Biweekly Dictation Tests

          In order to help you practice your listening skill in Chinese, we will have a dictation test on every other Friday. The first test will be January _____. There will be a total of 3 dictation tests.

          The content of each dictation test will be from the material we have covered in class during those two weeks. There will be five or six sentences in each dictation test. I will read each sentence three times. First time, you need to listen to my pronunciation carefully without writing down any Pinyin. Second time, you will have time to write down the sentences in Pinyin with tonal marks. The last time, you may check your sentences.

Journal Writing

          Journal writing consists of the following: reactions to our class experiences, comments to phrases, articles, paintings, music, etc. about China, learning difficulties, ideas of learning activities, study skill in Chinese etc.

          Due time: I will collect your journals every Wednesday (starts from the __________ week) and give back to you on Friday. Be sure to DATE your journal entries.

          Requirements: There are five journals total. Your journals must be legible, and you may hand write or type them out. 100-300 words will be fine.

          The following journal examples came from the two students attended Chinese 101 fall quarter 2000:

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2000-10-18 (2000 nian shi yue shi ba)
Xing qi san (Wednesday)
Han qu (Chinese name) 

          Ni hao ma Su laoshi? (how are you teacher Su?) jin tian shi er ling ling ling nian, shi yue shi ba hao. (Today is 2000/10/18)

          I have been practicing with my flash cards for the initials and finals. I think that I finally can hear the difference between the "ds" sound in Z and the "ts" sound in C. so hopefully tomorrow on the diction test I will circle the right ones. I have also been practicing shang, xia, zuo, and you. I think that I am going to make up flash cards for most of the words that we learn because they seem to help me catch on to the pinyin pronunciations. Sometimes, when we sound them out with the initial and then the final sound I get confused, especially when the sounds change because of the rules. I have been studying the blue packet and that seems to be helping me a little bit. Today in my Psychology class we were discussing language and how humans learn to speak, we spent a while talking about being multilingual. How would you write: my right ear hurts?" all I know is er duo (ear). I like bi zi (nose) because it sounds like pizza and I think if I put pizza on my nose I will get a zit. It is funny, the little things we use to remember new information. Well I am going to go and study my blue packet and my flash cards before class. Zai jian (bye).

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2000-11-01(2000 nian shi yi yue yi hao)
Xing qi san (Wednesday)
Zhu Cong (Chinese name)

          …I have decided to call my companion Mi Lao Shu (Mickey Mouse) because of his giant er duo (ear). I walk on to the bridge where Mi Lao Shu (Mickey Mouse) looks hen mang (very busy) so I ask Mi Lao Shu (Mickey Mouse) ni mang ma? (Are you busy?) He answers wo bu mang (I'm not busy) ni ne?(how about you?) wo bu mang (I am not busy) I replied. You have to teach me how to fly this thing Mi Lao Shu (Mickey Mouse) will you become my lao shi (teacher)? I asked? Sure he replied the next few weeks I learned how to fly this intergalactic ship and got to know Mi Lao Shu (Mickey Mouse) more personally. I learn about his ma-ma (mother) and ba-ba (father) as well as ta (he) learned mine. We become very close friends by the time we reached our first planet. It looked like a giant green peeng gwob (apple) as we approached and landed.