Beginning Chinese

I have both lived in China and taken Chinese in high school (albeit at a much more relaxed pace), and this class is extremely challenging. 40-70 new vocab words a week. Quizzes once, and sometimes twice a week. Tests are around once every 3 weeks and last for two days. The class is taught 3 days by Du Laoshi and twice a week by He Laoshi (Harris). Harris is substantially easier and less intimidating. For all it's faults, the class will teach you mandarin, just with how much damage to GPA and personal misery.

I have both lived in China and taken Chinese in high school (albeit at a much more relaxed pace), and this class is extremely challenging. 40-70 new vocab words a week. Quizzes once, and sometimes twice a week. Tests are around once every 3 weeks and last for two days. The class is taught 3 days by Du Laoshi and twice a week by He La …Read more

I started learning Mandarin at Middlebury and it took some time to get accustomed to the work-load. Du, Hang can be a little intimidating but she has our best interest. I struggled because I did not know how to study but once I established a routine and took advantage of Du Hang's office hours I was able to improve. I would definitely take this course again although I would not recommend if you are just trying to fulfill your language requirement. I recommend following the weekly schedules to learn the pinyin with tone marks, then how to write the traditional, and finally simplified characters. I can see how useful it is to learn both since students can choose to study abroad in either Beijing or Taiwan. The tests can be rather long because they will give a dictation portion, grammar, short response (making your own dialogue), and translations.

I started learning Mandarin at Middlebury and it took some time to get accustomed to the work-load. Du, Hang can be a little intimidating but she has our best interest. I struggled because I did not know how to study but once I established a routine and took advantage of Du Hang's office hours I was able to improve. I would definitel …Read more

He Laoshi is an incredibly efficient and understanding teacher. As being someone who also learned Chinese as a beginner, she is very thorough in her instructing and will make sure you understand the new material. She is honestly a lifesaver in an otherwise extremely difficult class.

After taking Chinese for a few years, I still found this class pretty hard and very fast-paced. You need to have a lot of time and genuinely like Chinese. There are mini test almost everyday and you are required to learn both traditional and simplified chinese which is rare

Beginning Chinese was a class was extremely difficult. The culture of the class is very nice, but the material is very difficult. Overall, the professors are good at teaching, especially Harris. You have to work hard to be in this class.