I am the only person in our program this semester who speaks no Chinese at all. I didn't have to take the placement test on Monday - it was obvious that I would be in Level 1, Chinese 100. All by myself.
Having a class to myself is more useful than stressful, but it's definitely a bit of both. I can take up all of class time, I can set the pace (a little), and I get constant personal attention. Of course, I have to answer every question myself and be thoroughly engaged at all times, which is exhausting.
The way that class works is: I preview the upcoming material (I choose to spend a long time on it, and it has served me well so far), then we do dictation (which is stressful), drill, and then we cover some of the material from the current lesson. Mostly, I learn in the preview and then practice during the in-class drills. For homework, I go over previous lessons, listen to previous lessons, do my written homework, (often) record my oral homework, and then I study the new material.
Day 1, I learned basic pronunciation.
Day 2, I learned slightly more difficult pronunciation.
Day 3, (during my preview the night before) I learned thirty-five characters (looking up for myself how to write correctly), their pīnyīn spellings, and their meanings. Along with a few sentence structures.
The jump in difficulty was immense.
As a perfectionist, I felt that I should be able to learn all of the new material so that when (today) I had my dictation first thing in class, I could write down the complete (long) sentences she gave me, in characters.
As a worrywart, I felt that I wouldn't be able to remember anything.
There's a definite correlation between the two.
(Also please ignore how ugly my characters are. I had never written in characters before.)
I ended up somewhere in between. After several hours of study (and an episode of Welcome to Night Vale to calm me down), I slept to set the new knowledge in my mind. Sleep is when your brain consolidates new knowledge, and it's especially important in language study.
I woke up writing characters in my head.
When I quizzed myself, I remembered about eight of the new words easily, and with a little more work I got up to twelve. When I say "remembered," I mean that I could hear or read the pīnyīn and then write the character correctly, while knowing the English meaning. It's about the most difficult way of going about that combination of things to know.
Even though I was so worried about doing badly, my lăoshī was proud of me.
It feels good to struggle with something new and be imperfect. Improving through challenges feels vital and dynamic. Having room to get better is strangely liberating.
Although I have to carry on a conversation entirely in Chinese tomorrow, my load for tonight is a little lighter, which gives me time to work on what I have begun to learn.
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