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Make sure you do not over think Chinese. As long as you consciously practice the different aspects of Chinese everyday everything else will come more naturally. Make sure you practice Chinese everyday because it's necessary to immerse yourself in a language when first starting out in order to gain competency. Don't be intimidated by the workload; it is completely doable. Do't drop the class like some other students did; they're lame.

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To succeed in this class: 1) Study often 2) Don't slack off 3) You can never practice characters enough. 4) Listen and participate in class - it will really help the learning process.

If you follow 罗立丹's four step guide to success in CHIN 1010, you cannot fail.

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Make sure to do the work! If you fall behind even a little bit, you will lose.

Also, try to look over all the week's words before you study for the tingxie.

Do not cram. But if you do, make sure to create either flashcards or just put a bunch of stuff on paper.

Practice practice practice! Even though this is pretty obvious and everybody says this, make sure you put some effort into practicing speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Have fun! If you do not have fun during the class, you will fail your participation grade - try to be creative and the language will be a breeze.

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One recommendation I would make is finding a Chinese friend you can practice speaking with as soon as possible. There's no better way to become more conversational than speaking with someone who already knows the language. Additionally, try and speak in class. Having Laoshi listen and be able to help you correct your tones will be very beneficial. Also, get into a routine for doing the daily work, and find a strategy for learning the new vocab. The quicker you can get used to doing this over and over, the easier learning lots of new vocabulary and sentence structures is going to be.

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This class is going to be challenging. You think chapters one and two were a lot? Just wait until you hit chapter three and then things get real very quickly. But even then, if you keep up with the coursework and actively review the material, you should be just fine. I highly recommend that you spend A LOT of time working on your tones, as good tones make all the difference when it comes to speaking with actual native speakers in and outside of class. You will learn a bit of culture in this class as well, but if you want a lot of cultural immersion and activities, you might want to also look outside of the class.

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This class has developed my thinking, memorization, and Chinese skills. I now can fluently listen, speak, read, and write elementary Chinese which is a huge step up; I believe these Chinese skills will prove to be extremely useful in the expanding global world and perhaps in my future job and job search. Apart from learning the Chinese language, I understand the Chinese culture a little better. I have also learned that a little dedication and increased interest/attention I put into a subject, I can excel at it. I can now hold a small conversation with my parents in Chinese and my parents may want to go to China someday, so once there, I will be able to read and speak Chinese and buy food from restaurants!

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This class was challenging, don't go into thinking that you will be able to get away with not doing the work and just participating in class. It requires a lot of time and effort, but once you get used to the routine and you begin to really like the course and all that it offers. I was struggling a lot in the beginning of the course and I found it hard to keep up with the rest of the students, but if you put in the extra time and effort and additionally try your best to show laoshi that you care and you want to do well, she will work with you to help you succeed. At the end of the semester, I'm really proud to say that I can understand a good amount of Chinese after not knowing coming into the course. Work hard and you'll get it :)

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This class did have its fair share of challenges, but overall, I can honestly say, it was one of the best classes I've taken so far (even though I am still a first year). Having Chinese everyday was different from other classes and a bit tiresome, but very effective; practice makes perfect. Unlike many other classes here that are huge and do not give many chances for interactions with peers, in Chinese you meet and befriend everyone. Be sure to practice every chance you get, it is really easy to forget characters and grammar rules, so I would strongly advise practicing writing and speaking daily. Don't be afraid to make mistakes in class and ask questions， 老师 is always there for you! Also don't confine your vocabulary to only the textbook, the internet is a great resource!

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To new Chinese students,

Don't go into Chinese 1010 thinking that it is an easy class because it requires a lot of out of class practice and work. Despite the challenges of learning the various characters and their meanings, it was very rewarding to be able to use them at the end of the semester. Additionally, pronunciation is a huge challenge and requires a lot of listening and speaking practice. Despite the difficulties of learning Chinese, it is definitely worth it in the end. At the end of the semester, I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment from beginning to learn this language. In short, expect a challenge from this class, but don't run away from it! The harder you work, the more you will be paid off in the end!

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Simply put, Chinese 1010 was not a walk in the park. It definitely helped being familiar with Chinese characters from having studied Japanese and Korean, but even then it took a lot of time and dedication to memorize characters and work on tones. However, the class itself was really fun and I truly feel like I built up a foundation for learning more Chinese in the future. Throughout the course of this class and really my university career in general, I have come to realize that you cannot wait until you feel ready, to go and do things. You just have to jump into them and deal with what happens afterwards. Learning Chinese was the same way. I put it off for such a long time because I was worried that I would struggle too much, but after taking the class, I realized that I had been overthinking things. Having Chinese everyday was stressful at times, but it came to be the one class that I found relaxing, out of the many others that I am currently taking this semester. For anyone looking to learn a second language, you definitely cannot go wrong taking Chinese language courses at UVA.

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明年的学生开始学中文的时候不知道中文课怎么样，不知道他们能不能学得很好。现在你知道了很多，你能给他们一点儿建议(jian4yi4, advice)吗？你得用英文告诉他们，因为他们看你的信的时候，跟你开始的时候一样，还不会说中文！谢谢你们！－邵老师

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I thought this semester as a whole went great! Seeing as I had already taken Chinese in high school, some of the vocabulary we learned this semester was review. However, because my previous teacher did not do a good job of teaching pronunciation or grammar, my goals for this semester was to improve those aspects of my Chinese. I think over the course of the semester my pronunciation and tone recognition started to get better. Looking back over my reflections I can see as I have grown in confidence at my success in speaking with the right tones. While there is certainly room for improvement I think I am off to a good start. I am also proud of how my grammar has improved. I think I am beginning to do a better job of instinctually thinking in grammatically correct Chinese sentences, and understanding Chinese grammar structures is beginning to make more sense. One place I would like to work to improve my Chinese next semester is character writing. Right now I do not think my characters look very good, but I’m hoping to make that a focus for next semester. Overall, I thought I had a great semester and had a lot of fun! Overall, I think my Chinese has changed for the better. This semester I have changed as a whole, and have gotten a lot better at time management, partly due to Chinese.

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It’s been a busy and stressful semester for me, but despite that, I feel like this class has been thoroughly productive.  I came in with some background in Chinese but still felt that I learned a lot.  I particularly appreciated the oral focus of the class, considering how many other Chinese programs fall into the trap of focusing on written proficiency rather than the speaking that I believe is far more important.  As a result, I noticed a marked improvement in my speaking and pronunciation this semester.  Next time I find myself in China, the skills I developed in this class will undoubtedly serve me well.  Overall, I was incredibly pleased with this class and all the progress everyone made with 邵老师 serving as an excellent guide.

谢谢大家！

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I knew taking two languages at the same time would be intense, it really took me a while to get used to the workload. However taking Chinese was totally worth it, and I'm glad I did it. I feel like we really learned a lot this semester, and more importantly I feel like I can apply everything I've learned. I'm most happy with the emphasis placed on speaking in this class. I've taken a few other languages here at UVA and everyone always struggles most with speaking. This class has been fantastic in making communication a top priority, and I feel like that'll ultimately be more useful for me. I'm hoping my experiences in this course will help me actually talk to native speakers the next time I visit China. Maybe I'll get to use my Chinese in a job next year! Who knows? My experience in this class was great, and 老师especially was incredibly helpful. I can't wait to continue! 谢谢大家！

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大家好！

I really liked this class. Though it was hard, I wanted to study Chinese. Now that we have learned the proper motions of learning Chinese, I think we will be better prepared for CHIN 1020 and further Chinese courses. I hope my experience in this course will also prepare me for when I visit China and talk to family members. Overall, I can see why each part of the course was integral to our mastery of the subject.My parents are already very impressed with my progress and are hoping to switch entirely to Chinese when I call them, though I am dreading the thought! But I have nothing but praise for this class and 老师！

