#hsk4

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

Pondering whether or not to re-take the HSK4 exam (without the speaking this time) since I failed to meet the passing mark by around 10 points last time and I refuse to believe that the past few months of studying wouldn't be able to give me that boost.

[dorelia23]

I really like capturing memories of studying.

[simplechinese]

100 animal names in Chinese

[unforth]

Alright so my Press planned a meet up, and one of the people came is a friend who lives in Beijing most of the year and was in North America anyway. She knows I love danmei so she made me one heck of an offer: if I put together a Taobao shopping list, she'd be my danmei mule - order it for me and carry the stuff to the US so I could pay just cost, no mark up or shipping.

Needless to say I jumped on this like whoa and asked for more than she was physically capable of bringing me. 🤣 (I was very clear she could say "no" whenever, and she did.) As it is she went so fricken above and beyond...

Top to bottom, it's vol. 1 of the Global Examination manhua, a vol. of Daomu Biji, I Ship My Rival x Me, the TGCF revision (wanting that like whoa is what triggered all this), Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine, Mo Du, Little Mushroom, The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua, and the Global Examination special edition (I had. No idea this one would be this big. Oops.)

There are so many extras. So many. I laid everything out on my bed last night and in my head I just kinda flopped mentally atop it all and basked like a content cat, lmao.

All this adds to my existing collection (SVSSS in traditional, MDZS vol. 1 to 3 in traditional, TGCF vol. 1 to 4 in traditional, Thousand Autumns, Golden Stage, Guardian, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, TGCF manhua vol. 1 and 2, and The Husky and His White Cat Shizun vol. 1 to 3).

Anyway, now goals are to REALLY step up getting "reading ready" on my studying. Part of why I got I Ship My Rival x Me (...outside of "the manhua releases too slow and I want to know what happens") is I thought something modern and fluffy would hopefully be a bit simpler for me to read? And it's also a lot shorter than the others. So, after I read all the manhua (I'm way behind on posting TGCF vol. 1 cause this summer is kicking my ass, but I've read about half of it) I'm gonna sit my ass down with ISMM and see if just maybe I can't make my way through an actual damn book, and then if I can, use the vocabulary building that'll surely result in to springboard me into some other book (I'd been thinking Thousand Autumns but after seeing that post about "distinct character usage" stats for cnovels, uh, maybe not Thousand Autumns lmao, idk, I could try Fourteenth Year of Chenghua, that might be a "simpler" choice for historical vocabulary building but their both Meng Xi Shi so they might both be hard...maybe I should just do TGCF, heck knows I know the story which always helps...sorry, I'm just babbling cause I'm excited about my books and procrastinating taking a shower 🤣🤣🤣)

Anyway.

So many shinies.

So many EXTRAS.

I'll try to post pics as I go through everything.

(I've also got ShanGo pre-orders for Legend of Exorcism manhua vol. 1 and...something else my brain is crickets...and fuck I just realized I missed yesterday's ShanGo cut off, I'll have to get TGCF manhua vol. 3 and Erha vol. 4 some other way, and yes I really am this rambly scattered dumb rn, sorry not sorry, the point is. BOOKS. AH. SO MANY BOOKS. )

[therylez]

Just officially registered for the next HSK 4 exam in November!!!! No backing out of it now

[mydivinepunishment]

We're getting hit with a surprise HSK mock-exam tomorrow and I refuse to study today just because how out of nowhere way that it popped

[marilearnsmandarin]

These are the apps and links I currently have on my phone to study Chinese:

SuperChinese: my main study resource. There are currently 7 levels, level 7 (still incomplete, they are still slowly adding lessons to it) being HSK 5 stuff. Each lesson has vocabulary, grammar and a short dialogue where those are used in context (I love context). It has a few free lessons in the lower levels but after that you have to buy a subscription. There are many sales though. When I was a beginner I used HelloChinese instead, which has more free content, and switched to SuperChinese when I finished all the free content there. It also has social network features and chat rooms I don't use.

TofuLearn is like a flashcard app with many pre-made decks (you can also create your own on their website and import decks from Anki) and the option to practice writing hanzi. Anki didn't work for me, but I find Tofu very helpful. Practicing writing helps me with character recognition, and it also helps me remember the tones thanks to the audio in the pre-made HSK decks.

