I don’t know why, but I am re-motivated to learn Chinese now. Maybe it is because of this quote and combined with my medicine that I am taking, it let me think thoroughly about what this actually means.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. – Nelson Mandela
But today I never conquered my fear. It will take time for me to become more confident with Chinese and a lot of studying will have to be involved. My brain sort of freezes when I’m up in front of everyone trying to read a dialogue which is in Chinese. I mean it isn’t as if I don’t know how to read it or how to memorize it, it is the fact that when I’m under pressure my mind scrambles in every direction. It often happens with new friends, but I am becoming better at controlling it.
But I’m definitely studying harder. Although I should really have studied hard on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I only studied from Sunday evening to Monday 7:30am. I never got any sleep, so I was a little knackered in class and fell asleep a few times.
I’m taking this learning curve very slowly if that makes sense. I don’t want to rush and miss things. But the paper that the teacher gave us for homework was absolutely hard. It took me 2 hours to complete it and apparently the test we are having tomorrow (She changed it from today to tomorrow) is going to be as hard. So luckily I have an extra day to further study for this test. It will give me more time for preparation and to hopefully be able to answer most of these hard questions without any trouble. Although realistically, I don’t think I will be able to answer most these questions.
I just wish the test was a little easier. For example translating bopomo into Chinese characters. It is very hard for all of us in the class, from what I have seen, to be looking for errors/mistakes and correcting them in sentences. You have to learn how to do it somehow, but you really need to know the grammar in Chinese first before you can do any of that. I kind of know the grammar structure, but it is very difficult to re-arrange words into sentences which make sense, since the structure is almost backwards to that of English in some sentences. Plus there are measure words, which I haven’t really understood or studied much about. But they are horrible. I mean you have to remember the measure words for different objects/things/people. Why can’t you just say “three people” or “2 newspapers”, instead you have to say liang fen bao. (Fen = being the measure word)
Whatever the case, I hope to study hard today, after a good rest, since I need one.