A More Flexible Schedule

Finding enough time to get her Chinese homework done during school week has always been a problem for my daughter. She has a very busy schedule which does not leave a whole lot of available time in evenings.

The textbook we are using has a strong emphasize in homework assignments. Even though we have eliminated some homework that appears to be not so helpful, the weekly assignment may require more than 5 hours in total to finish. She simply does not have that much time during the week, and I did not want her to cram everything during one weekend day either.

So, now we are trying a more flexible schedule. After last week's lesson, she still had some homework left uncompleted. We continued on with today's lesson, which is really the second half of one lesson in the book. She will spend this week doing today's homework assignment. Then, we may take a break next week in lessons so she could catch up with all that were left in homework.

Since most of the lessons in the textbook takes two weeks to complete, it is probably natural for us to use three weeks in this fashion. It will slow down our pace, but it is better than not completing the homework, some of which are actually very helpful exercises. Besides, going back to finish earlier homework assignments may be a good review session by itself!

A Little Riddle

My daughter is still fond at translating Chinese into English. It's not part of our homework assignment but she is doing it on her own. Here is a little riddle she just translated:

Wash hands, wash face, and take a bath,
Born to love blowing bubbles,
For other people, the more they wash, the cleaner they get,
For me though, the more I wash, the skinnier I get.

The original in Chinese:

洗手，洗脸，又洗澡，
生来就爱吹泡泡，
人家越洗越干净，
它呀，越洗越瘦小。

Notice that she switched the third person singular (它) into the first person singular in her translation. :)

Taking Notes

New year, new book. We started our first class of the year today, at the Lesson One of the 2nd Book of the third grade.

On her own initiative, my daughter brought a little notebook with me. She said she would like to start taking notes during the classes. As we went through the list of new characters for this lesson, she wrote each of them down in her note book, the pinyin, the character itself, and its meaning in English.

It's a nice way to break the dullness of going through new characters. It also reinforces her learning of them, as she was paying close attention when she had to write them down. As such, later in the class, we spent less time going through the character cards.

It's Been a Great Year

Today we had a very brief review session to close out the first book of the third grade. This also concludes our first (calendar) year of Chinese school at home. It's been a great year. We finished the 2nd grade book and a third of the 3rd grade. My daughter has been making great strides in learning characters and reading comprehensions.

Happy Holidays!

The Smart Afanti

One of the reading materials in this week's lesson is about the smart Afanti, a legend figure in Xingjiang folklore who is smart and cunning. We had grown up with a lot of such stories of his adventures.

Anyway, my daughter decided to translate it into English. Here is what she comes up with:

Nobody Can Fool Me

On the road, it is very busy. Zhang San yelled to everybody:
“I am the smartest person, nobody can fool me! If you don’t
believe, you can all try!”

Not long after Zhang San yelled, Afanti happened to pass
by. Afanti stopped and told Zhang San: “Mister, I trust that
you are the smartest person in the world, nobody could fool
you. But my friend says, he is even smarter, he has a method
to fool you! Please wait here, I will find my friend, and we
can see who is smarter?”

Zhang San quickly agreed: “Okay, okay, if you go quickly, I
will wait here.”

Afanti went, Zhang San stood and waited, and waited until
nighttime. The road didn’t have many cars, not many people,
and Afanti and his “smart” friend still hadn’t shown up. Of
course, Zhang San was fooled into waiting for them.

The original Chinese is:

谁也骗不了我

马路上，车来人往的真热闹。张三对着来来往往的人们高
声喊着： “我是天下第一聪明的人，谁也骗不了我！不信，
你们谁都可以来试试！”

张三喊了不久，阿凡提正好从这里走过。阿凡提就站下来
对张三说：“先生，我相信你是世界上最聪明的人，谁也骗
不了你。可是我的朋友说，他比你更聪明，他有办法能骗
得了你！请你在这儿等一等，我去把我的朋友找来，看看
你们俩到底谁聪明？”

张三满口答应：“可以可以，你快去吧，我就在这里等着。”

阿凡提走了，张三站在那里左等右等，一直等到了天黑。
马路上车少了，人也少了，阿凡提和他那“聪明”的朋友还
是没有来。当然，受了骗的张三是怎么也等不到他们的了。

Is Panama A First?

Thanks to James who alerted me the news that Panama is moving towards requiring all schools to teach Chinese. I am not aware of any other countries which are not China's close neighbors to make such a bold move. Is Panama a first in this aspect?

For Practical Reasons, Is it Important to Learn Chinese?

There are many reasons for a non-native Chinese person to learn the Chinese language. Many of them are based on non-practical rationals: the love for the country, the people, the culture, and so on.

In more recent years however, a practical rational is gaining a huge momentum. This is based on the tremendous development of China's economy and influence. There is a wide-spread belief that China may overtake the west, namely the United States, as the world's leading power within this century. As such, learning the Chinese language would enhance one's future career opportunities.

I am very suspicious about such claims. Just about 20 years ago, when Japan was on the rise and threatening to take over the US in economical power, there had been a lot of talk about the importance of learning Japanese. We don't hear about that any more. For one thing, Japan has been in a bad slump for more than a decade. But more importantly, most, if not all, of the business conduct involving Japan are done with English language. Knowing Japanese is not a prerequisite to a career there.

A recent article in the Economists magazine touched on the same issue.

According to that article, there are 30 million foreigners studying Chinese language today. But it did not say how many of them are doing it for the practical reason.