I think China and Vietnam are similar. In Vietnam, bargaining is a big thing and sometimes if we don't bargain, we may end up buying overpriced items (usually happens in markets and small retail stores). However, as usual, we cannot bargain when the prices are set (like in supermarkets or brand name stores).

I'm not sure how it works in China, but in Vietnam, we sometimes can exchange but mostly cannot return an item. In terms of payment, majority of Vietnamese people still perceive cash as the main mean of payment, and only middle or higher class own a credit/debit card/using e-payment; whereas in China, it is very common to use mobile payment such as WeChat pay. In Canada, the most popular e-payment method is Apple pay.

In China, it seems like the salesperson will usually approach you first by saying "欢迎光临“, and you don't really need to do anything to get their attention. The same thing with Vietnam, as you just walk into the store, look around and there will be a clerk approaching you. To stop a salesperson from promoting an item, I think for both China and Vietnam, we just politely tell them that we are not interested, start with "对不起。。。” or "No thanks."

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1. Lesson 9 was very useful because shopping for necessities/clothes are crucial in any situation. It was especially fun and helpful because we also learned colours and measure words of specific objects (ex: shirts, pants). Unlike English, where we use words such as "a pair of ___" or just refer to clothes with  its quantity (ex: 2 shirts), it was nice to know all words that engage with shopping. Through lots of practice, I felt confident in speaking and reading, and felt ready to speak Chinese as a customer at a clothing store. Also, I really liked that we were able to practice the parts of the merchandiser/ store worker as well because it helped bring more to the conversation.

2.

Do people haggle over prices in stores?

I have never seen people haggling over prices in Canada or any Western region. However, I have seen lots of price haggling in Eastern countries, like China and Korea. Even so, I feel that the places I've seen where people haggle over prices in China and Korea were very traditional and old markets and stores.
Having been brought up from Korea, and seeing my aunt work in a fashion-related field, I feel that there are cultural differences in how people see and treat money. Due to the fact that Korea is very small and cities are very packed, there are always competitions between stores. This results to extremely frequent sales, which extend over a lot period of time. If you do not lower prices to meet the public's satisfaction, there is no chance that you will make profit or survive from the industry. I think this is similar to China; although China is a huge country, industries are packed with people and results to a lot of deals and engagements of money. This is very infrequent in Canada, because mass-produced fashion goods are rarer here and there is less of a competition in money. Canada also doesn't have that many small businesses such as China or Korea, which makes price haggling pretty much impossible.

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I have liked studying this lesson's content. I was looking forward to learning the colours, and I'm glad we did that. Learning how to talk about prices and clothing is also useful for conversing with my friends. More and more, it feels like I could kind of get by if I were to travel to a Chinese-speaking region. It's too bad that this unit was cut short, but I'm looking forward to resuming our studies tomorrow!

1. People do not commonly haggle over goods in Canada. However, there is haggling over certain low-volume, high-price goods, such as cars or appliances. Bulk purchases, or business-to-business purchases also involve haggling.
2. Merchandise can usually be exchanged or refunded, this is the general expectation. Some stores do not offer exchanges or refunds, and others may restrict these benefits during certain promotions or on certain items.
3. People usually pay with their credit or debit cards. Most people see those methods as more convenient. Cash is used for small purchases. Some stores may not accept card payments to keep their administrative costs low. Apple Pay is the most popular e-Payment platform in Canada. E-Payment technology seems to be more developed in China, and there are more platforms on the market, such as AliPay or Samsung Pay
4. In English, you would say "Hey, can you please help me?" to get a clerk's attention. In China, the expectation seems to be that clerks follow you, and you don't need to get their attention. Clerks start off customer interactions with "huan ying guang lin (欢迎光临)".

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1. In my opinion, Lesson 9 has been challenging due to the wide range of vocabulary (measurement words, colours, types of clothing, and other retail related vocabulary). One thing that I'm still struggling with is the grammar point of how to count money in Chinese； where in English terms 块 is dollar， 毛 is every ten cents, 分 is individual cents. In English we would simply say $9.15 not 9 dollars, 1 ten cents (dime) , and 5 one cents (pennies).

2. In China and other parts of Asia it is socially acceptable for customers to directly tell the employee the price is too expensive, to which the employee will then lower the price. Whereas, in North America, prices are at a set price and directly telling the employee "the price is too expensive" is seen as rude.

In Canada, return and exchange policies vary depending on the store. In general, stores will offer some form of return and some from of exchange. For example, in some stores, they will take returns but will not offer money back, instead you will be given "in store credit" (the money will be put back onto a gift card, so you can only spend it at that exact store). Other restrictions such as condition of the item, when the item was purchased and sale prices are also valid.

In Canada, usually people will pay by card or Apple Pay, since people find it inconvenient/unsafe to be carrying so much cash around. Of course, there are still places where only cash is accepted due to less business, taxes, and other concerns. In China, my friend told me that instead of Apple Pay, people use WeChat pay. WeChat is a social media app; you can transfer money on there and use your phone to complete transactions. As far as I know cash is often used to pay smaller amounts, debit/credit is used to pay larger amounts, and cheque is used to pay the largest amounts (or when completing transactions through mail).

Usually in English, you would say "excuse me" or "Pardon" in order to get the sales person's attention. In terms of interaction, you would just call the sales person "miss/ma'am, mister/sir" based on their age and gender. Customers are often made aware of sales and promotions through online platforms, in store banners, and the employee themselves. In big stores, employee's will simply do their job of restocking the products, etc. and it is your job to request for help. However, in smaller/higher class stores, employee's will question whether or not the customer is looking for something specific.

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1. Watching these videos was useful to me because I could hear how an actual sale in Chinese would sound like. I think that we learn very useful things in this course like how to invite someone to dinner, making appointments, etc, and learning how to go shopping is also another useful thing to know. If one day, I go to China and want to buy things, now I know how! Since we role played a lot in class, I feel that we can all go to a store and ask for what we are looking for.

2. In Western culture, there isn't really a certain name that we address different service workers as. If we want to get the attention of a salesperson or a server, I think that we usually say "Excuse me, sir/ma'am..." whereas in Chinese, there is 售货员 and 服务员. Also, in Western places there is almost no haggling or bargaining prices, as usually if there is a price tag on something you would either take it or leave it. This differs from China where bargaining takes place in street-side stalls and small shops. I think this is quite a difference in culture, as I would feel very uncomfortable and weird if I were to haggle the price at a shop but for Chinese people, it is quite normal.

People in Canada pay money with all methods but I feel that paying with card is the most popular method (and also the one I use th most). Since it's more convenient than carrying a bunch of cash everywhere, card and e-payment are probably more common than cash. However, I know there are some restaurants here who only take cash.

In Canada/Western places, it is quite common for items to be exchanged or returned, as there is a set price on the item that is usually paid with by card or some type of virtual payment, which then makes it easier to transfer the money back if needed. It seems that returning items in Chinese culture would not be as common, as there are bargained prices to be thought about which would probably make the process not as easy.

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1. I think Lesson 9 was very useful in the way that we learned a lot of practical Chinese vocabulary and grammar. I think people are  highly likely to use this lesson in day to day lives. I liked how the oral presentations allowed us to practice engaging in a full dialogue rather than just stating random Chinese sentences.

2. - In Canada, usually the price you see is the price you get unless you go to specific places to bargain. Something that I noticed in Hong Kong when I go there is that bargaining can take place in any environment. Some people would think that it can only take place on street side booths, but sometimes even in the mall people bargain. It all depends on the environment/ location you are in

In Canada, most places usually have a return policy that allows customers to return a product as long as the tag is still on. I think when it comes to China or hong kong, you cannot return items as easily unless you get them from a major retailer. If you were to buy them from a street booth or an independently owned small Buisness I doubt you would be able to return anything.

In Canada, people mostly use their cash or credit cards. Even though most places take tap and Apple Pay, some people dont seem to want to upgrade even though its much more convenient. In china/ Hong Kong, mobile payment methods seem to be the most convenient and common.

In English, to acknowledge a sales person, we usually use “excuse me”, im guessing in Chinese something similar would be used. Maybe “请问“. To decline a sales person’s offer I usually say “its okay” or “no thanks”. In Chinese I guess they would have a similar term. Maybe “不用“ （probably a little harsh)

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I think that learning shopping vocabulary is incredibly useful! In the videos, I noticed that people really do try to negotiate prices. I’ve learned that especially in Chinese culture, saving money through bargaining is very important. I would say that it is uncommon in Canada for people to bargain with businesses. As everything has a written, set price and people usually accept it without question.

In Chinese speaking areas, merchandise isn’t returned or exchanged as it is usually purchased with bargained price. People pay for items with cash in Chinese speaking areas. However, in Canada it is common for people to used their debit or credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and other forms of e-transfer. I think this is because in Chinese culture, the physical handling of money/being able to see and feel the money may be more reassuring or satisfying for the salesperson/business.