Dot is a reading app with new texts being added every day. It used to be completely free, which actually seemed too good to be true, and then they put practically everything behind a paywall and very strict limits for free users. After a couple of months they made it a little less restricted though - we still can't choose the articles but we can read as many as we want as long as we do the vocabulary exercises after each article (plus, during the Spring Festival, they made all articles available for free for 3 days and we could save the ones we were interested in to read later). It follows the new, not-yet-implemented (and harder) HSK levels, so you should start one or two levels below yours and if the texts are too easy move up.

Google Translator: not the best but helpful when I need to translate whole sentences, plus I can point my camera or open an image and it translates writing.

Pleco: best Chinese to English dictionary.

Stroke Order: not an app but a website, does what it says in the tin: shows stroke order for a specific character.

YouGlish: also a website, you can put a word or phrase and it shows videos where people say that word/phrase. Very cool.

Todaii is a graded news app that has only two levels: easy and hard. I'm around level HSK4 and the "easy" level is quite hard though (but I admit reading is my nemesis).

I also use YouTube and Spotify a lot.

[anxhelstudies]

110924

it’s been a while but i went in albania for 2,5 weeks, went to 2 weddings, go out with my friends since one of them was going back to ireland and i am going to london in 2 days.

so the rankings for the uni i applied got released (idk if it’s the correct therm for this but idc) and surprise!! i didn’t get in… so anyway i’m going to london as a consolation prize! i’m really excited and grateful for this opportunity because it’s all thanks to my aunt who invited me (and my mother who is supporting me since she doesn’t want me to give her back the money she gave me in advance for milan). i hope i will take the most from this opportunity, i’m going to the london design festival and have some days to visit the tourist spots while sending cv and portfolio hoping to do some networking and have some job interview (crossing my fingers). all of this because i applied for the passport in time!! and it’s my first time having a strong passport, i could go to a lot of countries and not worrying for a visa meanwhile in high school i was known in my class and an other class to be the girl who always has problems in international school trips because of my nationality.

anyway i decided to do the #100daysofproductivity challenge starting today, hoping i can finish it. so today i did some laundry and took my first chinese lesson with a tutor! i was a little anxious since i always studied alone but i went well. the teacher is very nice and i really liked her and the price per hour is good so i think i will be able to have 1h lesson a week. since i told her i already self studied something this first lesson was more of a recap this way she could understand my level and adjust the next lessons accordingly. we decided together the book that we were going to use and after that we started with reading pinying, i was really nervous because i never read in in chinese with someone listening but in the end my reading/pronunciation skills were actually good for someone who self studied and i didn’t make the errors some of her students at hsk4 level makes so she was happy and told me to practice more the fourth tone and the pronunciation of p and b because i make some mistakes there but it’s not a big deal since this are the same problem for italian so i just have to practice more. other than that she made me read some words and ask some question about words and radicals to see my situation. At the end she asked me to take a look at the textbook see what i know and don’t know and the text her to let her know what i wanted for next lesson: continue with the review or start something new. Next lesson will probably be a review for the things that i had difficulties studying alone and the few things in the firsts chapters i didn’t do. overall i really liked studying with a tutor, since it’s one on one the focus is all on me and it’s really good to have someone to tell u what u need to practice more. i can totally see the benefits of this and for me its money spent wisely and will be a really good investment for my future.

anyway if u have some good spot to visit or try in london leave it in the comments (especially for asian skincare and makeup and stationary!)

[eaion]

Okay, so I tried to put every danmei I've read this year into one picture, but I failed, because there are too many. :D In late January I (almost accidentally - because I wanted to buy another book from anyway a Japanese author, but then I fortunately saw the first volume of MDZS :D) bought the Mo Dao Zu Shi book from Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. It was life-changing. :D I mean I loved it so much that quickly bought all the four other volumes then the whole Tian Guan Ci Fu, too. These stories has Hungarian translations, so I've read them in Hungarian. Then I continued with the English translations of several other danmei and I also bought and read the tgcf manhua (in Chinese), and anyway in March I started to learn Mandarin via an online university course, and I've already made the HSK1 exam. :D (I know it's not a big deal, because most of the people took like HSK4 in 1 year, but I'm slow and also anyway pretty middle-aged now, and also don't need to rush anything. :'D)

Okay, so I don't know what to write now, I'm glad that I have the opportunity to read all of these books - currently started to read Erha, I've already have the first two books and can't wait to read them all, though it won't took a little time, I know. :)