谢谢大家！

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This semester was busy, and productive. Maybe taking 19 credit hours with Chinese and many other hard classes wasn't the smartest; however, I'm glad I did. I feel as though I worked relatively hard in all of my classes, and my hopes of getting at chinese was well surpassed. I'm suprised with how quickly we went through all the material as well as teh fact that everyone of my classmates did incredibly well and worked hard. I think Chinese has been something I've wanted to learn for a while for the difficulty. How far we've come in our chinese is something I think everyone can be proud of, especially 邵老师 because I learned more in one semester of intro here than in total for my two years in high school. I'm excited to continue, and also excited to see what challenges I can face in continueing to learn Chinese, in addition to an already heavy engineering courseload. I also appreciate the friends from that class,

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This semester was quite the journey. I think everyone learned so much Chinese throughout the semester but did not even realize how much they progressed and learned. Think about it: if each lesson part has around 10 characters to memorize (a conservative estimate) and each lesson has 2 parts, tht’s 20 characters per a lesson. 20 multiplied by nine is 180, a conservative estimate. I would think we learned around 260 characters for the semester, which is just incredible. I think the memory tricks that I used to memorize Chinese characters has changed. I also think my mindset to learning has changed. Chinese has allowed me to get rid of being afraid to fail because we all failed so many times.  I think the closeness of our class helped me learn. We always encouraged each other, and the fact that we could all see each other progress was awesome. Since I’m a fourth year, I think the affects of Chinese won’t have a huge affect on my UVa career, but it definitely will for the years after UVa. I think I will be more fearless in my pursuits, and generally I will seek out people to speak Chinese with. This class was definitely awesome, and I am excited for Chinese 1020.

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This entire journey of learning Chinese and also transitioning into college has been a challenging, but rewarding one. This is my first year at UVa and even though I am still adjusting, I think I've been able to grow as a person and change my habits and the way I think about things to learn better. Chinese especially has helped me look at different perspectives, because I see how precisely we have to be focused and how much we have to study in order to really perfect our pronunciation, grammar, and just understanding the concepts in general. I want to study Environmental Science and even though Chinese isn't directly related to that, learning another language has helped me because of the way I can now (and in the future) interact with other people in my field of study. I think I've grown a lot, from not knowing any Chinese at all, to now being able to understand and make small talk, and I can see that progress continuing and I feel as though I am still getting better. Chinese also helps me look at time management a lot differently; languages take dedication and you have to set aside a specific amount of time to learn and understand the concepts and I think that as I progress at UVa, this skill will come in handy, even when my language requirement is finished. 谢谢大家！

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This whole journey of learning Chinese this semester has been extremely challenging yet also very rewarding. I knew after our first class that I would have a lot of hard work ahead of me. However, in the end, it has all really paid off. I am really proud of myself because I can now easily make small talk with my grandparents in Chinese and also be able to send them messages in written Chinese with little to no trouble. Having endured this tough class and learned so much, I feel like I will have a better work ethic for second semester and also the next few years.  As the semester went on, I felt like my memorization skills were improving and becoming more efficient. I am able to remember Chinese characters and their meanings in half the time now. With the workload, my time management skills are much better, and I think that will really benefit me in my future field of study. I am ready for the next level of Chinese and am excited to further my knowledge.

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邵老师/FinalReflection  (Due by the end of the semester) Theme: Change

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邵老师/FinalReflection  (Due by the end of the semester) Theme: Change

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大家好！

This will be your final reflection. I would like you to reflect on this whole journey of learning Chinese this semester. Because we still have two more weeks, you may want to wait till after our movie screenings. But I do encourage you start thinking about it now. Educators often say "the ultimate goal of learning is to change mind". So let's all reflect on this "change". What has changed? not just in terms of your Chinese. but also about things you can use in other aspects of your life. 除了中文以外，你还学了什么？Have learning Chinese and this class and the learning community we build via walls in any way helped you grow as a language learner, a professional in your future field of study, and as a person in general? And how that might affect your coming years at uva and beyond?And of course as always, include anything else that is meaningful for you.

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This past week we covered the material from chapter nine. As you all know, chapter nine was a bit confusing as it had a lot of new words and many new counters that we had to memorize. However, I was really excited that I was able to learn something I definitely knew I would be able to apply in real life, as I frequently go shopping with my Chinese friends (albeit not always for clothes). The hardest thing for me is still getting the tones down, as something I stumble when I am unsure. This is especially so when the tones change, as is the case for some counters. I suppose I have no choice but to keep reviewing that so that when I do use these words, I will have them down pat. In terms of reading and writing, however, I feel that I am doing very well so I have not been doing as much reviewing for these, outside of what is required for homework and such. But with the test coming up soon, I will be studying everything as much as I can. I hope everyone does well!

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This past week I have studied all the new words and have tried to practice using them with my Chinese friends quite a lot. I want to make sure I know all the vocabulary so that I can use the words in conversations. I also listen carefully to and watch many Chinese videos to bolster my confidence in Chinese so that I may speak more fluently

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What helps me most when studying the grammar of the lessons is to read through the grammar tips in the book, and the example sentences, and then try to create my own sentences using the sentence structure. I personally find that for studying tones, what helps most is talking to my Chinese friend, and also just trying to participate in class as much as possible because I am not a huge fan of speak Chinese good. For remembering characters, I like to read through the dialogues and go through and write and words I don't remember, and then repeat and go back through the dialogue until I have it all down. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

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I think what helps me the most when I'm studying for grammar is to try to form questions on the topics of the chapter. That really reinforces the correct grammatical structures, because I don't always actively think about the grammar of a sentence. I also definitely have to always spend a decent amount of time studying the vocabulary, especially if it's from an earlier chapter. I can remember the ones from the most recent chapter we've studied, but when it comes to recalling a word from three or four chapters ago, I almost always blank out.

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I definitely recommend the "speak Chinese good" site for help with tones. If you have any free time, going through old vocabulary is really helpful in not only tones and pronunciation, but it's also a good refresher, since we've been packing in tons of new vocab every week. While studying, I tend to make up imaginary scenarios in my head to prepare for the questions that may pop up during the speaking portion of the test. For studying vocabulary, the easiest way for me to study is to write each character multiple times and then incorporate it into random sentences.

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For studying, I think the most important thing for me, thus far is making sure that I know the grammar and what the 汉字 actually mean. However, I also have noticed that I need to make sure that I also focus more on pronunciation. Within that realm I think it is very important to make sure my tones are distinct. Sometimes when I am writing I often get a small detail of each character wrong, and this makes it so that I get the character wrong. So because of that I think it would be very beneficial for me to make sure I really pay attention to things like dots when I practice my characters.

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I feel like my pronunciation is getting a lot better, but I really have to work on fluency and accuracy! But, in terms of studying, I think that writing the characters and really just speaking with them in class helps a lot. I do have to do a lot of extra studying outside of class because sometimes, the pace we are going in class gets me a little overwhelmed. Because I've been sick this week, lesson 9 was very difficult and I am still trying to catch up on it. But, overall I think that my Chinese is getting a lot better and the best way for me to really study is paying more attention to detail and working with laoshi and the rest of the class to work at speaking like at normal speeds and with correct grammar.

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When it comes to studying, I think that writing characters has been and continues to be the most time consuming part of learning Chinese - this aspect of language learning requires the most dedication, even though I feel like it is getting easier as we gain experience writing more and more radicals. The other thing that I still think is difficult is tone differentiation. Now that we have gotten to a point where, for example, "shi" can mean 十、是、时、事、试 or a wide variety of other things, it seems to be getting more and more important that tones be practiced with increasing attention to detail, a thing which I find hard to do while attempting to speak with proper grammar and at a normal speaking speed. All in all, I still feel like Chinese is a LOT of work - but that's now anything new.