To get the attention of a sales clerk in English, I would say “Excuse me.”/“Hello”. In Chinese, I would say “你好吗？”/”请问。。。”. To decline or stop a sales clerk from their promotion, I would say, “对不起，不，谢谢”。

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From what I have gathered, most of the shopping experience is similar in both China and here in Canada. When customers walk in, they would be greeted with 欢迎光临， and they would be asked what items they are looking for specifically. One noticeable difference between the countries is the act of bargaining. Here in Canada, there is absolutely no wiggle room for customers of a shop to haggle with the prices. If we see an item, we know that we must pay that price unless otherwise stated by the sales signs or tags. In China, especially in small street shops, customers are able to haggle with the shop owners to bring the price down. They often talk in an extremely friendly tone, and say things such as "你是我的朋友“ to try and appease the shop owners - and most of the time, it does work and they get a discount!

From what I have gathered from background knowledge, I don't believe that items can be returned or exchanged in China. They are often final sale, therefore, customers must make sure that they are pleased with the items that they are purchasing before they leave the store. Here in Canada, returning/exchanging items are extremely common, as long as they are returned or exchanged within a certain period of time.

People pay through many different methods, they use 现金、信用卡、WeChat pay in China. Many methods of Chinese payment has also entered into our Western society. Many retail shops and restaurants now accept WeChat Pay, Alipay, and even Union pay, on top of using 现金 and 信用卡.

In Canada, we wouldn't address sales associates/clerks with 售货员, as we would just get their attention by saying "Excuse me" and continue on explaining what we want. The way to decline promotions would be the same in both countries/langugages as we would just say "不用" or "no thank you

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1) The learning experience for lesson 9 was very fun. I believe the topic is very useful, especially for international students. As China is very large and there are many Chinese speaking countries, travelling and shopping is very common. Therefore, this topic will be very useful. Additionally, the content in Chapter 9 was also very convenient and useful for everyday life, such as colours, sizes, pricing etc. Additionally, the exercises done in class such as role playing made the chapter even more fun to learn!

2) In china, it is very common to haggle over prices certain markets. In my home country (Mongolia), it is also the same. People can haggle over prices in certain markets, most commonly the black market, however in big department stores, it is considered rude and unmannerly. In comparison to these asian cultures, it is not common for customers to haggle over prices in western countries such as Canada and the US.

From my experience and perspective, in all 3 cultures, it is common for people to exchange or return products only at bigger and known department stores with receipts. However,  it is uncommon to return or exchange products at small stores. I believe this is a similarity between western culture and asian culture.

I have noticed there are differences in payment methods in different countries. For example, in Canada, it is now uncommon for people to use cash and cheques. People mostly use credit/debit card, or e-payments. I believe people use cheques only with very large payments, and cash for very small payments such as less than 5 dollars, mostly using coins. Contrasting to this, I believe in  Mongolia and China, it is common to use cash, credit/debit cards and e-payments. However it is very uncommon to use cheques. For example, in China many people connect their wechat account to their bank, allowing them to e-transfer from wechat. However, in Mongolia and Canada, e-payments are made directly through online banking accounts. I believe this makes it very simple.

All 3 cultures have different phrases of seeking attention from sales clerks. However, all 3 cultures show politeness when seeking attention. For example in Canadian and US culture, people typically say 'excuse me' when seeking attention. Similarly, in Chinese we say, ‘请问’。 请 directly translates to ’please‘ or asking for a favour. 问 directly translates to 'question', however, combining the two translates to 'excuse me'. In Mongolian, we commonly use the phrase 'Уучлаарай'. This directly translates to 'i'm sorry', however within context can be used to say excuse me. Therefore, although the direct translations all differ between the 3 cultures, the context and politeness of it remains the same.

To decline a sales clerk, there is a difference between western culture & asian culture. In Canada and US, it is common for people to say 'No, thank you' or 'I'm okay, thank you'. However, in asian cultures it can sound more abrupt. An example of this is ‘不用’, which directly translated to Mongolian will be the same. Therefore, although asian culture can sound more rude and abrupt, it is considered normal.

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Leave at least 3 positive comments or/and questions in English after reading three peer's posts. Don't forget to leave your full name as well.

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1. You have learned a lot about shopping in Lesson 9. Please watch the videos of the lesson. After watching the video, please share your learning experiences of this lesson with laoshi and classmates.

2. Read Lesson 9 Culture Highlights on pg.248. You could also watch Lesson 9 Cultural Minutes video on Canvas (L9_Culture Minute) for more information and/or interview your Chinese-speaking friends. Compare between Chinese and English/your native culture and comment on at least one or more of the following aspects.

Do people haggle over prices in stores?

Can merchandise usually be returned or exchanged?

How do people pay for their purchases: in cash, with a check, or with a credit card, or with e-payment methods? What popular e-payment methods are there in Chinese speaking areas and here in Canada?

What expression(s) or sentences do you use to get the attention of a sales clerk in Chinese and English/your native language? How to address a sales clerk in Chinese? What expression(s) or sentences do you use to decline and/or stop a sales clerk from his/her promotion?

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Compared to Chinese culture in terms of letter format, my native culture - Vietnam - has exactly the same way of addressing someone and closing the letter. For example, in both cultures, we both say the recipient's name at the beginning; wish that person the best and sign our name at the end. However, the only difference is that in Vietnam, people write the dates at the very beginning, while the Chinese write the dates at the very end of the letter.

I also noticed the difference between school systems in 2 cultures. Although China and Vietnam both are on a semester system, in Vietnam, we don't get a winter break since there is no winter in our country. Also, a fall semester in Vietnam starts from mid-August to the end of December, and the spring semester begins right away at the beginning of January to the end of May. While for China, the fall semester lasts from late August to mid-January, then winter break, Chinese New Year, and the spring semester continues from mid-February to early July. The only long break Vietnam gets is 2 weeks off for Chinese New Year around late January to early February.

In terms of modesty, Vietnamese people also stress it as much as Chinese people do. For example, when people receive compliments, Chinese will say, "哪里哪里 "(where, where?)，and Vietnamese will say something similar like "No, I'm not." Growing up in Vietnamese culture, I was taught to be humble, never show off my achievements, and don't take the others' compliment as it will come across as arrogant. It was until when I am older that I'm starting to respond "thank you" when someone compliments me.

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One of the main differences in letter format compared to English and Chinese is that there is no "dear.." or "to.." in Chinese like we have in English. We usually use "dear...," or "to...," in English but in Chinese it is their name then ":", which I think is very specific. The same for the ending, in English depending on who we are talking to we would change the ending of our letters however in Chinese it is always their relationship with you, your name, then 敬上, followed by "I wish you..." which is something we do not do in English.
The school semesters in China and Taiwan seem to be relatively close with Canada's semesters, but there are differences in major breaks such as winter or spring break. In China or Taiwan, because Lunar New Year is one of the main holidays, their long breaks seem to be later than ours which are during Christmas. And because of the later break, it seems like their spring and summer semesters start/end slightly later than ours as well.
In China, which is similar to other Asian countries, it seems to be the norm to be very humble. For example, if someone complimented you, instead of saying thank you or "acknowledging" the compliment like we do in Canada or the US, I find it to be much more of an Asian thing to be very humble and almost deny what is said to you. "your Chinese is very good" "oh, it isn't at all, it's not very good I still have a long way to go.."

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Something I found interesting is how we start letters in chinese. In english we.usually just say dear [name], but in Chinese we say [name]:.

In class a difference between my Chinese class and my other classes in Canada is we end class with 下课 and start classes by saying 上课。Also I noticed when I am in vietnam, students are still in school during the summer months where as in Canda we get the summer months off.

In Chinese it interesting to see how people humble themselves after being complimentented. I feel like in Canada we just say thank you, or return the compliment rather than being modest. But also I notice when I am being complimented in speaking Vietnamese I find myself replying instead of with thank you
but with "no, not at all". I never noticed this difference until comparing it to Chinese modesty.

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It was cool to learn that when we start letters in Chinese we just start with their name, rather than a sort of greeting. It makes the letter sound more professional in a way, sort of like addressing a coworker or a boss. The common form of closing a letter was to state your relation to the person, which I guess is somewhat similar to English. For example, going like "Your Friend.."

I have noticed that when you get complimented in Chinese, the most common response is to be humble. However since I've only been able to listen to these conversations in the workbook audio, I'm not sure exactly how people respond. In English it is somewhat the same, but however between friends there is definitely a sort of joking arrogance. For me personally, if someone responds similar to the way they do in Chinese it would make me a little less at ease compared to if they were joking, because it seems a little too polite for my taste.

Universities in China are similar to Canada as they run on a semester system, however they are a little longer. They do get a month long break centered around Chinese New Years; where as ours is mainly centered around Christmas.

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In English, you generally open a letter with a greeting like “Dear [receiver’s name],” or “Hi  [receiver’s name],” depending on the context of the letter. A Chinese letter opens with “[receiver’s name]:” and the greeting comes in a new sentence below. In English, you do not always express your relationship to the recipient at the end of the letter but rather at the beginning of the letter. For example, if you were writing an email to a professor you might say something like “Dear professor, I am a student in your course….”. In closing a Chinese letter, you end with 祝您...  , which is a formal way of wishing someone the best. At the end of your letter in proper Chinese form,  you leave your name as “[relationship to receiver]Name敬上” all on the same line. In English, you would typically leave your name on a line below “sincerely,”.

In Canadian universities, breaks are based on major North American holidays like Christmas.  Unlike in Canada, the winter break for Chinese university students is a month long and is based on  Chinese New Years so their break between terms is from mid-January to mid-February. Canadian universities are also on a semester basis, however, they have shorter terms from early September to mid December (term 1) and early January to late in April (term 2). Some Chinese universities end their second semester in early July so there is a shorter length between different school years.

