Short September-update

It's the very end of September, and more than a month since last update. I'm still in Taiwan, more than 365 days after I came to study Chinese.

September 5th was final exam, and September 6th the language center invited us all to the traditional dinner they have in the end of every term. My goal on every test and exam is at least 90 out of 100 points. The final exam is always the most difficult one, as it covers everything we've learned so far, and focuses on the last few chapters that we've rushed through in order to finish in time. This time I scored just below 90 on the test, but I still scored above 90 in the total semester-score.

During the vacation I went with my girlfriend to Taipei, and we run a race in the Maokong-mountains. A challenging and great race, in hot and humid weather this year. No heavy typhoon-rain like last year. After returning to Tainan we went barbecuing (it's mid-autumn festival and everyones barbecuing), we went swimming in the ocean and also done some shopping. After buying new shoes for the run in Taipei, I also needed some new slippers for everyday use. This time my girlfriend suggested a Taiwan brand, and I'm very happy with it.

Interviewed in Chinese prior to the race :)

Two weeks of vacation was great. I also prepared for the next semester by writing down some of the vocabulary in my little book, so when the time comes it will be much easier to practise the characters. After a short break, I also started to look forward to the next semester. We are now at the very last chapter of book three, and will start book number four next week. The weather is still warm, but not as warm as in July and August. I've heard several people prefer winter in Tainan, as it's not too warm and not to cold.

One of my favourite breakfasts, potato-hamburger ;) (薯餅漢堡)

Just a shorter update this time, as I've been quite lazy writing on my blog recently. I hope to write a little about my study techniques and experiences later. Book three has a vocabulary of 1073 words if I counted them correctly, and I've written them all down in my little book. I'm kind of proud of it, and would like to post a picture of it on the blog as it's taken me many many hours to finish it. I plan to do the same thing with the vocabulary of book four.

One year

Me and my girlfriend went to a concert. I wonder if they though:
"Hmm, where to hold this concert... let's occupy the road!"

Wow, one year away from home (except from a couple of weeks in March). My Chinese is still not perfect, but there's no doubt it has improved a lot. The amount of time spent on practising, reviewing homework and so on varies from time to time, but the time is usually spent on something good. The last weeks I've spent a lot of time with my girlfriend, and even though we do speak a lot of English together, she still teaches me a lot of Chinese, Taiwanese and Taiwanese culture. When I compare to Norway, the difference in culture is big. I've mentioned it before, but every now and then when I walk the streets and meet people, I get reminded of it again and agin. Sometimes I try to adapt, but quite often I just do things the way I'm used to. People in Taiwan are generally speaking very careful. It's often heavy rain on the island, but today we were also told there would be no classes due to the rain. Nothing wrong about that, and I believe there is good reasons for this carefulness if you look at history and earlier experiences with bad weather. Edit: A few hours after they announced school is closed, it's not even raining anymore. I see why you should avoid driving in the mountains during heavy rain, but what is the danger in a city? If you can explain this to me, this fear of rain, please leave a comment.

Mudslides is one of the reasons why offices and schools close during heavy rain. (thehindu.com)

Nice lady repaired my pants in no-time, 50NTD

A few someone came to see Metallica.. ;)

Last week I suddenly discovered a hole in my pants. Luckily, the same day I'd noticed a place where they repaired clothes. So I went there and the lady fixed my pants in no-time, she also lended me a towel because of the heavy rain outside. Things like this makes me aware of how my Chinese has improved during the year. I would never dare to go to a place like this and try to explain my problem in Chinese half a year ago.

When my friend did a stopover in Taipei last week, I decided to go with him to Singapore and see Metallica. A cool experience, and after approximately 24 hours I was back in Taiwan. (Due to no taxies, I was a little nervous about making it to the airport after the concert, but we made it..!)

Where I have Taiwanese-class and where I usually do homework. Why? #1: It has air condition :D

Next week is final exams, and then it's two weeks of vacation. Next term I'll start in E-class, and during October we'll begin book number 4 out of a total of 5 books.

Halfway through 4th term!

To learn Chinese is really interesting. After starting the third book in june, the new vocabulary every week has increased a lot, usually between 40 and 50 if I'm not wrong.. Although it might seem impossible to remember this amount of new vocabulary and characters every week, the actual new characters are usually less than or around 20, same as in the first and second book. Moreover, because the characters is usually put together in different kinds of logical ways, with radicals, pictographs, similar sounds and so on, I feel it becomes easier and easier to remember them. I recall when I started to learn Chinese one year ago, I had to repeat the characters like 15 times or so, while I now usually only repeats them three or four times before I remember them. Of course some will be forgotten the next day or next week, however I remember more and more in less and less amount of time, and characters that I struggled to remember a long time ago, suddenly sticks to mind.

I just finished mid-term exam, and after preparing by reviewing characters from the last four chapters, it went quite well on the test. We have started chapter eight of the third book, and will finish chapter twelve in the beginning of September.

Went to this concert a couple of weeks ago, with a great singer and band.
Songs mostly in Taiwanese, and a good ambience.