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因为老师知道你们现在都很忙，所以第九篇回想可以写，也可以不写。

如果你不写的话，你可以用这个时间复习，准备下下个星期的考试。也可以开始准备你的学期末的小电影。老师知道有的同学已经写好了小电影。

不过，如果你有时间想写一点儿东西的话，你可以写这个星期你怎么学中文了。你觉得中文容易一点儿了吗？你也可以告诉大家你看到什么有意思的、有用的东西可以帮我们学中文。

你可以用英文写，也可以用中文写。

最后祝大家有一个很好的周末！

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大家好～ With finals and such right around the corner, it's going to be hard to keep up with studying Chinese everyday. Therefore, I've started completing the Chinese homework for the week over the weekend (or at least as much as I possibly can) so that I don't have to worry about it during the week and can instead focus on reviewing the grammar or vocabulary. Hopefully this pays off. I hope everyone can finish strong and do well in class.

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谢谢煐訓share你的tips，I think it's a good way to balance Chinese and other subjects while all the tests, papers and projects coming at you~!

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大家好！I think this week has gone well. I think I have gotten better at learning and memorizing Chinese and am in a better position fluency-wise than at the beginning of the semester. As the semester is drawing to a close, I think I've learned a lot about learning Chinese and learning languages in general that will be helpful in the future.

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老师很高兴you have improved, keep it up~! You are making progress week by week, your today's efforts will pay off in the future.

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reflection is optional. But I encourage those who hasn't done reflections for a while take this opportunity to give Laoshi and yourself an update. If you do want to pause and think about the past week anyways, I'd like you to focus on how to sustain your excitement and level of efforts now that you've entered the last month of your semester. While tests and papers and projects start all coming at you simultaneously, time management becomes critical. What do you plan to do to stay on top of things and finish strong? How do you still keep that bar high when you're so attempted to just get things done? Enjoy your weekend! Work hard and enjoy your life too. It's a balancing art!

周末快乐！下个星期见~~

邵老师

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大家好！我觉得我学中文学得有一点慢。我觉得听中文言容易，可是我觉得说中文有一点难还觉得写中文很难。我懂中文言可是我说中文说得不太好的听。但是我有常规也我平常学习汉字和练习说中文。我平常跟中国朋友说中文。我也平常看中国电影还听中国音乐。下课我平常回家练习汉字。我有意志我提高下个学期。我觉得中文很难，我也很累，可是中文有意思！

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艾伦你好，老师很高兴，因为虽然(even though, Lesson9)你觉得中文很难，可是你still觉得中文很有意思，你也常常练习，这可以帮你提高（ti2gao1，improve）中文。要是你觉得说中文很难，你可以找你的中国朋友，也可以来办公室找老师，老师很高兴可以帮你练习加油！

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大家好！我觉得我学中文学得很好。我每天复习新的生词和汉字， 因为我觉得记生词太难了。我也觉得我中文学得很好因为我们天天上课，还有我们上课的时候练习说很多中文。 我每个星期跟我的中国朋友说中文。我也可以给我的爸爸妈妈打电话， 跟他们练习说中文。他们好喜欢我跟他们说中文，因为他们觉得我从小的时候说中文说得太不好了。但是我学中文可以学得跟好。要是我要学得跟好，我就得读跟多课文和听跟多录音。

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太酷了！希望黄蕊的中文更geng4好（better），你可以跟家人、中国朋友聊天，一起玩儿，享受（xiang3zhou4，enjoy）说中文，用中文的快乐！

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大家好！ 我觉得我学中文学得不错。我觉得听中文很容易，可是我觉得我写中文写得不好， 所以我得多练习。 我很喜欢跟我得同学练习说中文， 因为我的同学帮我学中文。我觉得我读中文读的不错， 可是我的发音有时候不好。我平平常跟我的中国朋友去图书馆练习说中文， 我也跟一个人回家准备听写。 我觉得我的中文语法太不好了， 所以我得多练习。我觉得学中文很难， 可是我很喜欢学中文， 所以我很高兴。

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很高兴颖珩的中文进步(jin4bu4，progress)了!

Writing characters over and over again certainly work for some students, but if that's not something effective for you, working with etymology or your own tips is probably something you really want to look into, especially for those characters seeming to always evade your grasp. the high-frequency characters like 我，的，你，是 will stick anyways. More and more characters will become just like these when you progress and utilize them more often in your writing. Using it right after you learn it is yet another good strategy. and that's why I encourage students study characters first, then do all the homework close-book. that will make any homework and practice a chance of application of new knowledge. Hopethis helps. We can talk more about learning characters in person. 要是你觉得写中文有一点儿难。

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大家好。我觉得中文有点难，尤其是（especially)声调，所以我常常请我的中国朋友帮我练习说中文。因为汉字很多，不好记。可是我很喜欢学汉字和写汉字所以没问题。因为我天天练习写汉字，我可以写汉字写得很快，也一点漂亮。但是，我还说中文说得太不好，所以我难过・・・我觉得我的同学们都说得太好了，所以要是你们方便，我想练习跟你们～ 因为我的中文还不好，我夜夜复习生词和汉字。我还有时候念课文。要是我的中国朋友有空，我还聊天跟他／她。上可以前我平常练习听写，因为我们星期一到星期四要听写。谢谢大家

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你的汉字写得太漂亮了！你可以告诉大家你是怎么写汉字的吗？

不用难过，你说中文说得也很好！especially第八课的报告你说得太好了，fluent， accurate 也很有意思！你的tones和发音进步（progress）了很多！老师很高兴！加油！

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大家好！我和我同学的中文学得太好了！我觉得听说读写我都知道 怎么做。写汉字最有意思因为中文字很漂亮、可是我还写中文写得不好看。我常常练习中文因为中文很难、但是我觉得中文课帮我学怎么听说读写。写汉字是最难的、听中文很容易。可是 有的中国人说话太快了、我不知道他们说什么。那我们明天再见吧

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酷！我觉得你写汉字写得不错！

要是你觉得有的中国人说话说得太快了，别担心（dan1xin1，worry），你得常常跟中国人聊天，the more you practice, the sooner 你能听得懂！

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大家好！我觉得学中文有一点儿难可是很有用，也很有意思。我觉得写汉字最难，因为有的汉字很复杂和我很快忘了怎么写。因为很难，所以上课以前我平时练习写汉字练习得很多。虽然我觉得我说中文说得不错，但是我觉得我发音法的不太好。我觉得这个星期我们听说读写都更好。

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要是你觉得写汉字最难，那很快你就会觉得中文很容易。因为等到汉字不是something so new to you，汉字就很容易了！学中文一年以后，没有人觉得汉字那么难了！

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大家好！我觉得学中文很难可是很有意思。说中文最难、所以我说中文说太慢了。我也觉得愈发有一点儿难、所以我天天要练习中文。每到周末我要预习中文、我常常用“说中文好（Speak Chinese Good)”、因为我要练习我的发音。我觉得我写汉字写得马马虎虎。要是我写汉字写得快、我的汉子难看、所以我写汉字写得太慢了。我觉得学中文很难、可是我喜欢学中文、所以我很高兴。

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老师很高兴你用SGC帮你练习说中文，希望你能说得更好（even better）!