I think expressions of modesty are appropriate and common in all cultures. In English, often people take compliments by saying something like “oh thank you” or “you flatter me” (I prefer to say the former). 哪里哪里 is a humble way to deny a compliment in Chinese. Also, in Chinese, I find that there is more of a concern about addressing people by the correct titles. For example, instead of saying “Mr. Wang” in addressing your teacher you say “王老师” and you address them in the second person more formally with 您.

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1. It was interesting to know that when writing letters Chinese, we don't really start with Dear (Name), as how we do in English. Instead in Chinese, we just state their name first. I think that makes the beginning of the letter more formal. In Mongolian, we have different versions of 'Dear' that people use depending on the relationship the letter writer has with the receiver. How the person usually wishes well at the end of the letter is similar to how Mongolians also end their letters on.

2. In terms of college and university's semester system, I find it similar to how universities are also structured in Mongolia. In Mongolia, the winter break is also long (at least 1-2 months), so students can go back to parents to celebrate the Lunar year/White Moon Festival (similar to Chinese New Year) at the end of the first semester. Universities also end later than how they end in Canada and the U.S. The second semester usually continue till late June, and the summer break is relatively shorter in comparison to ones in Canada. I personally like the fact that we have a longer summer break here. The Winter Weather is really unattractive in Vancouver, so I like that our winter break is short but our summer break is 4 full months.

3. In regards to modesty, both Mongolian and Chinese language have words to use when talking to people with different status. It's really important to show respect when talking to an older person. I feel like in English, there is more free room to express yourself when talking to older people, or to those who have higher status than you. Being humble is also one of the traits that is well respected in both Chinese and Mongolian culture, so it's really common for people to shy away from compliments, or to refute it politely.

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1.     For the letter format in Chinese, I found it interesting how the name of the person is the very first things that goes on the letter. For in English, it is usually customary to introduce their name with either “Dear” or a simple “hello”

2.      What I found interesting about the overall school system is that while having similar structure, the times for breaks are quite different. Western institutions appear to situation their holidays around Christmas for example while Chinese institutions base holidays around Lunar New year. I’ve also found that western universities tend to hold much longer summer holidays on average.

3.     I think expressions of modesty are both culturally appropriate in both Chinese and English. At least when it comes to English, modesty many times is not shown through particular phrases. Oftentimes in English, modesty is presented through what people do not say. For I know many English speakers look down on people for simply talking to much, especially if they are always talking about oneself.

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Writing letters in English start with the an opener (Hello, Dear, To Whom it May Concern) followed by the name of the person the letter is going to. This is different from Chinese where letters begin with the persons name, a colon, and a line break. I noticed that this means in order to write a letter in Chinese the sender must know the name of the person they are writing too. We have not learned an equivalent too, "To Whom it May Concern" in Chinese. At the end Chinese letters tend to end with "祝好“which means best wishes, the name of the sender, and the date. In English letters end with a phrase that is important to establishing the overall tone of the letter. I think this is similar to Chinese because although there are different phrases used to end an email, they serve the same purpose of establishing tone.

Differences in the school systems include time length and breaks. Western institutions use quarters and semesters while Chinese institutions typically use semesters. Chinese semesters tend to be longer than western ones, by starting earlier in the fall and going later in the spring with a longer winter break. Their winter break also aligns with the Lunar Calendar and Chinese New Year, whereas Western Calendars typically align with Christmas and New Years Eve. Western school systems, for example the University of Washington, also have quarter semesters which are all equal in length and include fall, spring, winter, and summer. This is different compared to the University of British Columbia for example, who has two winter semesters and two summer semesters. Both of these are different compared to Chinese semesters.

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1. The formatting between Chinese and English is similar to some extent. In the beginning of the letter, we address the name of the receiver. However, in English, we have a specific phrase "Dear [receiver name]" whilst, in Chinese, we do not need to use 'dear' but rather only insert the receiver's name.

2. In my native culture, Japan, the academic term works on a trimester where March or spring time is the graduation ceremony, with the new semester around the beginning of April, and therefore, a shorter summer break. Whereas, in western cultures such as US and Canada, the academic term is semester-based, with both a long semester and summer break. Additionally, Chinese cultures also have semester-based academic terms. Though all cultures have different academic terms, a lot of the academic term is interrupted with cultural-based holidays (Golden week in Japan, Lunar New Year in China, and Christmas break for western culture).

3. In all cultures, expressions of modesty are practiced in consideration of making decisions about when, where and who you are with. Perhaps in both Chinese and my native language Japanese, there are specific terms and phrases that emphasize modesty and status differences between the speaker and listener. However, in English, modesty is practiced when you are able to articulate of how you speak your thoughts and opinions as you still use the same words as you do with your peers.

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One of the main differences between writing a letter in Chinese compared to English is the format. In Chinese, there is a very specific format to start and end a letter e.g. using ':' after addressing who you are writing to instead of a coma. The way you end a letter is also very specific. You have to address your relation to the person you are writing to e.g. dress yourself as student if writing to your teacher.
Universities in mainland China and Taiwan are on the semester system similar to Canada, but they finish their first semester in late January whilst we finish our first semester in the beginning of December. Similarly they start they're second semester later than us and finish later too!

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During this lesson, we focused our attention on the formatting of letters. Despite having many similarities, there are also vast differences. One of the major differences was the usage of 祝好. In English, we would conclude a letter by using "Love, name" or "Sincerely, name". 祝 zhu4 means to wish someone well and especially as it is written at the end of a letter to a companion is more formal as compared to English. Another difference that I can point out is how writers of Chinese letters open the conversation. Instead of using "Hello/Hey", they directly open with using the receivers name such as "小王".

In conversation especially, it shows that Chinese people place a high value on being modest. When being complimented, Chinese people don't accept the complement, but rather reply with ”哪里哪里", which is a way to brush off a complement. Respect is also a major aspect of Chinese conversation. If the speaker respects their respondent, they will refer to them as 您.

Canadian Universities consist of two semesters, with the option of two extra semesters in the summer. The first semester of the academic year typically starts at the beginning of September and ends at the end of November. The second semester of the academic year starts after the new calendar year and ends in April. Regarding UBC specifically, we only have a reading break in the second semester that runs for a week. The purpose of the reading break is so that students will have a break from constantly having to be on campus to learn new material but rather study for midterms without the distractions of other classes looming over their heads.

China's Universities across the country have an extended break during January/February for the sole purpose of celebrating their culture - Chinese New Year.

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I noticed that letter format between Chinese and English is fairly similar, but one thing which catches my attention is that in English we usually place something along the lines of "best regards" or "love" or something before placing our names at the end of a letter, whereas in Chinese you say your relation to the reader instead, e.g. 学生以文。
I have also noticed that people seem to humble themselves after receiving compliments in both languages, but it seems to me that in Chinese (based off of watching Chinese historical dramas) it is much more common to humble yourself to quite a large extent, even perhaps refuting a compliment to an extent, whereas in Texas I would usually just accept compliments and thank the person giving them to me. You can also see this with the phrase we learned, 哪里哪里。

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1.     When using Chinese to write a letter, it is slightly different from writing in English. In Chinese, you simply put the recipient’s name instead of writing “Dear Joe…” like you would in English. Also, the ending of the letter is a bit different as in Chinese, you wouldn’t say something like “Thank you for your time,” but instead would wish the recipient well. For example, “祝您有美好的一天” or "祝好." In Chinese, you would also want to end your letter by stating your relationship with the recipient by putting something like "你的朋友..." or "学生."

2.     Post-secondary institutions, like in North America, are on semester systems but the semesters are longer than ones here by about three weeks. The semesters are arranged so that students can have a month-long break during Chinese New Year in late January or early February. On the other hand, in North America the winter break is placed so students don’t have school during Christmas and New Year’s Eve which are holidays that are generally celebrated more by the West.

3.     I think that modesty is culturally appropriate for both Chinese and Western culture as well as many other cultures. I feel that it is a more prominent part of Chinese culture than Western culture, however. When speaking Chinese, someone might say “哪里哪里” in response to a compliment they get, or they might want to reject the compliment in order to be more humble or modest. However, in Western culture I feel that people don’t really do this anymore and instead opt to accept the compliment and say, “Thank you,” in response.

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Differences in letter format:
In Chinese, letters begin with the person name of the person you are addressing, followed by a colon and then the greeting. The sender then reveals the purpose for the letter. Lastly, the writer wishes the person the best of luck with events, stating their relationship to the person and their name, 敬上, and the date.
However, in English the introduction of the letter usually begins with a "Dear, hi, hey (so and so)". The writer will typically introduce themselves at the beginning and end of the letter instead of just the end. Lastly, the writer often concludes with either love, from, sincerely, best wishes, etc. (this will depend on the person's relationship with the recipient).

Differences in School Systems:
Chinese and North American school systems both follow the semester system. However, while the Chinese school system splits up 2 semesters of simply fall and spring the North American school system splits the school year into 4 semester; 2 in the Winter term and 2 in the Summer term. In North American post secondaries, students have the option of taking courses in the Summer. The 2 Summer semesters are shorter than the Winter semesters as they are divided amongst the four months of May - August.
Another difference between the two cultures is the time length of each semester. Chinese institutions follow the Lunar Calendar and therefore encompasses the celebrations that follow after Chinese New Year. This means that their Winter break is longer than North American post secondaries and pushes back the Chinese Spring semester. Their semester is also 3 weeks longer than a typical semester in North America.