(I love everything, but my favorites became the wuxia stories, by Meng Xi Shi; I can't talk about so much about it, but I love her stories very much and they are the closest to my heart. 🥰)

[duskofastraeus]

Language Goals 2024

{Chinese (Mandarin)}

Go through the Peking University lectures from HSK1 to HSK4

Go through the HSK official textbooks from HSK2 to HSK4

Watch more Chinese dubs in order to better my listening comprehension

{French}

Go to France for a 2 week long French culture and language intensive course

Revise my B2 notes and start delving into C1 material

Read at least 5 books in French

{Spanish}

Revise my B1 and B2 material + exercises

Improve on my daily exposure to European Spanish

Read at least 5 books in Spanish

{Russian}

Recover my Russian by picking up B1 and B2 textbooks

Better my weekly exposure to Russian (audio and translations)

Read at least 2 books in Russian

{Italian}

Do my university exam and pass with a decent grade

Revision + exercises from B1-B2 level textbooks

Translate/read Italian everyday for 20 minutes

Improve my Italian exposure by listening to podcasts daily

{Latin}

Pick up Latin again (study on a weekly basis)

Finish the ‘Reading Latin: Grammar and exercises’ series

{Catalan}

Read ‘Complete Catalan’

Delve more into the history of the language

{Galician}

Read a Galician Grammar and Vocabulary textbook

Read ‘A companion to Galician Culture’

{Others…}

Read ‘Origen y Gramática del Romance Andalusí’ and delve more into the history of Mozarabic and dialects spoken during the Andalusian Period throughout different Iberian regions

Maybe start studying Greek or Ancient Greek… Highly depends on how my summer studying will be structured.

These are quite ambitious goals but I do hope to be able to at lest cover 70% of what is present within this list (depending upon my university’s workload…of course…).

[biglittleluobo]

萝卜's Essential Chinese Characters #1

大家好！

When spending time in China, there were several characters/words that I wasn't familiar with (as an ~HSK4 learner) yet seemed to pop up everywhere! Being so prevalent, I tried to take note of them and now can share them with you all over a series of posts! If you're planning to visit China, I hope you follow along and find these posts useful :)

Today's character is: 区 (qū)!

区, meaning "district", "area", "region", etc, can be found in a multitude of contexts. Some explicit examples from my experience are:

小区 (xiǎoqū) – home community, neighborhood. The apartment complexes/condos where many citizens live are usually in the form of several high-rises built around a central recreation/park area, sometimes also with a school, markets, restaurants, etc all right downstairs! Collectively, this living space is known as a 小区. You can find one of my pictures of a 小区 below!!

凉菜区 (liáng cài qū) – literally “cold dish area” aka where the cold dishes are located in a restaurant

NFC区 (NFC qū) – “near-field communication zone” aka where you should tap your card/phone to transfer information such as payment or identification

景区 (jǐngqū) – scenic area, related to the similar term 景点 (jǐngdiǎn) meaning “scenic point”

Other examples:

区号 (qūhào) – area code (literally “area number”)

城区 (chéngqū) – city district, similar to 市区 (shìqū) meaning “urban district” or “downtown”

地区 (dìqū) – local, regional, area; when used as a suffix to a city name, means “prefecture” or “county”

时区 (shíqū) – time zone

Have you encountered 区 before in your studies? Let me know if you have other favorite 区 words!

See you next time! 下次见！

(Picture of a 小区 under the cut)

[zhuzhudushu]

聊天的词 12

I started using Tandem again!

生词：( HSK4 / HSK5 / HSK6 )

魔幻 / mó huàn / magic; magical

力量 / lì liang / force, power

专辑（專輯）/ zhuān jí / album (of music)

东岸（東岸）/ dōng àn / east coast

重心 / zhòng xīn / center or main part, central core

硕士（碩士）/ shuò shì / master's degree

建议（建議）/ jiàn yì / to suggest

转换（轉換）/ zhuǎn huàn / to convert, to change

直视（直視）/ zhí shì / to look straight at

课程（課程）/ kè chéng / course, academic program

所能 / suǒ néng / according to one's capabilities, as one is able

协助（協助）/ xié zhù / to provide assistance

包括 / bāo kuò / to include

记忆力 (記憶力) / jì yì lì / memory (lit: memory + strength)

句子 & 翻译：

主唱的声音有魔幻的力量。The lead singer's voice has magical power.