要是你觉得语法有一点儿难，你可以上课以前看去Collab看“语法电影”，它们可以帮你学语法学得更好更容易！

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我的中文

大家好！我觉得我学中文学得不错。我很喜欢跟我的同学练习说中文，因为跟我的同学练习说中文帮我学中文。我也听录音，因为听录音帮我学中文发音。我觉得写汉字和读中文书是最难。我写汉字写得不太好看也很曼。要是我练习写汉字，我可以写汉字写得很漂亮。中文语法也是很难。我觉得听和说中文是最容易，因为我平常跟我的中国朋友练习说中文。我是很高兴我们下个星期要学第八课的生词！

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你是一个很好的学生，加油！我们只有最后一个新课了，准备好了吗？

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大家好！我觉得上个氢气很好。我很喜欢去中文课因为我真喜欢我的同学们。我觉得我的同学们进步得很快。他们说中文捉得非常好可是我都觉得写和读中文很难。因为写中文很难，我常常跟我的中国朋友去图书馆练习写汉字和说中文。我的中国朋友是好心人。我天天念课文和预习课文。我也复习语法。听说读写，我觉得听中文最容易因为我常常跟我的中国朋友聊天很高心。

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我和你一样，我也很喜欢我们班的同学们希望你能just keep raising the bar for yourself to always aim at your personal best. 加油！

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I thought this last test went well. While I think the writing section was not bad, I was particularly proud of my speaking with laoshi. I felt that I was able to understand her questions a lot quicker and was able to come up with responses that both answered the question, and incorporated some of the more advanced sentence structures and words we have been learning, which made the speaking portion a lot more fun, and not just struggling to try and answer questions. Overall, I think the last few weeks have gone well. I particularly liked the class discussion Friday because it was fun to have it peer run and have everyone involved, which seemed to make people want to participate more and answer and talk to one another. Can't wait for another great week of learning Chinese!

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This test was not the most difficult, but I felt like I had to study more for this one than the first test. I do feel however, that my essays were a little shorter, but I'm pretty sure that were a little more accurate than my previous ones. Other than that I felt I was doing better on the grammar and translational aspects. Although to be totally honest, I may or may not have used 了 partially incorrectly. I'm consistently surprised with how much we actually learn each time, and think that I am learning more and more each week. I don't know how much of a recent story I have except a hallmate of mine will sometimes start yelling chinese out late at night and I can tell that I'm slowly figuring more and more of it out.

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I thought this past test wasn't too bad. It was relatively similar to the first test, but I did find some of the questions more challenging. I think this is because of all the new grammar we've learned in the last three chapters. I agree with Alvin below about how it's pretty hard to know when and where to use le in different situations. It changes so much depending on the words of the sentence that I can't just apply a general rule to it. I think this will get better with more practice with the word le. I was definitely more proud about my essays this time around, because I think we've learned so much that we can really vary up our sentence structures and make an actually interesting composition. I feel like my essays are less repetitive now and just generally better to read. A fun and recent story that's related to Chinese is how I was talking to my parents, who are native speakers, and they actually commented on how my Chinese has significantly improved! I use it with more ease and feel more confident when I speak it now, and it's great to know other people are noticing this.

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I thought this past test went pretty well. I thought I was able to incorporate a lot of the new grammatical structured we learned into my essay question. Again, I always look back on my essay questions and become impressed with how much vocabulary we have learned so far. I thought the trickiest part of the test was the question that asked us where to put the "le" character. I think le is very tricky and will take some time getting used to. A recent story I can share is when I went to talk to my Chinese friend this week. She said my Chinese was getting much much better, so it was definitely a confidence booster going into the rest of the semester.

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I think during week six Alvin was feeling pretty stressed out because Alvin was trying to juggle class at the same time as his job search. But I think that the progress that Alvin has made in terms of the written vocabulary has been very good. Alvin can now write many words in Chinese that he could not even read before. I would say that's a pretty big accomplishment. Additionally, Alvin gets some joy from being able to read long chinese passages and totally understand every single word. I do think that Alvin could do a lot better at differentiating the difference between the third and second tones. I think Alvin was also overthinking a lot of the time when he spoke during this week.

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Most of you did so well in your oral interview today or yesterday. Your average score is 18/20 or 90%，and that when I worked hard to catch your mistakes. So congratulations! We still have a couple of students struggling with listening and speaking though. I encourage you to take advantage of SGC to help you improve listening and speaking and grammar videos to preview before class. If so , we can make the most of our class time to practice your speaking and listening with 同学还有老师。

For this reflection I would like you to focus on the past review test, what you (you think) have done well and what you could have done better. In addition/instead, you can share with us any Chinese-related experience or anecdote in your life. It can be an aha moment when you all of sudden or finally realized how to pronounce a tone, use a word/grammar, or remember a character. It can also be an interesting encounter with a native speaker, a cultural shock in a Chinese restaurant or event, a new understanding of the Chinese culture while 看中国电影or听中文歌。

As always, feel free to include anything else you'd like to reflect on or any resources/tools you found that could benefit all of us.

Last but not least, have a great weekend. You deserve some good rest and fun! 周末快乐！

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As Allen said below, this past week was pretty short so I don't really have much to say. I guess I'll just keep doing as I've been doing and try to learn as much as I can. Chapter 6 was tougher than the previous chapters because of the amount of new words, I suppose. But even then, I slowly feel as if I am getting used to the workload and such, so all in all it's not too bad. I hope everyone else is doing well too. Though my speaking skill is way behind most of the class, I ask that everyone continue to bear with me. Thanks a bunch!

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This was a short week, so I don't have much to say. I thought it was a good week and I still had fun learning the material. I still need to call 邵老师!

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Quote of the week:

“Just take it one step at a time and make sure you get down the things you can get down and work on the things you cannot currently do. I am sure it'll all come with time. .” --Joshua Stone石煐训

While learning a new language can be overwhelming a lot of times, just keep in mind that no effort is too small. Even just investing time to get one word perfect will surprisingly boost your confidence overall, which will in turn lead to exponential progress.

The second half of the semester will pass even faster with Laoshi going out of town for conference and then Thanksgiving. Keep your spirits high and don't lose the good momentum you've gathered so far!

Laoshi is very happy and proud of your progress. Keep up the good work!

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Hey Sam. I wanted to let you know that your Chinese has come a long way since the beginning of the semester. Finding a better way to memorize characters more efficiently definitely helped with that. I just wanted to let you know that there is still room for improvement, and to continue practicing tones and remembering all that you've learned so far. Make sure to designate at least an hour to Chinese every night and try to learn as much as possible the night before as opposed to the few hours before class. Keep improving, but be more proactive. Seriously.

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Hi everyone, David has been impressed with everyone's improvements as well as his own. We are not only expanding our vocabularies and grammatical knowledge, but solidifying what we already know to the point that the fringe of our knowledge a few weeks ago is now something we are completely comfortable with. You're definitely improving your tones, because I know these have taken some work to keep in mind in the past. Keep working on those and on attention to detail when writing characters and you'll be set!

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How's it going Joshua? I hear you've been busy traveling these past few days. I just wanted to let you know that I think your Chinese has come a long way. Sure, you probably cannot read even a children's story in Chinese, or even order food at a restaurant, but there a plenty of things you can do that you simply could not a few weeks ago. I think that is amazing. You've come a long way I just wanted to tell you that you should keep it up and stay disciplined. I can imagine that it's hard keeping up with Chinese on top of your other coursework, but this is something that you need to practice every day and every night in order to improve. Case in point: your tones. They need a bit of work, buddy. But don't fret too much, you're still learning. Just take it one step at a time and make sure you get down the things you can get down and work on the things you cannot currently do. I am sure it'll all come with time. Anyway, I trust you had a fun break, but it's time to get back to work! Have a great week man. I give you an A+

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Hello everyone! Allen feels more confident about speaking and hearing Chinese. You can be more confident with when you speak and think about your response more before speaking. You do need to work on pronunciation, but this is easily rectified with more practice! You need to be sure to learn the material by heart and not have to rely on the book to look up characters and tones. Otherwise, you are doing well and should keep up the good work!

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Hey Reyna! You've been working pretty hard in Chinese so far. You learn so much in one week- it's crazy. You're definitely improving a lot on your grammar, and most of it comes from just practicing so much in class every day. You could definitely study the characters more though. Make sure you aren't just studying enough to remember it for the tingxie and nothing more! Learning a language is always cumulative so you better not forget any characters from the past couple of weeks even as we go into learning new ones. Definitely actually study the pinyin too, because you never know the pinyin even for tingxie. Otherwise keep up the good work! You're gonna be like a pro at Chinese before you even know it.