Expressions of Modesty:
Expressions of modesty are most certainly deemed culturally appropriate in both English and Chinese. In Chinese, there are terms that are used in more formal settings or when we are talking to another person respectively. For example "您" vs. "你" and “你是哪位？“ vs. "你是谁？“. In English, the way we talk to family and close friends is different from the way we present ourselves in a professional setting. For example, we may use more slang when conversing with people our own age (call them nick names or "dude") while towards strangers we speak more politely. (Call them "sir" or mam")

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In English, most letters open with “Dear [person’s name,]”. In Chinese, the “dear” is omitted, and the person’s name is followed by a colon and a line break, where the content of the letter begins. Chinese letters often conclude with “祝好” (“best wishes”), split across two lines in a unique format not seen in English letters. English letters usually have a similar message, but without the line break. Both languages include the writer’s name at the end of the letter, on a line of its own.

The Chinese postsecondary semester sounds more intense than the Canadian or American one. With three extra weeks, an earlier beginning, and later finish, the Chinese fall semester reflects a more challenging educational system. The winter gap between the two main semesters is longer, and seems to coincide with Chinese New Year. The spring semester is a similar length to the fall semester, and runs until early July. Presumably, Chinese and Taiwanese universities do not offer a summer semester because of the longer duration of their two main semesters.

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When writing a letter, there are some differences between when writing in Chinese versus English. In English, you start off a letter or an email with greeting the person with “Hello” or “To... /whom it may concern”. In Chinese, it is a bit different where you always start with the receiver’s name. Also, in English, you usually follow the greeting with a comma to move onto the body of the text. In Chinese, you use a colon after the recipient’s name, not a comma. There are also some similarities in which in English you would usually close off a letter or email with “Thank you”, “Sincerely” or something to do with thanking the recipient. In Chinese, you would say 祝好 or 敬祝 which translates to “best wishes”/”wish you well”.

There are numerous differences between the Chinese university system and the American one. Firstly, the winter break here in Canada runs from December to the start of January. This is for Christmas and the western New Year. In China, the winter break instead runs a month later, from late January to early February as it falls during Chinese New Year. Another difference is that a semester in China is about three weeks longer than a semester here in Canada. Also, our summer break in Canada is a lot longer than in China. In Canada, we end our second semester around mid to the end of April and start the new semester in September. In China, they end in early July and start back at the end of August. This is not even 2 months, where in Canada we have about 4 months.

Modesty plays a huge role in the Chinese culture. There is a large stereotype of Chinese people being very shy and modest. In comparison, a lot of Chinese people view western people as outspoken and confident. Based on my experience, I have noticed that Chinese people tend not to brag about their accomplishments and don’t like receiving compliments as they don’t want to come across as better than anyone. This is quite different from the Western society as we are taught at a young age to never be afraid to voice your opinions and show everyone that you are proud of what we have accomplished. Neither of these are better in anyway, it simply just shows how growing up in different cultures can shape how you respond to situations.

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LETTER FORMAT:
There are differences between Chinese and English letter formats. Chinese usually write the person (whom they are writing the letter to)’s name and then a colon, while typically when I am writing to someone in English in the form of a letter or email casually I would write “Hello/Hi + the receiver’s name” or formally “Dear + the receiver’s name”. There is also a similarity. In Chinese, the common form of closing at the end of a letter is 祝好 ( i wish you well),敬上(yours truly, respect) which is quite similar to how we usually end a letter in English “Sincerely/yours truly/ thank you/best regards" depend on the formality of the letter.

UNIVERSITY:
In China, the fall semester starts from late August or early September goes until mid-January. Canadian universities’ fall semester also starts in early September however only lasts until end of December. Our winter break lasts only 2 weeks after our fall semester but Chinese university students have a month of winter break due to Chinese New Year which usually occurs around the end of January or early February. Our spring semester starts in early January and lasts until the end of April, however, in China, the spring semester is from mid-February to early July. We have a longer summer break which is about 4 months because the Chinese universities’ semester lasts around 3 weeks longer than Canadian universities.

MODESTY:
I think expression of modesty is appropriate in every culture because it is not something harmful, in most cultures it is a good thing to be modest. In Chinese, a way people express modesty, humbleness after being complimented by someone is using 哪里（it’s kind of you… or not at all). In English, we pretty much use the equivalent term as 哪里 (it’s really kind of you to say...,... )。

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What are the differences in letter format, addressing someone and common form of closing at the end of a letter?

The formatting for writing a letter in Chinese and English is very similar. In both Chinese and English you start by addressing the receiver of the letter. For example:
Dear Teacher Li or 李老师： 。。。
Similarly, in both languages you end with your name like "Sincerely, Misheel" or 学生赵敏。However. the difference here is that in Chinese you address your relationship between you and the receiver. In different letters the middle content of the letters vary, however in both languages it is important to greet them and put importance on how the receiver has been doing, then afterwards to continue to the content of the letter. Therefore, writing a letter in the 2 languages is very similar.

What are the differences in school systems in terms of the semester/term duration, from which month/date to which month/date, breaks, etc.?

In both western culture, and Chinese culture, it is common for the school year to be split into 2 semesters. However in Asian culture, and more importantly in Chinese culture, the winter break starts approximately a month later, in relation to the Chinese New Years. Western cultures end mid December to celebrate the New years. Similar to this, Chinese culture ends mid-January to alleviate for their New year. Additionally, I believe western cultures have longer semesters, and shorter breaks. The summer break in western cultures can run from approximately 3-4 months of break, whereas in Chinese Cultures, it can vary from 2-3 months.

Are expressions of modesty considered culturally appropriate in Chinese and English/your own culture? How do you express modesty in English/your native language(s)?

In my opinion, all cultures are appropriate for modesty. Being polite and modest can improve conversations, therefore in most languages I believe it is considered appropriate. In my culture, we place a lot of emphasis in modesty, similar to Chinese. I believe we are however more shy and introverted, whereas in western culture individuals are more confident in voicing their opinions throughout conversations. I believe the Chinese language is similar to my language in this sense. However, in modern days, it is common for the cultures to mix and match. An example of this is wen saying 'you're welcome'. In my language, we say a phrase similar to Chinese people saying 没问题“.

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1. When it comes to the format of letters and emails, in English I usually start with greeting, persons name, and a comma all on the same line. (Hi professor,) then after that I will add a few lines before starting my message. After the message is written, I usually end with something like (Thanks, {next line} Matthew). In Chinese, the layout seems to be a little similar with some exceptions. In Chinese my “,” after the recipients name would be replaced with “:”. Also like mentioned in the book, 祝 is placed at the end of the message on the same line and 好 is placed immediately on the next line.

In North America, fall semester starts in September and ends mid December. Spring semester begins early January and ends around mid April. According to the book its unsure if Chinese universities have reading breaks but the winter break seems to be somewhat in line with North American universities; focusing on celebrating the new year.

I think expressions of modesty are important in both English and Chinese in their respective ways. In Chinese terms like 您 are used in place of 你when talking about certain individuals. Although there are few examples of this in English, modesty is usually expressed in the way a message is written (more formal for certain people and more casual for friends)

2. With the midterm around the corner, I think that one of the main parts I will need to focus on is the use of words that are similar but cannot be used interchangeably. An example of this is 时候/ 时间 or 后来/以后。 Although these words have similar meanings, they can be wrong when used in the wrong situation. One thing I will do is go over the rules in the text and try to remember certain situations in when each term can be applied.

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I like to use Quizlet/flashcards to remember vocabulary. I also use the “yellowbridge” website linked in this course. I watch YouTube videos to help me better understand Mandarin sentence structure. I find that asking my Mandarin speaking friends for clarification about the language helps a lot. I try to practice speaking Mandarin with them often. I find that speaking Mandarin with friends is very helpful in terms of pronounciation and sentence structure and the flashcards are very helpful for remembering vocabulary.

I do notice that grades and academics are placed at a high value for Chinese-speaking students. My friend said that in China, school for her started at 7AM until 3PM, then she went to tuition classes until 7PM to study. She also said many of her other Chinese-speaking friends feel societal pressure as well as parental pressure to do well in school and have a successful career.

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I usually watch Chinese TV shows/variety shows to help with retention. The people on the shows of course speak very quickly so I am not able to understand a lot of what is being said, but it helps to use as a tool to get used to what a normal, native speaking speed is and is generally good to get exposure to languages I am learning. I will also look for shows that have English subtitles on them so that it is easier fir me to pick on terms or phrases I know, and if I go back I can listen again and understand the one part which helps both for listening and for a small confidence boost about my own learning skills. Also, things like TV shows will use a variety of grammar and terms which provides me with some exposure to the potential differences between grammar we learn and fluent grammar. I also find that even using it as background noise will help, since I am still hearing the language.
Almost all of my Chinese speaking friends are people that have only grown up in Canada and speak Mandarin at home so the way we see grades were very similar, but it does seem that they have higher expectations from family compared to the average student. This is not too unfamiliar to me since I was raised both in Japan and in Canada, so my family and culture over there is very grades-centered, and the stress about living up to those expectations can sometimes really get to students, especially if a family member has a prestigious career or went to a famous/brand name school.

