University has started today. I’ve signed up for third year Mandarin. I’m really excited! My goal for this year is to study a lot more than the previous two years. I kind of have no choice since our work load has effectively doubled from 2nd year. Where we did one text book in one year, now we’re doing one a semester! I’ll do a future post detailing the books.

My aim is to maintain my marks from 2nd year, since my general aim for my whole degree is to pass with distinction. In first year Mandarin was a breeze. I got 95%. In second year it dropped by 11% to 84%! Mandarin helped a lot to improve my other marks. So, since the workload is doubling I have to put in extra effort to maintain it at 85%.

I was excited to see all my classmates back in class (well most of them). We are about 15 in class. I have 5 periods a week of one hour each, which is not nearly enough for what we’re going to do this year. One period is practical (still need to see what that is though) and another is Chinese culture (only every second week).

Today, the head of the Mandarin department talked to us about the course. He almost talked only in Mandarin. I was amazed at how much I understood! It seems my listening has improved (听力 tīnglì).