Today is my HSK 3 test day. At 130pm I will enter into Beijing Forestry University and sit the the online version of the test. No doubt it’ll be a challenge, but I don’t think I’m unprepared.
I’ve spent much of the last year studying Chinese in my free time, spending as much as 2-3 hours per day or more focusing just on the language. That doesn’t count the one-off conversations or occasional vocabulary look-up on the street. I’ve made my way through the HSK 2 and 3 books on my own and recently begun the HSK 4 books. My goal is to take the HSK 4 test in December of this year.
But the HSK 3 test remains to be conquered. Though I’ll sit the test today the marks won’t be out for another 45 days, quite unlike the IELTS test for which results are usually out in 10 days or so.
But I’ve been listening (Chinese hip hop and audiobooks) whenever I get the chance and I think it has helped my understanding quite a bit. What’s improved my language the most, however, is the slow-going study of the HSK materials in which the same words are used again and again and slowly stick in my mind. The scripts are short and ask questions after reading to help with understanding. I’m slowly able to write out my answers in full Chinese script but sometimes I give up and just write the pinyin.
I continue to write out characters and literally just finished writing out all of the HSK 3 characters. It took me about one hour to write out 15 characters for about 45 times each. HSK 4 takes me the same but there are double the number of characters/words to learn. Some In addition to writing out the characters in a notebook, I’m also using AnkiDroid to review the HSK 3 and 4 flashcards whenever I go for a walk.
Finally, I’ve been reading as much as I can stand. Chinese is a difficult language to read because there’s no real way to piece together both the sound and the meaning of the character involved. But I’ve done my best to persist. I use the free version of the Du Chinese graded reading app, which helps me feel better about my reading abilities. But the free material is limited so I also use the Xiaomi Reader app to read other, more natural material. I have bought a couple of children’s books, including Fengle (疯了, a Kwai Boo book)and Shentangougou (神探狗狗, Police Dog). The Police Dog book is a lot easier to read and a bit funnier, too… and aimed at a much lower reading level than the Kwai Boo book. hahaha
My speaking level remains shit and it’s something I’ll begin working on as I make my way through the HSK 4 books. My target is to start focusing more on speaking once we get back from Taiwan in October. That’s right, I’m going to Taiwan with a Chinese friend, but my language skills will be useless there because they speak more Cantonese and use the traditional script whereas I’m learning the simplified Mandarin script of the Mainland. And I’m okay with that for now.
The only downside of taking the test is that it’s located on the other side of the city from where I live now. If I still worked at CAU-ICB then it would literally be a walk down the street (still 35 minutes from there), but now I need to take the subway for 45 minutes and then a bit of a walk. I hope I can find the building and that all of my ID info is in order. Who knows how things can get messed up and I don’t want to have to re-register and do this all again.
And with that I should get going. Gotta eat before I go and, since I’ll be in the area, I’m thinking I might bring my drone so I can go up to Changping Park after the test and do a bit of flying!
现在开始！