CHIN 101

"It's extremely difficult, but if you do the homework and fulfill the requirements, you will have a good grasp of Chinese."

"Super serious, you are making a large commitment to learn Chinese. You start at 9am every day (5 days a week!!!) until 10am. She spends class covering the textbook's teachings and emphasizing what she thinks is most difficult. We then have nightly homework, and they take a while (1-1:30 hours). I learned so much and so did everyone else. I do think it should be emphasized native speakers are going to probably find class unhelpful if they know the vocabulary well already per week. Instead, spelling and tones were my main focus, which she eventually adapted her classes to practice more (very nice of her to consider my weak points) so truthfully, you may want to consider a umass course for native speakers, or study abroad. I intend to continue when I am back from studying in china. I did pick up the tones and spelling more after a few weeks, and even though I bombed many tests at the start, I ended up consistently scoring 95's around the last three weeks and ended with an A- which was surprising honestly. She is great and sweet, just blunt and you will need to be flexible in this class and make space for it. "