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Hi Alex! You have been progressing very well in your Chinese. Good job! I think you are doing well with your tone pronunciations and character memorization, however there is still quite a bit you need to work on. You should really continue studying the new grammar concepts we are learning. Sometimes, you hesitate when thinking about forming sentences with correct grammar. Your ability to memorize characters is good but you must be careful not to make careless mistakes. Additionally, you must also work on differentiating when to use liang and er. Overall, your improvement is notable and you should be proud of how much you've accomplished in the past six weeks! This next week will be very challenging for you but I know you can do it.

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Wow Jiaming! You have improved so much with Chinese, congratulations! On a more serious note, you have shown quite a bit of mastery with the first few chapters of Chinese and you are learning pretty well in your Chinese Class. However, you really need to work on a few grammar concepts that you have been messing up a couple of times. I believe that writing the characters of Chinese has really clicked with Jiaming, but he needs improvement on speaking really fast (I noticed that he has been working on speaking faster as well) and work on perfecting his grammar skills. I have seen him have a lot more fun throughout the semester of Chinese and his language and fun skills are going to be put to the test in this next week. Have a great week of learning, Jiaming.

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In the last sis weeks, Jordan feels that the class as a whole has done wonderfully with the adoption of this new and challenging language. He thinks that people's tones and flow with the language are improving. However, as we continue to learn more and more complicated grammatical forms, and we learn more and more words that sound very similar in pronunciation, Jordan feels that it is taking more and more time to absorb new vocabulary and sentence structures into his Chinese speaking, writing, and listening. But, overall he feels more comfortable, week by week, with the language, and has lots of fun learning, presenting, and reflecting. Jordan is kind of worried about this coming week, though, because there is a LOT of vocab and we only have three days to go through it. Good thing Jordan has this long weekend to memorize all these Chinese characters.

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A lot more grammar rules have been added to our vocabulary this week, Tina is still not completely confident with some of the sentence structures, but she’ll be sure to practice them. Tina need to work on responding quicker to questions; she finds that she does understand them, but struggles with formulating good, detailed responses in a short amount of time. Taking a peak at the next lesson, Tina can see that lesson 6 is going to focus on asking questions and responding appropriately. New vocabulary is becoming easier to study because a lot of it is very similar to the ones that we have previously learned, but because some words are so similar in pronunciation, she finds herself getting confused and mixing them up at times. Tina hopes that everyone has a good fall break! Tina will be sure to practice her Chinese with her parents and maybe get a few tips from them this weekend.

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Hello all! Henry thinks this week has gone pretty well. One thing Henry still gets frustrated with is the nightly work load consistently being heavy, because of all the other classes Henry has having midterms and papers the last few weeks, but Henry understands that we have Chinese everyday so that we can learn the language quickly and effectively. While Henry enjoyed making the music video and thought it was fun, Henry did not enjoy the additional time it took, and in the future would prefer going back to the single person presentation because Henry finds them less time consuming, with Chinese already having such a large workload. Henry is looking forward to resting up over reading days and being ready to learn more Chinese when Henry gets back!

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邵老师To亨利：

谢谢亨利的advice！ 你、立丹还有思文的电影太好了！老师想你们make skits 因为这也是collaborative learning，你们need to have your own thoughts and also interaction with group members. When you are preparing skits, you need to exchange creative ideas , make up interesting or crazy stories together, of course think of all the related words/grammars together，it's also a process of learning.

所以although it will take you a lot of time to make skits, you will definately learn a lot from it.  I will take your advice and adopt other forms of presentation. 谢谢亨利!

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Can't believe we are already half through this semester! and I'm so proud of your progress. Look how well you did for today's skits! Laoshi will post your skits in our Collab Kaltural Collections when i get a chance during this long 周末。

For this reflection, I would like you to have a general reflection without being constrained with any particular aspect/focus. But I'd like you to refer yourself using 2nd person "you" (instead of "I") and/or 3rd person (e.g.Emily). If you find it difficult to understand this approach, it's something like writing a letter to yourself. Scientists have found that people tend to use a more encouraging and positive tone when they step out of and then speak back to themselves. I do find we tend to be ourselves' harshest critic. So this time, try to give yourself a pat on the back and start your reflection with something like "Emma, I really think you did a great job in....."

Enjoy your Reading (resting) Days!

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The last few weeks have been a bit insane with scheduling, not so much because of Chinese, but just everything else has been spiking in intensity all at once. Although I had a bit of difficulty keeping on top of the slightly longer assignments and tingxie quizzes, this week was certainly more rewarding, getting into very useful, conversational vocabulary and more complex sentence structures. The new content in this lesson allows us to really get to know Chinese speakers better by finding out interests, what we have in common, etc.

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I think that this week was alright considering that I missed the first day of it. The vocabulary selection was a lot more interesting and I really enjoy the material so far. I have been getting into the swing of work and the dialogues so I don't feel that they are as difficult as they were before. I think that working hard we can all improve our Chinese to be better prepared for next semester.

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This week was terrific. I think with the vocabulary that we learned this week, we will definitely be able to get to actually connect with Chinese speakers. I felt that with my conversations with native Chinese people so far, the conversations have been very superficial because the vocabulary we learned was very general and not specific to the person you were talking to. However, now with this new vocabulary, we will be able to actually find common interests with other strangers, and perhaps discover new areas of interest. I think the tingxie's have also been getting harder, and I definitely recognize that the assignments have been getting longer as well. I am up for the challenge and am excited to see what the future brings.

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I thought this week was pretty good. It's great to finally be able to talk about what we like to do and do not like to do (besides eating, of course). In general, it's nice to be able to talk with my Chinese friends without having to resort to using English so often. I am studying about the same amount each week, but I have found that reading over the whole chapter during the weekend really saves time throughout the week as you can work out what you know in advance, rather than the day before while frantically doing homework. As for speaking practice, however, it is hard to find ways to practice outside of class and Chinese Corner. One cannot bother your actual Chinese friends constantly, or they might get angry. Anyway, I am looking forward to this week and am hoping that my listening comprehension continues to improve as the weeks go by. I may answer slowly, but I want to be able to at least answer correctly!

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Awesome week! Finally learned some of the most useful vocabulary in Chinese, and I was able to use my new-found knowledge to speak to native Chinese speakers without missing too many words. I did not have to resort to "Chinglish" that much when talking to my Chinese friends this week and I am very happy with our progress in the class. I am having to study about the same amount each week for materials even when the words and grammar are getting harder to remember because I have found that Chinese is clicking in my brain faster and faster and hopefully I will be able to speak Chinese faster without thinking too much about the grammar and sentence structure in my head before allowing my mouth to do the work. The practice of speaking during class has been very helpful in increasing my confidence in speaking Chinese and I am once again looking forward to the next chapter in Chinese to learn more fundamentals.

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This week was more difficult than the last for me, we had a lot of new vocabulary and the grammar was getting more complex. I like that we have been able to get into a routine and do the workbook pages that help with all of those things, but I am still sometimes unable to fully understand what is going on in class. I think it is getting easier to understand things that we did in the beginning of the year and it is really nice that we can all form longer sentences now, but I feel like my sentences do not always make total sense. It is harder to answer questions in class now because we have to answer such long questions, but laoshi has made it easier by prompting us when we need help. I am studying even more, but it is still hard with all of the new things we learn so quickly. The beginning of the week is very intense for me because it is hard going into the lesson without fully knowing what laoshi expects, and also not completely understanding all the vocab and grammar. But as the week goes on, the time I have to spend on memorizing and understanding gets shorter and I am able to practice better. But, I am excited to move further and continue to get better at Chinese. Hopefully I will be able to continue improving and making sure that I can keep up with everyone in the class too!

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Hello all! Hope everyone had a great weekend! I thought this last week went well. We're starting to be able to say a lot more! Additionally, the new grammar we're learning is starting to up the complexity of the sentences we're able to say. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to Chinese Corner this week because of a exam, which meant I missed out on a good opportunity to be able to practice everything we're learning. While talking with the Chinese speaker on my hall is good, I feel like Chinese Corner is one of the more helpful resources we have because it's someone to talk to who can also help with grammar and be supportive. Thankfully I'll be able to go next week. I'm also still having some difficulty getting used to using yin wei... suo yi but that's slowly getting better. Can't wait for this upcoming week!