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Overall, there was nothing I would consider a major difficulty in terms on studying Lesson 7. Since I was not returning from winter break, I did not need to try to catch up on old material as much as when I was learning lesson 6. As a result, I found lesson 7 to be much more manageable than lesson 6. As for one minor issue, for lesson 7 I found descriptive complements to be initially difficult to understand. I found it tough to properly place time-oriented vocab and proper verb order in such descriptive sentences. Yet with practice, I have been able to write descriptive complements more naturally.

I had the opportunity to ask one of my Chinese-Speaking friends this question on how his parents dealt with him and his grades. He made clear that in his particular family, parents expected him to maintain reasonably high grades throughout university, especially since they were helping him in paying a portion of his tuition. While one has to be careful to make claims about large groups of individuals, especially since there can be a wide array of differences in familial attitudes towards grades beyond the realm of language and culture, there is a definite feeling of Chinese-speaking families as being more strict on maintaining good grades compared to western counterparts.

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I found the sheer abundance of vocabulary difficult as I was still trying to pick up the vocabulary from lesson 6. I plan to improve by using the vocabulary and reviewing so I can recognize the characters more readily. I found the grammar rules for chapter 7 easier to pick up as compared to other lessons grammar rules such as 了。Also I find reviewing the comments left on my writing from 老师 and TAs helpful on improving my grammar.

I often use Google Translate and Chinese Youtube videos to learn new words when I can’t ask my friends for help. My friends all speak Cantonese but have taken Mandarin courses in highschool. I often go to them for help and if they are stumped they ask their parents who also speak Mandarin. I find having this outlet helpful as Google Translate is often inaccurate. Also I like to watch Chinese dramas with Chinese and English subtitles and see how many characters and sentence structures I can recognize. As well this helps me witness Mandarin in a more natural spoken form.

When I was speaking with one of my Chinese-speaking friends, they felt that getting good grades at UBC was important to please their parents. This shows the cultural difference as families often have a say in the education of immigrant students most of the time where many canadian parents often encourage their children to do what they enjoy. My Chinese-speaking often say their parents give them a narrow job choice of doctor, lawyer, or engineer. This may be due to the parents lack of opportunity and wanting their child to have what they consider to be the best career. My friend also stated in class they had to wear uniforms even if it was a public school and also they had to greet the teacher collectively before class.

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I enjoyed learning lesson 7, and I found that the vocabulary was not very difficult to remember - probably because it's so easily applicable to the experience of learning Chinese - but the grammar was a lot harder in my opinion! I keep confusing 得 and 的, and I keep reading 得 as 很！They look so familiar, and I'm finding that I'm starting to have more trouble recognizing certain characters. However, I've found that taking the time to write out the characters helps this. Some resources I've been using to practice Chinese are listening to youtube videos/podcasts of people speaking Chinese and trying to recognize certain words and phrases when people are talking fast. I've also used Chineasy, which is an app that helps you memorize characters by making them into pictures.

My Chinese friends at UBC and I seem to have similar attitudes towards homework, grades, and tests. We all value working hard and achieving academically. However, I always find it interesting to hear my Chinese friends talk about how intense high school in China is, how they'd go to school for hours and hours every day and have big tests every week.

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After Lesson 7, the thing I found most useful is that now I can ask my Chinese friends for help with homework (e.g. 你可以帮我练习中文吗?), tell them how good or bad my skills are (e.g. 我写汉字写得很慢), tell them which part I need practice on (写汉字, 说话, or 年课文, etc.), as well as arrange the time and place to meet for practicing（e.g. 我们早上八点在图书馆练习中文吧。) Also, I can tell my performance on exams before or after receiving help from them (我昨天考试考得很好）, and then reflect on my study habit to fix the problem (e.g. 因为我昨天没听录音，所以我考试考得不好）。For me, I found the vocabulary easy to remember since they are very practical and will be used a lot in everyday conversations; however, I found the grammar "就。。。了“ and "才” pretty confusing because the word orders are opposite to English grammar. For example, in English we say "I don't wake up until 8" but in Chinese we say "我八点才起床“ (I 8 o'clock 才 wake up) Although this lesson are quite hard in terms of grammar, I believe I can excel in this lesson by using these grammars over and over in every future writing tasks on Padlet.

To practice my listening skills, I usually watch Chinese dramas and learn from them how to speak naturally; sometimes I can actually understand some sentences they say! Also, I often spend 10 minutes a day to learn Chinese from the app Duolingo, which I highly recommend because it has a lot of fun, interactive exercises. Moreover, since I have a lot of Chinese friends, whenever they post a caption or a story in Chinese on Instagram, I would try to read and familiarize myself with the common characters that the native speakers use. Among those 3 methods, I found that watching dramas is the most effective way in facilitate my Chinese learning.

After interviewing and observing my Chinese-speaking friends, I notice that almost all of them care really much about grades, as they would do everything from getting a tutor to attending expensive crash courses to improve their marks. I think a factor contribute to this attitude would be because their parents put lots of pressures on them, since most of them are the only child of the family and also, their parents are investing a huge amount of money for them to study abroad and they cannot upset their parents. Compared to my native culture (Vietnamese), I would say there are less pressures on us because we are not the only child (mostly), but we still need to try our best to make our parents proud, and to deserve the amount of investment and expectations that our parents put on us.

I found that the classroom culture in China and Vietnam is quite similar. Both are extremely strict; for example, if we are late for class, we would not be allowed to enter the classroom and would be punished harshly. In terms of the way teachers communicate with students regarding their grades, in both Vietnam and China, teachers will public the ranking of each students to the whole class, praise the top students and somewhat criticize the bottom students. Although this method would pressure students to try harder and harder, it may make the other students feel discouraged. Overall, I think the classroom culture in Vietnam and China is very similar.

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I usually find learning new vocabulary not too hard, lesson 7 was no different, but learning the proper grammatical use of the new vocabulary is a bit harder. Since English is my first language, I still think in English when I try and write or speak Chinese phrases. As a result, I often try to directly translate English phrases into Mandarin and confuse the proper sentence structure. In Lesson 7, we learned to use 得 after verbs as a descriptive complement. Since there is no English equivalent, I found it a bit hard to remember how to properly use 得. I plan on reviewing the feedback on my past assignments for this lesson to see where I made errors and how to fix them.

I often find youtube and other Chinese videos online helpful and accessible for me in learning Chinese. I find that watching mandarin speaking youtubers (like Kevin in Shanghai) helps me learn more casual Chinese conversations. In addition, I can see the different contexts in which phrases we learned in class are being used.

When I asked one of my Chinese-speaking friends, she felt that getting good grades at UBC is important. We both were brought up to value education and have some pressure from our families to be successful in our academics. However, she has higher expectations for her grades than I do and to some extent feels more fear in disappointing her parents.  She grew up in Vancouver but also went to Chinese school.  She recalls that there were more formalities in addressing your teacher like standing up to greet the teacher at the beginning of class.

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1. I usually think i'm pretty good at memorizing Chinese vocabulary, and even though there was a lot in lesson 7 I believe that was still the easiest aspect of the lesson for me. For me, the hardest parts are probably learning proper sentence structure and being able to speak/process the material when spoken to me. I find reading characters to be a lot easier, though this may be a symptom of my method of rote memorizing characters to learn their meanings.

2. I generally think finding interesting Chinese media to naturally watch is the best way to expose myself to the language, so I watch probably pirated Chinese dramas that I find on YouTube. The subtitle translations can potentially be pretty iffy as they're usually fan made, but I try my best to follow and understand without them anyway. I'm currently watching Three Kingdoms, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of history or historical dramas, but it's a fairly slow paced show and each episode is long at about 50mins each.

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In order to improve on overall Chinese fluency I like to use various sources. I like to watch Chinese dramas, often repeating words or sentences that I have heard in this Chinese class. This way I also learn how to make my Chinese sound more fluent and casual. In my opinion the newer Chinese dramas are pretty bad, so I generally like the older ones. Some of my favourites were Boss and Me (杉杉来了), Love O2O (微微一笑很倾城） and Loving Never Forgetting (戀戀不忘). In order to improve on my writing and study vocabulary, I like to look up Quizlet cards to help me.

After interviewing my Chinese friend I found numerous differences in terms of the classroom and grade discussion. She said that in China, students are more likely to talk less in the classroom, whereas in Canada our classroom learning is highly interactive. In terms of grades, they don't have much privacy as grades are often listed on a board/plaque, whereas in Canada grades are more private. If the teacher is concerned about your grade standing, they will talk to you in private to help you improve. Grades are simply uploaded online and students decide who to share their grades with.

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1.     I am starting to notice some elements of grammar and words I learned in earlier chapters being brought back up again, now with better context to help me understand them in. However, I find that I’m starting to come across a lot of characters that I don’t always recognize and my reading is not very efficient, and I am struggling with recognizing new characters, or remembering the ones I have recently learned.

2.     I think YouTube can be really helpful, or just seeing and listening to Chinese in real life places. I am still very nervous with face-to-face, though this can be helpful, it can also freak me out sometimes. Talking with classmates is easier since you can practice more without worrying if you are perfect.

