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It delights me immeasurably to teach my students to learn Zhongwen, China's
culture, and history. It is encouraging that so many students sign up for online courses to study Zhongwen with me. If you
have conflicting schedules on either weekdays or weekends and cannot attend classes in a classroom on a regular basis, you
do not have to give up because my online courses are just designed for you to meet your needs the way you want and you can
take courses at all levels!
Since you have the online courses as your back up, just do not stop learning. If you slacken
your effort for a while, the cost is going to be incredibly huge! My analogy tells you why: Learning any foreign language,
Zhongwen in particular, is just like cooking meat on a hot stove. Since you want it to be tasty, you will NEVER stop cooking
until it is done. You will NEVER turn the stove off in the middle of cooking just, say, to make or get a phone call. Why?
Because if you do, your meat will not taste better than, say, "rubber" -- not tasty any more. Some people studied Zhongwen
in the past by taking it up and off so often that they even do not know where their proficiency stands now.
What makes
me excited about teaching Chinese is that meeting new students, making new friends, and that they have made up their minds
to learn Zhongwen well without stopping. In order to complement your hard work on Zhongwen, I would like to make a few suggestions
for you. I hope that you will find them helpful:
1) Perhaps getting in touch with the Chinese community may be of
great value;
2) Watch Zhongwen movies. Search for them at Oriental video stores;
3) You may wish to learn
more about Chinese culture by
A. Getting current TV plays from China;
B. Watching This Is Beijing on an international
channel like WNVC; and
C. Subscribing to Beijing Review, China Daily, and/or China Today;
4) Understanding China
historically and literally can be approached by watching some Chinese masterpieces, which have been turned into movies or
TV series, such as Hong Lou Meng (Dream of the Red Mansion), Shuihu (Water-Margin), Sanguo Yanyi (Romances of the Three Kingdoms),
etc.
5) Of course, you are welcome to contact me when having trouble studying Zhongwen.
Remember,
Speak Zhongwen as mush as you can!
Speak Yingwen as little as possible!
Keep working
hard and never let it rest,
Till good is better, and better best!
Perseverance means
victory!
Great! I'd like to click here to share some ideas with Dr. Yang!
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