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This week's vocab was difficult, especially in the beginning of the week, but towards the end I feel liek I had everything down. Now there's so much more we can say! I find that I need to continually review the vocab over the course of the week to make sure I really have it solidified and don't forget it after the tingxie. Luckily the grammar isn't very complex yet, so for that I need to just make my words are in the right order. I need to make sure I study even harder this week as the grammar gets more complex than usual. I hope to keep improving as I have every week thus far!

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I think this week has been pretty important in terms of the grammar lessons that were part of Lesson 4. The new grammar rules and words that we learned make it seem like I can say a lot more and make more complex sentences. I think this ability really goes to show that we're not just learning how to string a bunch of words together into simple sentences. At this rate we'll sound more like native speakers with every passing week! I've also noticed that every week we learn more than we learned the week before, so I'm very excited to see what this coming week has in store for us.

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This week was busy. The first couple days were a little rough but by the end of the week I felt much more confident in the Chinese we were learning this week. This week I need to make sure to stay on top of all of my studies the whole week. Although the grammar isn't very complicated yet, I still feel as thought I need to make sure I have it solidified in my mind. The larger problem for me is actually, making sure I have all my tones straightened out and then make sure I don't accidentally confuse two words in my mind. I also need to make sure to make sure to look back every once in a while to make sure I still have it all very solid in my mind. I read the note on this week having very complex grammar, and I look forward to doing my best this week as I try to every week.

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As this week comes to a close, I really think that the additional grammar of Lesson 4 has filled in some substantial gaps in my understanding and speaking of day to day Chinese. I have found myself able to talk (in decent tones too) to my suite mate about how his day was and ask about his plans for the weekend and I also found myself able to understand parts of sentences spoken by Chinese students talking to each other around grounds. However, I do recognize that (now that sentences are getting longer, grammar is getting more complicated, and we are learning more and more words that have similar sounds) closer detail to sentence structure and especially pronunciation will become absolutely essential. I look forward to Lesson five with its massive amounts of new vocabulary.

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Another week flew by in a blink of an eye! The amount of vocabulary that we have learned is unbelievable. I went home this weekend and tried to hold decent conversations with my parents and it surprisingly went well (though they did comment on my grammar and tone mistakes). I also tried watching the Chinese news; I know that there is still a long way to go, but it was interesting how much of it I could understand. I'm constantly practicing on formatting my sentence structures since they are becoming longer and more detailed. I often find that I mix up or forget to enunciate certain words, which end up creating a completely new, incorrect sentences (an example is 吃and去). I'll be sure to focus on better pronunciations. It's also so cool that everyone is using new vocabulary during the Friday presentations, it really motivates me to go outside the textbook information and find new words, too.

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Hi everyone. Now that we have learned so many new characters, we are able to put them in more complicated sentences. This is really challenging to me and I feel like I definitely need more practice in that aspect. Sometimes I think I am speaking with bad grammar and use run-on sentences very often. Additionally, it is hard to keep up when answering questions because the questions are getting very long. The hardest part for me is remembering the order of how to say something. For example, I keep forgetting that I have to put the time before the verb when trying to speak fluently. Despite all this, it is exciting to learn new vocabulary each day. It is very cool to see how much I can write now in our great wall posts especially. The beginning of the week is always extremely tough with learning so may characters at once, but with more practice, I always feel more confident by the end of the week. I manage to use a lot of time when first beginning to learn the new characters but I get faster at learning them later in the week. I look forward to chapter five!

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王圆你好：

Thank you for sharing your feelings here. For answering long questions in class, you don't need to be anxious about it. As I have high expectations for all of you, 所以我常常  add some challenge by extening sentence, using many new/old words to practice your listening and speaking,meanwhile,consolidate previous words/grammars.  You don't need to understand all of my sencentes in class, it's just a "tough way' to help enhance your Chinese skills. However, if you can understand most of the sentences, 那太好了！！Congratulations！! 因为 it's definitely not easy for you to handle all my challenging questions
esepecially you've just learned these words in less than one week.

For remembering the order of each sentence, first, remember the rule,such as place/time go before Verb, then allow yourself some time to get accustomed to Chinese grammar and sentence order.  Trust me, when you have practiced enough , you will automatically speak/write real Chinese.

第五课加油！！

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As all your other courses pick up steam and you are swamped with so many obligations like midterms, papers, etc., it's important to pause and think how we can work more efficiently. Let's use this opportunity to reflect on your time management efforts and share time-saving tips. Is Chinese still taking the most of your study time? Have you managed to reduce your study time within 2 hours each day on average? How can you spend less time and yet maintain the level of achievement you are happy with. Are you doing any busy work, which does not necessarily contribute to your learning? Does Laoshi give you any busy work that you don't think is helpful for you? If you don't feel comfortable complaining about anything here, Laoshi has opened up the anonymous feedback on collab. And remember you can always email Laoshi and/or come to my office hours if you have any concerns.

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P.S. Laoshi did read ALL of your reflections, but I only commented on your reflections as much as I could. I usually start leaving a comment whenever I see a new post. But when I don't have enough time , I only get to read your reflections rather than having time to comment on them.

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Hi everyone. Now that we have learned so many new characters, we are able to put them in more complicated sentences. This is really challenging to me and I feel like I definitely need more practice in that aspect. Sometimes I think I am speaking with bad grammar and use run-on sentences very often. Additionally, it is hard to keep up when answering questions because the questions are getting very long. The hardest part for me is remembering the order of how to say something. For example, I keep forgetting that I have to put the time before the verb when trying to speak fluently. Despite all this, it is exciting to learn new vocabulary each day. It is very cool to see how much I can write now in our great wall posts especially. The beginning of the week is always extremely tough with learning so may characters at once, but with more practice, I always feel more confident by the end of the week. I look forward to chapter five!

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王圆你好：

Thank you for sharing your feelings here. For answering long questions in class, you don't need to be anxious about it. As I have high expections for all of you, 所以我常常  add some challenge by  extening sentence, using many new/old words to practice your listening and speaking,meanwhile, consolidate previous words/grammars.  You don't need to understand all of my sencentes in class, it's just a "tough way' to help enhance your Chinese skills. However, if you can understand most of the sentences, 那太好了！！Congratulations！! 因为 it's definitely not easy for you to handle all my challenging questions esepecially you've just learned these words in less than one week.

For remembering the order of each sentence, first, remember the rule,such as place/time go before Verb, then allow yourself some time to get accustomed to Chinese grammar and sentence order.  Trust me, when you have practiced enough , you will automatically speak/write real Chinese.

第五课加油！！

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This week was pretty darn stressful, but not as much because of chinese but because of how many different things and assignments I had going on in the rest of my life. I felt that I thought I was pretty solid on all of the information that we've been taught so far, but there were still sentences where it took way longer than I felt it should have for me to respond and during the oral part of the exam I felt that I definetly understood everything it just took a little longer than I wanted it to take. Many times I felt maybe it was because of me being nervous but I can't say for sure. Another problem I have is with the tones of characters。I feel like I have a more solid backing on just the characters or just speaking than writing down the tones, so that section of the test where you required we work in pinyin was a little stressful butr at the same time useful. I also wasn't really sure if I used 还有 correctly on htat one part, but Ill find out soon enough. Thank you so much!

