15 Apr 2007
German Class @ New Oriental School (上海新东方学校)
Posted by: Squareface In: Campus Life| Language| Taking in; on; and to Shanghai (or China in general)
I still recall the very first lesson about 3 weeks back, some young dude made a speech in front of the class by reading out from a piece of paper (that was quivering), saying something about the rules in the classroom; not to fret if we encounter difficulties in learning a new language; and that the school wishes us all the best in the endeavour. Apparently he is in charge of our classroom, though he looked around 17.
Since that day, I have been spending my weekends in that little classroom (except last weekend since I went Huang Shan) from 2.30 - 8pm. Sometimes all the new vocabulary and different verb usages drives me crazy in those four walls, but I’m glad the teachers are patient and don’t get violent with the microphone whenever I screw up some sentence. The room does feel a tad like a pressure cooker, and we’re expected to sprout the tiresome ach-sounds, air-gargling sounds, and differentiate ich from ish, ö (I can’t even spell the pronunciation for this, but it’s between “o” and “yu”) from ü (”yu”), within the 9 hours we share together every week.
If I ever think about skipping classes due to pure sloth, I will be motivated by the determination of a classmate. He is schooling in Nanjing right now, and makes a 2 hour plus train ride every weekend JUST TO ATTEND GERMAN CLASS. I’m attending Beginners’ Class I whilst he’s attending both Beginners’ Class II in the mornings of weekends (8.30am - 2pm), and Beginners’ Class I in the afternoon. He’s hoping to accumulate enough class hours by the end of this year or beginning of next year to qualify for TestDAF application. In order to apply for TestDAF, one must fulfil 900 class hours. To get the class hours, one has to attend such classes, and PASS THE MID AND FINAL EXAMS. Anyway, I admire his tenacity, and push myself to take the 15 minute bus ride every weekend, instead of lazing around in front of my laptop. Prisonbreak can wait.
Although picking up a foreign language can be mind-boggling (see tongue- and mouth-twisters above), the interestingness of it keeps me going. Did you know a person from Hamburg is called a Hamburger?