整张专辑都很棒。The entire album is great.

你是在东岸，对吧？You're on the east coast, right?

不过我现在要把重心放在法文和英文，因为我之后打算去法国读硕士。But now I'm putting focus on French and English, because I plan to go to France for my Master's.

我建议可以用word繁简转换的功能。I suggest using word traditional-simplified conversion function.

我快不能直视这个课程了。I can barely watch this course.

我会尽我所能地协助你。I will do what I can to assist you.

好多欧美明星说 世界巡回 ，却不包括中国。A lot of European/American celebrities say "world tour", but they don't include China.

你记忆力真好。Your memory is really good.

Taglist: (let me know if you want to be added or removed!) @blue-grama @florphy @hope-and-sleep @mycatmybaby @nighttime-study @potentiallypolyglot @zeesqueere

[simplechinese]

Percentages in Chinese %

PORCENTAJES EN CHINO https://masteringmandarinchinese.blogspot.com/2024/04/percentages-in-chinese-porcentajes-en.html

[let-ni-study]

大家好！

我是Ni（名字还没有简化字写）。我是住在中国的22岁女生。

我一个年半前开始学习中文。六月前，我在中国搬到。现在我住在北京。因为我想提高我的中文水平，决定创建这个博客。

我想在这里写各种的话题，所以可以练习中文。

目标是什么？目标是，明年，可以流利地进行会话，也能轻松的阅读书籍。

希望明年12月，我的水平大概HSK6送到（现在是HSK4）。

流利得说，听，和读中文是我的目标。

欢迎大家！

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

The online HSK(K) 4 exam

Today I wrote my HSK4 and HSKK 4 exams, which as it turns out are 2 separate exams with 2 separate certificates and doing badly on one of them doesn't affect the other ones score as I'm told.

Since I was left feeling absolutely out of my depth in the beginning, I decided to write about my experience with doing the HSK(K) 4 exams online!

There were a few options for the exam formats. Do note that these formats may not be available everywhere depending on the region and the availability of the exam centres.

Paper-based: Your usual end-of-year or midterm exam format. Pen and paper, nothing particulary out of the ordinary. This type has its own pros and cons, as you have to know your characters really well, especially for the more advanced levels.

Online onsite. You go to a specific exam location, which is usually at a university or a language learning centre, where you sit at a computer and do the timed exam using special software.

Online at home. As far as I know its the same as option 2, expect you do it at home.

Nothing too surprising? Wait until you get to the online HSKK part.

The HSKK

I did the online onsite format, but I naively assumed that the exam would be with an actual in-person examiner.

Little did I know that it would also be online, and that I would have to speak my answers into the computers microphone. It wasn't too bad at the beginning, but then when we had to prepare for the individual answers it was chaos.

And not the good kind.

Trying to say my answer into the microphone in a room full of other people also trying to do the same thing, with my microphone also picking up other people's answers and me being totally thrown off and struggling to gather my thoughts led me to this conclusion within the first 5 minutes of this exam: I am so not passing this.

It is what it is, and once I get my results back (in 60-90 days apparently???) I can try to figure out what to do next. In the mean time I'll be focusing on my chinese studies and see about picking up another skill while I'm here.

If anyone also did their HSK(K) exams recently, what was it like for you?

[marilearnsmandarin]

Rant

I'm taking the HSK4 in a week.

A whole year ago I took a mock test and got 71% right. I even considered taking the test then (so glad I didn't!)

Since then, I've had an entire year to study. I've used the app SuperChinese every. single. day. and finished all the HSK4 level lessons. I've also had 3 hours of Chinese class every week. Not to mention the podcasts I've listened to, the cdramas I've watched, the occasional reading...

So I was a little bit disappointed when I took two mock tests last month, a few weeks apart, and got

on the first one and

on the second.

For the past month I've studied a lot more focusing on the test. I've been listening to mock tests' audios and doing reading exercises every day besides reviewing SuperChinese and copying characters I struggle remembering... and today I got

I know I'm (probably) going to pass, but I feel like I've been working really hard and not getting anywhere.

I'm also gonna be really relieved after the test is done and over with, but what is that going to mean for my motivation?

I don't see myself taking another HSK test anytime soon.

Mock tests taken on allmusing.net