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Hello everyone. This week was quite the stressful one for me! For some reason, all my classes became really busy this past week and it proved quite the challenge to keep up with everything. Anyway, in terms of Chinese, I found that honestly, just writing down the characters over and over helped with their memorization. Moreover, if you wrote down the pin1yin1 alongside the character, that also helped with memorizing the pin1yin1. Two birds one stone, I suppose. Anyway, I found that my biggest problem was listening comprehension and speaking. In order to get better at listening comprehension, I listened to the ting1xie3 online and the dialogue recordings available on Collab and Ascit, respectively. My listening comprehension still is quite lacking, so more of this practice will definitely necessary. Chatting in Mandarin with my Chinese friends has also been helpful in this aspect, but also in developing my speaking capabilities (which are honestly horrific). I can write a mean essay or reflection post, but if you want me to recite the Mandarin, then well... It just will not be pretty. Unfortunately, I get nervous when speaking because I do not want to mess up. Hopefully as time goes on I will get over this and my speaking will get better. For now, I will continue to practice my pronunciation alongside the recordings and ask my Chinese friends to grill me when I mess up! On a positive note, I was pumped when doing the chapter 4 homework as I thought, "Wow. I can write quite a bit and it's only been a few weeks!" Let's keep it up everyone!

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I really enjoyed this week because I got to consolidate everything I have learned so far in this course and I finally completely understand how to hold a meaningful albeit simple conversation in Chinese. Also, the oral portion of the test helped my skills with speaking Chinese as well. I hope this next week we will learn more words to use, because most of my reasons for stuff during the oral portion of the test were "因为好," which definitely will not pass if I actually talk to a Chinese person. Other areas I need to work on are a couple of difficult words to pronounce and my handwriting skills, or character drawing skills. All the different materials that Shao Laoshi provides us with are very informative and helpful; I have quite a few Chinese friends now (regular UVa student Chinese friends but nonetheless...) whom I can talk with in Chinese. Now that I know everything for chapters 1-3, I am ready for the next wave of chapters!

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Hi everyone! This week, even though it was a review week, proved to be as difficult as the last three. But, I'm really glad we were able to have a review and really make sure our foundation of the basics was there. The best form of studying that for me was definitely just being able to converse with others in the class and even other friends outside of class (that know Chinese) so that they can help me with all my tones and everything in general. But individually, I felt that writing down sentences and vocabulary over and over and applying them into real paragraphs helped me gain a better understanding of what we have learned so far. I think this has helped my oral presentation a lot, and I was able to better understand during the oral and respond at a relatively normal pace. I also really like all the helpful videos that we have and even just regular youtube links that explain characters and ways to remember their meanings. Speaking Good Chinese has also helped a lot with tones, it takes me a few time to get it just right, but I feel as though it really helped me perform better in class and allow me to be better understood. And I am really proud of how far I have come, but I know there's still room for improvement, especially with getting the tones for pinyin and making sure my speaking is just right.

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Hello all! I think having a week of review was nice. I liked it because it allowed me to really be able to cement the sentence structures down, as well as grammar rules and tone rules (like with bu and yi). One thing I noticed while doing my oral test with laoshi was that while I generally write sentences that are grammatically correct, when I am on the spot and have to think of the sentence structure under pressure, it becomes much harder to say the right thing. I think continuing to volunteer to speak in class and all the questions laoshi asks us will help with that. This week I've also been able to somewhat tart distinguishing the tones laoshi is saying without having to know the pinyin for the word already. While second tone is still hard for me, I'm starting to get third and fourth tone down, which is exciting. Overall a solid (and fun!) week in Chinese :)

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It was nice having a review week to prepare for the test, it definitely gave me enough time to focus on grammar rules and establish better constructed sentences. My method of studying was just to keep writing sentences over and over as well as recording my own voice to try to pinpoint my tone mistakes. Working with classmates also helped a lot. I still struggle with tones, I'll be sure to keep using the tone trainer. I looked at next weeks chapter and was originally a little overwhelmed with the amount of new vocabulary, but I'm taking it in little by little so that I'm not cramming everything in at once. From this past test, I've learned that I need to begin listening and responding quicker. I'll continue to practice by talking to myself in Chinese and study diligently.

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Hey everyone! This week of review really showed me the different ways I can solidify all the vocabulary and grammar that we've learned in the previous three weeks. I think one of my favorite ways to review now is to converse with other classmates and asking them questions. Having to think about the grammar necessary to formulate a question helps me understand the grammar rules in general, as opposed to just learning how to answer the questions that laoshi gives us. I'm definitely excited to keep learning even more this coming week. I really love getting new vocabulary, even though it can be kind of hard sometimes. It's just so cool looking back and seeing just how much we've learned in such a short period of time.

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Hey everyone! This week of review has definitely been extremely helpful to me in mastering what we have learned so far. Reviewing over vocabulary and grammar rules was definitely the most helpful for the test, especially for the speaking and writing. Additionally, the final dictations on radicals helped me a lot in memorizing those last few characters. The hardest thing I think, is remembering the tones for the pin1yin1. Everyone's character videos have been so good for helping me remember the characters in more creative ways. My Chinese friend is made it a lot easier for me to practice communicating more fluently. I am definitely proud of what I've accomplished. I didn't realize it, but we've learned and memorized so many characters. I am looking forward to a new week and learning more Chinese.

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This past week, like the previous three, proved to be a lot of work but ultimately payed off. I definitely feel like spending this time to consolidate all that I have learned in the past three chapters has been worthwhile, whether through my increased familiarity with the sounds of Chinese words in a sentence or through improvements in my ability to pronounce and write - the character videos and being able to talk to my Chinese suite mate have also helped a lot. I can firmly say that I feel much more comfortable, after this week, with the Chinese language. There are, of course, still plenty of things that I need to work on. Firstly, my pronunciation (more particularly tone distinctions) still needs improvement. I feel like, in order to do this, I just need to practice speaking more. Secondly, my understanding of spoken Chinese still needs work. Although I have made progress, I still definitely feel like, when I listen to 邵老师 asking us questions in class, there are times when I can't recognize perfectly familiar words when used in a sentence. Thirdly, I think that my handwriting is horrible, but I guess I just need more practice. All in all, good week. I look forward to expanding my vocabulary with next week's Lesson.

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老师/ Reflection（四）Are you ready for the new chapter?

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老师/ Reflection（四）Are you ready for the new chapter?

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I'm sure everybody is just happy that the test is over! From your orals alone, Laoshi is quite happy about your performance/progress. Of course there is always room for improvement, but the key is you need to make sure you are always getting better. For this reflection, I would like you to reflect upon your past week of review and consolidation effort. What have proven to be effective to help you cement what you have acquired and thus helped you do well in the test? What areas you found you still need to further work on? What resources have you taken advantage of? (the tone trainer, laoshi's extra office hours, character videos, chat room, Chinese corner/friend, working with peers, etc.) Are they useful and do you have any commendations? Are you proud of what you have achieved and are you ready for and excited about the new chapter next week? Again, feel free to reflect on any other aspects if you would like to. And last but not least, enjoy your weekend!

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The amount of vocabulary we have learned has been very impressive. Each week we learn so many new characters through the ting xie exercise. It seems crazy to me that now we are all able to read entire paragraphs in Chinese and understand every single bit. The class has also gotten better at listening comprehension. Sometimes Shao Laoshi can speak for extended periods of time and we can understand all of it. It's encouraging.

邵老师To振浚：

我很 pleased that you can understand longer scentences now, you are going to have more challenges and even complicated scentences in 中文课， get ready for them ~!

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Hey everyone. I have to say that these last few vocabulary sections were fairly extensive since they dealt with the concepts of telling time and dates, but were also immensely useful in terms of immediate usage. The conjunctions we learned are also great tools to increase the amount of information we can convey and provide a bit more complexity to our ideas which definitely displays increased levels of proficiency and, again, utility. But that has not come without the price of an increased workload and study time, both things that are not necessarily my forte so I'm kinda glad we had less work for today's class. All in all, our in-class discussions help me out a lot; I learn best by engaging in real-life application and having examples to consider so I can kinda teach myself. The class as a whole has made substantial progress and it hasn't even been a month yet. That's cool.

邵老师To思文：Very good progress, keep it up!