1.     We all seem to worry about grades the same, though it seems that the expectations for a Chinese-speaking student are a bit higher, increasing the stress. It could be due to the fact that China is very competitive, and Asian students are often regarded to be “smart” by other people that they constantly have to live up to these expectations.

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1. To me, Chinese grammar is really hard to grasp because it’s so different from what I am used to. I speak fluent English and Korean, but Chinese grammar is nothing like either. I think I have a hard time placing and putting together the sentence structure. However, I think it gets easier as I practice. I think it’s really important to hear and speak the language, and perfect myself with the vocabulary so that speaking comes easily.

2. There is a Korean YouTuber who makes videos on common phrases and words in dramas, newspapers, and music. She also has lots of videos on explaining Chinese traditions. She’s also very funny and patient (she repeats the same phrase over and over again so the viewers can practice).

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I use the app called ‘HelloChinese’, ‘Hanzi’, and ‘Hanzi Oracle’, and website called purpleculture.net. I like how they show the order of character strokes, and help me with the pronunciation. In every lesson, I still find the tones pretty hard. It’s easy for me to read when I’m looking at the pinyin because I know the tones, but when I read from the characters I sometimes have trouble remembering the tone. So I think I should work more on my tone memorization. I think watching youtube vlogs/movies of native mandarin speakers will help me to get a sense of how they use the language in everyday life. In lesson 7, I found the usage of 得 really interesting.

I don’t think I’ve noticed any difference between Chinese-speaking students at UBC and other students in terms of their attitude towards grades. People think Asians are really serious about their grades, but many of my Chinese-speaking friends are pretty chill about their grades. I think how teachers communicate with students in my Chinese-speaking class and my native culture is pretty similar. Both classes are heavy lecture-based with minimal discussion.

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I like learning Chinese. Personally, I find it easy to learn and remember new Chinese vocabulary. By this point, I have a solid understanding of pronunciation and initials/finals, so its easy to commit new vocabulary to memory. I find word order to be particularly hard to understand. Sometimes, it can be hard to determine the precedence of words in a sentence, such as “zai”, time words, and “changchang”. I can make improvements by practicing writing, and looking at examples. So far, my Chinese-speaking friends have been very useful. I chat with them, whether in person or online, and they can critique the Chinese I’ve learned, and offer advice on word choice and my pronunciation.

I spoke with one of my Chinese friends at UBC. She and I largely have the same attitude towards grades, which is that they are important, and the hard work required to improve them is worth it. However, I am more self-motivated, and her parents tend to push her more to get good grades. My teachers, at least in postsecondary, don’t appear to be concerned with the individual grades of their students. While I’m sure they value quality learning, I think that they are too busy to communicate individually with students regarding marks.

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1. For lesson 7, the grammar was the more difficult part compared to the vocabulary. The grammar individually is not too difficult, but when you add them together to make more complex sentences it becomes difficult.

2. I think the most useful recourse would be talking to Chinese friends. The only problem with this is sometimes native speakers speak more naturally compared to the textbook style we learn. Other than that I find talking/ texting my Chinese friends useful.

1. For my Chinese friends at least, they still seem to care about grades as much as I do. There doesn’t seem to be any significant differences.

2. I think when it comes to communicating about grades, both students in Chinese speaking areas and my native culture are similar. Usually as long as the student has a question, the teacher can be and will reply either in person or via email. I’m not too sure about the differences between the classrooms when it comes to Chinese vs. English speaking classrooms. One potential difference might be the number of students per class. I’m not certain but from some images I’ve seen, it seems like the Chinese classes are usually a bit bigger.

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1. Aspects of learning I find difficult is the grammar. This is often due to the similarity of the phrases and therefore, easy to confuse. For instance, the different use of 一点（儿） and 有一点（儿）where 一点 is  used to modify a noun and 有点儿 is used to modify a negative adjective. How I try to avoid this confusion is to practice and memorize the use of these phrases by writing my own sentences down.

Aspect of learning I find easy is the vocabulary. I feel that a lot of the vocabulary is repetitive, especially the vocabulary for Dialogue II. For instance, 早 and 早上, and 上课 (where both characters 早 and 上 are reused in a different vocabulary). Another aspect of learning I found tolerable is the tone of the characters, as we often practice saying it out aloud during class.

2. A way I learn Chinese is to become used to hearing the language. In other words, to listen to Chinese music and watch Chinese tv shows. I find this useful because I am constantly exposed to the language. I also try to speak Chinese with my friends and family. To make learning fun, my family and I often play a game where we are only required to speak Mandarin throughout the conversation.

Interview:

1. The student said they felt no differences as they usually do not pay attention.
2. The student mentioned that TA's often have their office hours for students to discuss about their grade(s). However, students have to come with a valid reason to have a remark, often a time consuming task. With a big lecture, it is difficult to have one-on-one time between student and professor and therefore, there must be a considerable amount of time on the process of grade-related favors.

Positive comments:
1) I found interesting how Evan has mentioned the different ways that we ask for favors between Chinese and where he comes from (Texas) in which the favor is more simple and direct. Whereas, this contradicts to Japan where I come from and Chinese.
2) I found it interesting how Vi mentioned that in Vietnamese, you switch the teacher and teacher name.
3) I found it interesting how Kate mentioned that in Chinese culture, the teacher-to-student relationship is much more formal which is very similar to Japanese culture as well. After class, the teacher would say "下课!" which is similar to how in Japan, the teacher would say "起立（Kiritsu)” which means to 'stand up'

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I found that Lesson 7 gave me a lot of new useful vocabulary. For example, the new measure words, 张 and 枝 I found very interesting as we don’t have anything like this in English. In English, you would only say “one pen” or “10 pens” and there is no need for a measure word. I also found that we learned a lot of useful adjectives that I now use a lot such as 慢，难，多 and 容易.

I have a lot of friends that speak Mandarin to their parents and family so I have actually been able to practice a bit with them. However, I hope to study even more with them. In addition, there are a lot of different youtube channels that are helpful to learning Mandarin. There is of course the tutoring videos that help with vocabulary however I have found other videos of native speakers that film their daily lives which has helped me with my learning, especially with intonation and pronunciation.

I notice that there is a cultural difference between Chinese students and other students at UBC. I find that my Chinese friends tend to worry a lot more about their parents’ opinions on their grades. They also speak with their parents in a very respectful manner when compared to when they speak with their friends. I also find that they never want to speak highly of themselves regardless of how well they do. For example, I interviewed one of my friends about this topic and she said that she will rarely speak highly of herself as it shows that you are cocky and overconfident. This is quite different from Western culture as a lot of people like to praise themselves when they have done well. My friend also mentioned how different learning is in China versus here. She did a few years of elementary school in China before moving here and she said that it is a lot stricter over there. You also learn material at a much younger age as she was already learning Calculus in Grade 5. Overall, I think there is most definitely a cultural difference when it comes to Chinese culture and Western culture.

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I like to use audio, YouTube videos, conversation with classmates and friends, along with paper and pen useful learning tools. Learning Chinese from the beginning with little familiarity with tones, I like to use the Yabla Pin Yin Audio chart (https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php). It is very helpful to reference in order to practice the initials and finals. It is also helpful to watch You Tube videos of people speaking to watch the shapes people make with their mouths when they speak. I also like to use Quizlet to make flashcards for the vocabulary words. I make sets that go from Chinese Character to English translation and Chinese Character to Pin Yin so I can study both translation and tone. When it comes to speaking I find speaking with a confident speaker the most helpful because they can correct your tone and grammar during conversation. When it comes to learning the characters I think the most useful tool is just to practice, practice, practice!

I interviewed my friend Oskar. He said yes he thinks there is a difference. There is a culture associated with learning Chinese, it’s a very “copy, memorize” kind of format. This leads to a pressure to be accurate all the time and this translate to the study culture. Chinese speaking students tend to have a higher expectation for their grades.

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I think that the most challenging part of lesson 7 was probably all of the grammar we learned. I find it difficult to remember the structure of the complementary 得 when it is paired with verb-object phrases. Also, 有一点儿 is a bit tricky for me still because I don’t always remember that it can only be used when complaining about something. To improve, I think I just need to continue practicing constructing, writing, and speaking sentences that include this grammar. An app I use very often for memorizing vocabulary is Quizlet because it has lots of resources and games that are useful for memorization. I also often ask my Chinese-speaking friends if something I write or say is grammatically correct.

I think that there is a difference in students’ attitudes toward their grades. From talking to some of my Chinese friends, it seems that schooling is generally a lot stricter in Asia and there is more pressure for students to be above average. Mostly, I think it is just a cultural difference because school systems are obviously not the same in China/Asia as they are here in Canada.

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1. Once again lesson 7 proved to be a jump in knowledge, but as the amount that I need to learn increases it starts to get easier and easier as I feel more comfortable with the language. One of the more difficult things I found about this chapter was the use of ‘才’ and ‘就。。。了’. It was difficult for me to wrap my concept around this, and definitely something I had to review and look at various examples. We also learned a lot of vocabulary this term; however, it was easy as it felt like we slowly learned all the vocab before through the in class lessons. I have a lot of Chinese friends as well (even though most of them speak Cantonese), and they try and help me out when they can. But compared to when I first started learning Chinese, it seems like they're able to help me less and less.

2. One of my Chinese speaking friends, Lawrence, has about the same attitude towards his grades as I do. It could be because we grew up together and hold essentially the same opinions. He does aim for higher grades than I do, but that could just be because he's smarter than I am.