Taiwanese

A couple of weeks into this term, I started to learn Taiwanese twice every week. A lot of people speak the language in Taiwan, and especially in the south. Taiwanese use sounds that you don't find in Chinese, and the romanization of the sounds is not as standardised as pinyin for Chinese. The language has seven or eight tones, depending on how you see it, and most of the words will be spoken with two different tones and might also have several slightly different pronunciations. When reading the romanization of Taiwanese, the letters and symbols used for tones might be the same as in pinyin for Chinese, but they are to be read and pronounced in a different way. It's hard, it's difficult, but it's amazing to experience how the brain can learn languages and different systems of romanizations and stuff.. My Taiwanese improves slowly, very slowly, but it's improving.

Close to one year

It's August, again. August 25th last year was my arrival in Taiwan. I couldn't speak any Chinese, and I could hardly imagine it was possible to learn such a language. Time proves it's possible, and time flies.

So long...!

台灣的夏天

這次我想要練習寫中文。我們最近學過很多新的文法跟生詞，不過我可能寫得不對。

最近幾個月，溫度越來越高。雖然我不少覺得太陽好大和天氣好熱，但是我平常戴帽子和裡面平常開冷氣，所以沒有問題。上個週末颱風來了，可是對我來說，台南的天氣跟平常的比起來，颱風來的時候天氣差不多一樣。比較冷一點，也颳風颳得大一點。台北跟另外北部的城市有真的颱風。不知道下次颱風要來台灣的時候天氣怎麼樣。

上個禮拜一和二，我去安平國中教怎麼騎獨輪車。四十個很認真的學生。除了我以外，別的兩個老師也在幫助。一些學生學會騎獨輪車，有的學會丟球。看起來學生大部份喜歡我的課。我覺得很好玩，也很喜歡他們送給我的禮物。禮物前面一位老師話我跟聖誕老公公，學生在後面寫他們的名字。謝謝安平國中給我這個機會。

安平國中送給我的禮物

中文課

我很喜歡我新的小班跟同學。暑學期的學生比另外學期的多。所以在很多課，像太極課，正音課什麼的，學生很多。我最近碰到另外一個挪威學生跟瑞典學生，可是他們夏天以後再離開台灣。這個禮拜我要開始上台語課，每個禮拜上兩堂課。我覺得泰語聽起來很有趣，所以想要試試看學。應為最近發生了的一些事情，我更想要留在台灣到明年三月。計劃是好好地學中文。

Summer in Taiwan

The temperature have continued to increase the last months. I usually wear a hat to protect against the sun, and also turn on air condition when indoors. Last week we were all informed about the coming typhoon. Friday night the wind increased, but all in all the typhoon didn't really hit us here south on the island. Reports from Taipei and the cities up north says they had a rough weekend. Even though we had some rain in Tainan as well this weekend, it was nothing more than what I've become used to. I wonder how it will be next time a typhoon comes.

Last week I went to a Municipal Anping Junior Highschool to teach kids there how to ride a unicycle. I taught 40 students for two days, one hour each day. They were hardworking students, and some of them take the unicycle for a little ride in the end of the second day. I'm proud of them. I also taught them some juggling, and we had a lot of fun. After saying goodbye to the students, the school gave me a diploma and a drawing with the student's signatures on the backside. It made me so happy, and it's a great memory that's now decorating the wall in my room.

The gift from the school

Chinese classes

My new class and classmates are great. There's more students at the language center during the summer session, so there is also more participants in the elective classes than what I'm used to. I've met another norwegian and a swedish guy, but they will only stay for the summer. Later this week I'll start 1 on 1 Taiwanese class. Taiwanese sounds very interesting, and so I hope to learn some practical basics during the coming 8 weeks. Things have happened recently that makes me want to stay until next year even more. So I better keep up practising what we learn every day, as it won't become easier with time ;)

Ready for 4th term!

Scholarship achieved

I got scholarship from the Chinese Language Center! Makes me very happy and motivated. It's actually possible for C-level students to achieve it even though the test covers several chapters we haven't studied yet. I've decided to at least stay until December, and then maybe March 2014. It's kind of sad not to return to Norway this autumn, as that was my original plan and I miss my family and friends in Norway from time to time. Still, I feel it's more important to improve my Chinese now that I have the chance, and it might improve my job-opportunities later in life. Even though my current dream is to become a bus driver, things might chance later on.

Two week summer vacation

A friend from Taipei came to visit me this weekend,
we went to Anping (安平) and met som other tourists as well.

We've just had a two week summer vacation. The first days was spent in my home, relaxing, reading and preparing a little for the scholarship test. After the test I spent a few days working on some website-projects, before I went to Taipei early Friday morning. Because I couldn't sleep that night, I jumped on the 5am bus to Taipei. I was the only passenger the first hour, and it kind of reminded me of my military-service last year, when me and my co-bus driver could take our bus for a ride without any passengers. A couple of Norwegian friends were about to leave Taiwan, and so we had a farewell-party for them in Taipei. I then went back to Tainan Monday evening. This time I went by train for the first time. The train ticket was double prize compared to bus, and you might only save half an hour.. I still prefer to go by bus, cheap and comfortable as it is.

Today after saying goodbye to my Taipei-friend who came to visit me this weekend, I went to Anping for a concert. My landlord recommended me to go, and it was great fun. The songs were all in Taiwaneese, so I didn't understand much of the lyrics, but when it comes to music that is not always necessary.. ;)

Tomorrow we start the summer-term, and I'm looking forward to it. I feel I've forgotten a lot of characters, so I'll try to review some tonight and tomorrow morning, as well as have a look at chapter 4 and its vocabulary and grammar.

So long!