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Hi everyone. With the quicker accumulation of vocab this week, the workload has definitely increased accordingly. Memorizing some of the more complex grammar structures and keeping track of the tones with so many new words have been the main difficult points for me. I'd say the only tip I have for in-class listening would be to listen for key words in the sentence, especially in longer (or faster) sentences/questions and pretty often you can figure out the rest of the sentence from there.

邵老师To伟德：好的advice， everyone can take this and have a try~!谢谢伟德！

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Hi everyone. This past week was definitely harder than any other week thus far. It was not just the amount of vocabulary words that made things difficult, but also the grammar structures, which were a bit confusing for me at first. I am sure that others must have felt the same way. Specifically, I always find myself wondering where I should list the time in relation to the subject of a sentence. Is it subject + time + action, or is it time + subject + action? Based on what I've seen it is the former. However, that was a bit counterintuitive as in English one would generally frame a sentence by listing the time first. For example one could say, "This year, I did X." However, in Mandarin it would be something like, "I, this year, did X." It still makes sense, but I always second guess myself whenever writing and/or speaking in Mandarin... Nevertheless, I'm glad that are actually getting to learn so many new characters and grammar structures. It's always fun when I talk to my Chinese friends at the end of the week and can add more and more to our conversations. Hopefully everyone is not having too much trouble memorizing characters and such. The videos posted on Collab were pretty helpful in my opinion, should anyone be seeking a study resource.

邵老师To煐训：你好煐训！ In Chinese， you can either "Subject+Time+Verb" or "Time+Subject+Verb". Always put Time phrase before Verb.

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Hello! I also feel that there has been an uptick in the difficulty of the class. But I agree that it seems more difficult because we're closer to actually planning out our dialogue and sentences rather than repetition and rote. I don't know whether I have any tips for listening in class, but listen to the dialogue audio files multiple times and try to match the tones. I sometimes get nervous in class and misplace one word for another, especially with pronouns, but I have gotten into the swing of things. In addition, tones are coming more naturally to me. I think it's good to have a positive attitude about these things and do the best from where you are.

P.S. Anyone not using wiktionary.org should do so.

邵老师 to 艾伦：Don't be nervous, relax a little bit may help you perform better.因为你有很多很好的同学们~！

谢谢艾伦的recommendation~！

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This week was definitely tougher than the previous ones. We had so much more vocabulary and complex grammar rules to learn, and that required me to put a lot more effort outside of class to keep up. That's, why I'm very glad that we're reviewing this week. I feel like the review will really set in all the things we've learned up until now and make us more confident about using the grammar and vocabulary in new and creative ways. It's definitely crazy to think about just how much we've learned in less than a month though. I can only imagine where we're going to be by the end of the semester!

邵老师To黄蕊：

You always perform well , don't worry about the vocabulary/grammar rules, you can handle them!

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I like how this week's vocabulary enabled us to say a larger variety of things, and the workload got correspondingly heavier. I think I need to dedicate more time to practicing Chinese outside class - reading as well as speaking. Having FINALLY found a zhonguo pengyou will definitely help with that. I'm really glad that this week is a review week. I feel like I really need the next few days to really solidify what we've learned so far and practice fluency. It's still hard to believe how much we've accomplished so far as a class, and I'm excited to see how far we've come by fall break!

邵老师To珊珊：Congratulations on 找到一个“中国朋友”。 他/她 will help you enhance what you've learned during class. 加油！

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The vocabulary learned this week was incredibly satisfying, as we are getting closer and closer to becoming pros at Chinese! We only need a hundred words to have a decent conversation in Chinese, and I feel like our time to converse with real Chinese people well is coming closer! I feel like I need to work on a couple of specific tones, but I have most of the words down pat. Memorizing the characters is becoming easier and easier, but I hope the review will help consolidate the words in my memory since we have been moving at such a rapid pace!

邵老师to 嘉铭：

嘉铭你好，Maybe you can share your tips on how to better memorize characters next time, it will be very helpful to 你的同学们~！

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This week was the most difficult one yet. A lot of vocabulary and grammer rules were learned this week. There's still a lot room for me to improve. I also need to learn everyone's names. It's nice that we get to learn a little bit about each other every week. It's good that we are having a review week, so that we can solidify everything we've learnt since the first week. Wow, it's almost been a whole month. If we keep this up, there's no doubt that by the end of the semester, we'll be speaking and reading like pros!

邵老师To佳妮：

我也很 look forward to your performance till the end of this semester~!加油~！

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Hello everyone! This week I think was very good for having closer to real conversations. Many of our new characters or grammar lended themselves to having more substantial sentences. I think I need to make sure that I invest more time into chinese, becuase like others have said even when I understand each individual word in a sentence I have to repeat and slow it down in my head. THat's iin no way clsoe to how it actually is spoken. Also embarrassingly I must have memorized my chinese name incorrectly which has led to me getting it wrong almost every single day, which should not be happening. I'm not study yi bo. A third and continuing problem I'm having is with tones. I have to really focus to make sure I'm using all my tones. Often times I forget and my tones get lazy, or I'll just get it flat out wrong. These are all things I should keep in my head and focus on this week while we review all we've learned

邵老师To一波：

You are supposed to remember how to write your 中文名字，it's your responsibility~!

邵老师To同学们：Speaking of tones, don't be lazy, you can use gestures to help you pronounce correctly now---at the beginning of Chinese learning, or you may have many potential problems in the future.

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Hi everyone! I think this week, I was beginning to be able to understand the overall concepts of Chinese a lot better, but I'm still having a lot of trouble getting my pronunciation and writing the characters just right. I am trying to participate in class more, even though sometimes understanding the question right away is tricky. I do like the fact that we get to have conversations in class with 邵老师 because even though I can't understand everything right away, it makes me less nervous about speaking for presentations. Listening comprehension is getting easier by listening to you all speak as well as doing the problems in the workbook, I do have to slow it down sometimes, but I'm beginning to understand the phrases a lot better. I'm getting more accustomed to the workload, but sometimes I am still struggling because I cannot fully understand the grammar of some of the sentences and overall, I can get confused. But I am trying really hard to keep up and learn everything to make sure my Chinese improves each week. I am nervous for the test next week, but hopefully with the entire week being review, I will be able to fully understand everything!

邵老师To颖珩：

Don't worry , just make progress day by day, little by little, finally you will understand everything.

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Hey all! I think this week overall went pretty well. I am still having a lot of trouble trying to get my pronunciation done. When trying to put a sentence together and also make sure I'm speaking with the right tones I often get jumbled up. I think the fact that we spend a good portion of the class answering questions and actually speaking Chinese helps a lot, and overtime I'll start just instinctively saying things the right way. Another thing I've found difficult is trying to remember the rules with yi and shi when the tones change, those trip me up. All in all I think I'm getting accustomed to the workload, and it's becoming more manageable, and the whole class is definitely improving. Being able to ask people questions in Chinese and have everyone be able to respond is a very cool feeling.

邵老师To 亨利：

It's very normal to get jumbled up at the beginning of learning a second language, especially when you try to pronounce tones correctly and follow Chinese grammer rules at the same time. It may take some time for you to get accustomed to all of these, please be patient .

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Hi everyone! This week I feel like my Chinese has improved greatly and I am excited to being able to put together longer sentences. Despite having to memorize all the new pinyin and characters, I feel like the most difficult part is remembering the tones for each character and pronouncing them correctly and fluently while speaking. Listening comprehension is getting slightly easier as I do more practice in the workbook and participate in class, but it is difficult to understand when the speech gets faster. I always have to think about the order of the characters in a sentence, especially when speaking about the date and time, and the characters sometimes get jumbled up in my head. I am anxious for the test next week, but am looking forward to reviewing and solidifying the Chinese I have learned so far.

邵老师To王圆：

我也很excited to see your progress in 中文课！Hope you are much less anxious for 星期四的考试，as we have more practice in 这个星期， and I am quite sure that you will be ready for 考试！加油！