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Personally, I find Chinese to be a very difficult language to learn. This is because writing in Chinese is extremely different from the English language & my native language. In English & Mongolian, you can sound out words when writing & spelling. I think Chinese characters look very beautiful to write, however, it takes a lot of practice. Therefore, to improve my writing, I need to practice writing characters daily, to memorize and improve my handwriting as well.
Although, writing is difficult, I believe it's an easier aspect of the language compared to the grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. In my opinion, the second easiest aspect of the language is pronunciation. I believe my pronunciation isn't too bad, however I can improve my intonation, because different tones can give a different meanings to words. Therefore, to improve this, I have watched more Chinese movies and listening to more Chinese movies.
Something I find relatively difficult is the grammar. Chinese grammar is extremely different from the English language. Therefore, because I do most of my thinking and talking in English, I find it difficult to transfer this to Chinese. However, the Mongolian grammar is similar to the Chinese grammar, which makes it a bit easier, if I am able to think in Mongolian, when translating to Chinese.
The most difficult aspect of Chinese in my perspective is vocabulary. In Chinese, There are over 50'000 characters, therefore there is a vast vocabulary. Additionally, there is one way to pronounce various different words with different tones which is difficult. To improve this, reading Chinese books can help.
I use Chinese apps called 'Pleco', which can help identify various vocabulary words. Additionally, I have many Chinese friends that speak Chinese around me, therefore hearing the tones & pronunciation. As previously mentioned,  I also watch Chinese movies and listen to Chinese music, which further helps me with my pronunciation and vocabulary.

Interviewing a Chinese friend:
1) After interviewing a friend, she views that Chinese and mostly asian students are a lot more strict with the grades they earn in comparison to western students. From her personal experience,  she believes it is because of the culture that resonates in Asia, where grades are the most important thing.

2) She also sees certain differences in a classroom setting within China and western areas. She sees that Chinese classrooms have a formal setting, with formal ways to speak, whereas in western classrooms, it is a relatively informal setting, where students and teachers communicate as if they are friends. However they use honourifics for teachers in Chinese speaking countries.

Positive Comments:
1) I found it very interesting that Eileen was able to compare & contrast Chinese to Japanese, and include Japanese writing to show differences & similarities
2) I am curious about Vietnamese as Vi talked about Vietnamese not having specific formal language.
3) I found it very interesting that Hellen was able to relate students backgrounds and past experiences, and connecting it all to how UBC students are very academically focused.

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For lesson 7, since we had so much new vocabulary in lesson 6, I felt that it wasn't as difficult as I had become accustomed to it. As long as I reviewed the 语法, I kept up in class and got things correct. Although the 怎么这吗 phrase was quite simple to learn, I felt that the 得 phrases were a bit difficult. I didn't know when to separate the verbs with the object EX. 写汉字写得很好。Sometimes I get it correct, and sometimes I don’t. I think that it all comes down to practice though. As for resources, I prefer to just reread the notes that I take in class as they are relatively straight forward. I feel that whether it is Chinese-speaking UBC students or just English speaking students at UBC, they all value grades equally. This all boils down to how they were raised and what they were taught to prioritize throughout their academic career. Comparing teachers, I feel that the language teachers emphasize on understanding the material rather than placing a high value on getting excellent grades. That is not to say that grades are not important, but language teachers focus more on helping students understand and grasp the concepts taught in lecture more than other classes.

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I think chapter 7 is hard in that while learning this chapter, I found out that there are lots of meanings and different uses for 了. It is not only used for indicating a complete action (which I found hard to understand already) but also use for 太...了 and 就...了.The grammar was a little difficult at first (ex: verb+obj+verb+得) but then after lots of practice, I find it easy. I think the new vocabulary is quite easy to remember as some words are similar to Vietnamese (my native language). The character writing, like other previous chapters, are difficult to write and remember. Also, I think that I still read Chinese characters very slowly.  Other than that I think that chapter 7 is fairly easy. To improve my character writing and speaking, I will spend more time to practice writing chinese characters as well as speak Chinese more with native speakers and read the textbook or other chinese books more often.

There are many language learning apps that can be used to improve my Chinese, such as Duolingo. Many of my friends are Chinese and I also have 3 Chinese housemates so I can ask them to help me practice Chinese. I find that speaking to native speakers and making mistakes is the best way to learn and speed up my language learning process.

I think that Vietnamese (my nationality) and Chinese are quite similar in our attitudes toward grades. We both are very serious and care a lot about doing well in school in terms of grades and might due to similarities in our traditions, beliefs, cultures and geographical locations (neighbouring countries). The Vietnamese teachers also care a lot about their students performance in terms of grades.

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1.    I found Lesson 6 useful. It was helpful for a review after the break and also I learned new vocabulary and grammar.  I found it useful as I can now ask friends for favours and learned how to correctly say if I help you then you must do so and so for me. I can also now properly thank our oral practice volunteers for helping me practice Chinese. Something different about Chinese is adding “很“ in front of a descriptive word. In English you can just say someone is smart but in Chinese you need to add the word “very” before. Another difference is that the time word goes first. For example, in English you would say I will go tomorrow but in Chinese you would say, “我明天去了“. I find learning these  differences useful because although if we don’t apply these grammar rules to our speech people will still understand but consider us poor Chinese speakers.

2.     The culture I identify with is Canadian and sometimes Vietnamese, when Vietnamese people answer a phone call they say “Allo” and ask if so and so is there. In Canada we say “Hello”. Students address their teachers as Ms and Mrs in Canada and we use the teachers last names. Teachers begin the class with attendance and end class by saying we are dismissed. When you ask for a favour you say “Can you do this for me please”. And ask for a return from a favour you say “You need to do this for me”.

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Please use the questions (and sub-questions) as cue questions to reflect on your learning for Lesson Seven. Please only use the questions as prompts for your own reflection.

Reflect on your own Chinese learning using one or more of the cue questions below.

1. Use your learning of Lesson 7 as an example. Discuss what aspects of learning you find easy in Lesson 7 and what you find difficult. Why? How do you plan to make improvements?

2. What kind of learning resources, e.g. app, website, youtube channel, etc. or what kind of help, e.g. friends, family, classmates, etc., can you think of in learning Chinese? What do you find most useful?

Interview your Chinese-speaking friends. Compare and comment on one or more of the following aspects between Chinese culture and English/your native culture.

1. Do you notice any differences between Chinese-speaking students at UBC and other students in terms of their attitude toward grades? If so, what could be some factors contributing to this differences?

2. In what way do teachers usually communicate with students regarding their grades? Do you know if there are differences/similarities in a classroom in a Chinese-speaking area and in your native culture in this area?

leave at least 3 positive comments or/and questions in English after reading three peer's posts of lesson 6. Don't forget to leave your full name as well.

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1. So far since starting to learn Chinese, lesson 6 has been the most difficult for me so far. The grammar and vocabulary is getting harder, but I think I can get more used to it and become good at it if I practice more. I think the vocabulary in this lesson is very useful in day to day conversations or making phone calls (打电话）。We also learnt how to say where we are present/at, which is 在。We also learnt how to say don't (别）and must (得），which are two very important and basic vocabulary to know. A difference between Chinese and my native language english is in grammar, for example, in english saying "I'm going to the library" would be "我去图书馆“. Also, "Have you eaten already?" in english is "你吃饭了吗“ in Chinese, directly translated the "have" is not there anymore, it is "you eat already?", which does not make sense in english grammar.

2. The Chinese culture is different from mine because we do not say "wei" when we answer the phone, but we just say hello and regular greetings that would also be said in person. In Chinese culture, students are a lot more polite and formal in the way they address their teachers. Furthermore, when the class begins or ends, the teacher will say 上课 and 下课。There is no formality like this in international schools. I have also noticed that in Chinese culture, when someone asks for a favor or for help, they will always treat the other person in some way or offer to do them a favor too.

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1. I found that lesson 6 was a really practical lesson to learn, because making appointments and scheduling times to meet with people is extremely common in everyday conversation. However, I did find that this lesson was more difficult than those in 131 last term (however maybe that's because it's been a month or so since I did Chinese last!) For instance, I find it difficult to remember each different measure word for different things, like 五节课 instead of simply "5 classes". I also have difficulty remembering exactly when to put 了to indicate that something's in the past tense. However, I'm sure it's easier than having to learn all the weird past tense forms we use in English and French. For instance, 我吃了晚饭 as opposed to something simple like "I ate dinner" or some other complicated and convoluted verb tense like  "at that point I had already eaten dinner".

2. I find that expressing politeness in Chinese is different than in English. In Chinese it's often as simple as adding 吧 or 一点 into a sentence, whereas in English (in Canada, especially) people are overly polite and say things like "excuse me would it be okay if i possibly ...." which I'm sure is extremely confusing for an English learner!

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1. A major difference between English and Chinese is that Chinese uses various measure words. In lesson 6 we learned the polite measure word for people is 位 and the measure word for class periods is 节。In previous lessons, we learned the measure word 个 which is used for common nouns or objects. Since English doesn’t use measure words, I struggled at first with identifying which measure words to use. I also found it challenging to know how to properly use 到 in a sentence。Chinese has 去 and 到 which both can be translated to "go" but 到 emphasizes the destination or arriving at the place.

