I should be honest, I haven’t completely finished the HSK 4 books (both shang 上 and xia 下) but I’m pretty close. There are one or two more things I need to do in order to actually have finished the books. The first is that I have to go through both books and re-do the grammar exercises and, second, if I feel so inclined, either read out loud the dialogues and/or do the practice questions in the group work sections. I typically skip over the latter questions mainly because there’s no way for me to verify whether or not I’m actually pronouncing everything correctly on my own so I tend to just leave them.
That being the case, I have gone through the majority of the exercises in each of the books for a total of 20 lessons or another 1200 characters total. I started the HSK 4 下 book back on January 9th, 2020 and finished it on February 27th, 2020 for a total of about seven weeks of study, or about 52 hours. This would probably be the fastest I’ve ever gone through one of the books, but I won’t be too quick to start the next series just yet.
First, I haven’t yet completed the HSK 4 practice test book which contains 10 complete tests. I didn’t realize that the whole test actually takes about an hour and a half to complete, which means I need to block off that time and, ideally, be able to complete the whole thing in one go. Not only does it mimic the real-world test but it also trains me to focus only on the language for that period of time. Focusing that length of time is not something I’m used to but I find it is getting easier. So, for the next ten days or so, I’ll be trying to get through one complete test each day.
The other thing I need to work on before I start the next series of books is my reading and grammar. This sounds overly generic but there are parts of the HSK 4 test that I completely bomb on because I’m unable to translate and arrange into proper sentences what has been written. Some of this has to do with character recognition and meaning, but some of it also has to deal with the way that Chinese sentence are grammatically structured. It is for this reason that I also hope to go through some of the Basic Chinese Grammar book I mentioned a few posts ago.
All that being said and done, one of the bigger steps I found in going through the HSK 4 books is that a) reading has gotten a lot easier, not just in the textbooks but everywhere, and b) that I’m now able to slowly translate in my mind while listening to something in Chinese. This sounds like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised at how long that ability took to develop.
The other thing that I noticed became a lot easier in the last few months was the ability to write a sentence with Chinese characters without having to look up each character. This plays an important role in the final section of the test wherein I will need to compose a sentence with the given words and pictures. Some people checking my work commented on my grammar but I suspect that the HSK examiners test more than just grammar, most likely also considering character formation and accuracy, range of words and depth of content (ie, how many characters were used and how many ideas were conveyed on the sentence).
One idea I have to help the above skills is to being listening to the dialogues again and writing out what I hear, like dictation exercises. This is something I can work on over the next month or so while still working through the practice tests and writing out the characters,
Overall, the idea is to thoroughly go through the material, particularly the characters, before moving on to the next series of books. It is a bit amazing to see how far I’ve come along in the last year and a half since dedicating myself to studying the language. Who knew I’d be finishing the HSK 4 books and already thinking about starting the HSK 5 books? I mean, this almost gets resume worthy!
Further, in addition to the HSK 4 materials, I’d like to get back to reading some more “real world” Chinese, such as the books I bought. If I could get through one or two of those before we start work again (probably in May), then I’ll think I’ll have accomplished something pretty big this year so far.
Finally, I’ve also hired two Chinese teachers to help me work my way through both the HSK grammar and to work on my speaking practice. My original goal was to take the HSKK test (which is the speaking portion of the HSK test) but, in talking with my teachers, they say it’s not really necessary since it doesn’t measure your real Chinese-speaking ability, nor do employers really ask for proof of your competency since they can usually gauge that by simply conducting an interview in Chinese.
And so, over the next month or so, I hope to thoroughly push through the rest of the HSK 4 book material, specifically making sure that I know the characters, before I even pick up the HSK 5 books.
With things as they are I may be able to take the HSK 4 test some time in June in the best case, or July. Failing that, I have no idea but, before I do take the HSK 4 test I’d like to start the HSK 5 books. Right now, I am on a bit of a break from studying so much as learning this language does seem to consume my life and schedule when I do actually concentrate on it. So, possibly for the next month or so I’ll take a break but then by the end of June I’d like to start the HSK 5 books.