2. In Mandarin, you answer the phone with 喂  and let the caller initiate the conversation. This is a bit different than how I normally answer the phone and different than how you would greet someone in person in Mandarin. I was brought up to answer the phone by immediately identifying myself by saying something like “Hi it’s Emma speaking”.  In English, there are no honourifics for the pronoun “you” unlike in Mandarin where 您 is used as a polite way to address someone like a teacher or an elder（as opposed to 你).

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1. Lesson 6 has introduced a lot of new grammar in comparison to Lessons 1-5. While integrating previously learned expressions, this lesson also expands our basic sentences and therefore expanding our understanding of Chinese. As a native English speaker, I thought that the expression "给“ was quite difficult since it can be used in various ways. For example, if we were to define the word itself, it would be "to give" (verb). While that definition is still applicable in some circumstances (e.g. 我给你一杯茶）. It can also be a word to indicate the action of doing something to/for someone else (我给你打电话). A second Chinese grammar concept that is different from English, would be the use of "verb objects"; that is a verb and noun put together that form a verb. As well as, when to keep the "verb object" together and when to keep it apart. (e.g. 她话说得很好，她说话说得很好）

2. Regardless of who the receiver of the call is, English speakers have the same greeting in person as they do on the phone. English speakers will typically ask to speak to the person right away. In oppose to Chinese where the speaker would just ask whether or not their friend is at home. Both languages regularly use "thank you" or "goodbye" to end the conversation. In Canada it is unpopular for students to call their teachers (as their information is private), they will often choose to email their teacher or discuss questions in times of convenience (after class, office hours). Students don't really need to ask when the teacher/prof is available because their office hours should be made known to them already. Instead of treating people to food, (it is a kind gesture, but uncommon in Canada) we are more likely to just return the favour. For example, if our friend helps us study, we will help them study too or we will help them with homework, etc.

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1. One Chinese grammatical structure that I found really difficult to remember is the time expressions, especially time expressions involving year and day. This is because it doesn't follow the regular pattern of just adding "number + time" like in English, for example, in English we would say "3 days ago" whereas in Chinese we say "da4qian2tian1" (big day before). That is why I found this grammar so confusing, as there is no pattern that I can apply right away to say "4 days ago" or "10 days ago."

The second grammar that I found difficult is directional complements. While in English we say "I'm going back at 6", in Chinese we say "Wo3 liu4 dian3 hui2 qu4" (I 6 o'clock back going) in which the orders of word rotate all over the place.

2. a) In my country (Vietnam), the first thing people say when answering a phone call is "Alo" (which is the combination of "ahoy" and "hello") Then they will either state their name or ask who it is. To end the phone call, they just simply say goodbye. In Chinese culture, people basically do the same thing while answering the phone call, except for the first thing they say is "wei2/wei2" (hello)

b) In Vietnam, the way students address their teachers is the same as in China, and the only difference is the word order in which they will say "Teacher + name" instead of "name + Lao3shi4" like in Chinese. The way teachers begin their classes and end their classes are the same in both culture too, which is full of formality as they announce when the class starts and when it ends.

c) In Vietnam, people will be straight-up asking "Can you help me with..." instead of being too polite as "yao4shi nin2 fang3bian4, nin2 ke3yi3 bang1 wo3..." (if you are convenient, can you help me with..." However, although Viet people don't seem as polite, they still return a favor if someone helps them something.

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1. For lesson 6, I felt as though the vocab was much more difficult to take in and memorize. This I believe is not a result of the vocab in and of itself being anything more challenging from previous lessons, rather is has to do with the winter break in between. I felt lesson 6 wasn't just about learning new vocab, but also how it fit with the vocab we have already learned. This vocab for some, including myself, may have been not studied much over the break. As a result of this, new grammatical structures such as 给，别 and 到, which add more depth in the quality of sentence structure, also were more challenging to learn than previous lessons. Especially when such structures follow a different word order than that of their English equivalents.
2. In terms of similarities and differences between Chinese and English, as a number of other students have pointed out, is the difference in introduction. For English, people seem to be quick to introduce themselves, rather than having the callers guess who they are speaking to on the phone. And for English, people rarely present their last name, unless they are talking on a more professional call, such as booking a doctor's appointment. In term of addressing teachers, it appears quite similar in both Chinese and English, for even in English many would consider it rude to call their teacher by their first name. For asking for a favor, I see Chinese as being much more to the point than English. In English, one would ask if you "would" do something, emphasizing more that their is no direct force being put on the other person to complete such a favor. While Chinese seems in the more literal translation to put more emphasize on "wanting" someone to do something.

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1. Lesson 6 was definitely a huge jump in knowledge compared to what I learned in my previous term. It felt after this chapter I'm now able to form more complex sentences that closer to the way native Chinese speakers speak. Something that helped me learn the word '给' was to imagine that 'A gives B' 'verb phrase'.

Something that confused me was the word '以后', mainly because it went after the time phrase. It took me a while and a bit of reviewing for me to wrap my head around that concept.

2. One thing I've noticed is that in Chinese is that when they're asking someone for a favour they're quite polite. Usually my friends don't say the "if it's convenient" unless we're talking to a coworker or someone we don't know very well. Usually we'd just say something like "Hey can you help me out?" If one of my friends was extra polite with me I'd be weirded out and get a little suspicious.

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1. I have found the lesson 6 vocabulary extremely helpful. There are many characters and phrases that I feel are going to be extremely applicable such as 喂. One of the most important aspects of language is being able to communicate and carry a conversation therefore learning a way to say hello is very helpful. In addition, when we first learned this word, I found it really interesting that there is a different way to say hello when you are on the phone since this is not the case in English. This vocabulary phrase has in fact made it easier for me since I can recognize a phone call versus a face to face interaction within the first 5 seconds of a conversation or text. The time phrases that we learned in this lesson, such as 下午 and 上午 are very useful since time phrases in general are essential to most conversations. I also found it interesting that the day is broken up into early morning (早上), morning (上午), noon (中午), afternoon (下午) and evening (晚上). This is different from English because we only really have morning, afternoon and evening. This has made it a bit more difficult to learn all the time phrases since you have to know more phrases and understand which part of the day it represents. However, the characters in the phrases make it easy to understand. For example, the three phrases that represent the middle of the day contain 午 and from there, it is easy to see that 上 represents morning since it means up, 中 represents noon since it means middle, and 下 represents afternoon since it means down.

2. I have noticed that the Chinese culture contains a lot more formality. For example, when starting and ending a class, we always say 上课 or 下课. This is very different from my other classes in English as we just sort of start and end class without saying anything. There is no formal saying that my professors say to start the class, instead they just start lecturing. In addition, there are more “formal” characters such as 您 and 请问. In English, there is not a specific way to address someone superior to you other than using Mr. and Mrs. but there is not a different word for the word “you”.

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1. One grammar structure I found difficult and confusing was the switching of the object and verb in the "Subject + Object + Verb 得 (de) + Descriptive Complement" An example is "He writes characters very well" as "他字写的很好" when we learned this term as "写字"

Perhaps a difference in expression is that in Chinese, you need "很" before an adjective and descriptive complement. Whereas, in English, you don't need to add 'very' before an adjective and descriptive complement.

Another difference is that when using 有点（儿）which means " a little bit" you need a negative adjective. For instance, 有一点儿晚(A little bit late). Whereas, in English, you can use "a little bit" in both a positive and negative adjective.

2. When comparing phone calls in Chinese with that of Japanese, the level of formality is similar especially the differences in speaking to someone who is much older or making phone calls to a company or place and speaking to your friends and peers. For instance, 您 vs 你. It is important to use polite phrases and honorifics:

When hanging up a call with friends:
バイバーイ！(baibai, bye)
またね！/あとでね (matane/atodene, see you)
じゃあねー (jane, see ya!)

When hanging up a call with someone of authority:
失礼しました (Shitsureishimashita, please excuse me)
お忙しいところ、ありがとうございました (Oishogashitokoro, arigatougozaimashita, Sorry for the inconvenience, thank you)

When talking to someone with authority, it seems very constructed and structured (as though writing an email) in order to show respect.

In terms of how student may refer to their teachers, there must also be a strict and proper relationship established. Although I have never been to a Japanese public school in my life, one must mention their year and class (何年何組, Nannen nankumi) before the call.

Overall, the use of honorifics is similar between Chinese and Japanese. In Chinese, one may use traditional phrases and in Japanese, one may rephrase something.

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1.     a) The time word comes first before the actions/purpose of the sentence. For example if I were to say in English “I ate lunch yesterday” but I could also say “yesterday I ate lunch”. However, in Mandarin it would be “我昨天吃了”, with the time word of “yesterday” put first.

b) The past tense is indicated by adding the 了rather than changing the verb of 吃like in English from “eat” to “ate”.

These differences make it slightly easier to decide how to relay information in that there is a concrete, clear structure of how to form sentences. In English there is more room for flexibility and variation.

2.     When I make calls in English, I would usually say “Hello, this is Melody.”, stating who I am right away rather than going straight to the point of asking if the individual I am calling for is present. The ending of a phone conversation in English is quite similar to Mandarin in that gratitude and a goodbye is expressed. Both in Mandarin and English teachers are addressed by their students with some form of a respectful/honorific title such as Mr./Ms./Mrs./Principal ____ and 老师____.