Say ‘Ni Hao’ to Weekly Beginner Chinese Class

Steven Chung and Jim Zhang lead the weekly beginner Chinese class.

Dev Jaiswal, Copy Editor
January 22, 2018

Asian Student Association members Steven Chung and Jim Zhang witnessed Goen lobby run out of seats Tuesday night as approximately 30 students excitedly filed in to begin their journey studying the Chinese language. Chung and Zhang are both native speakers of the language who decided to launch a weekly beginner Chinese class for their MSMS peers.

The lobby resounded with students attempting to differentiate between the four Chinese tones. Chung and Zhang showcased their teaching excitement with elaborate tongue drawings to help with pronunciation, eliciting bouts of laughter from their students. The teaching duo’s humorous personalities were evident when they explained how tonal shifts can cause a regular word to turn into an expletive and also when they pronounced their names in proper Chinese fashion.

Attendee Caleb Colley, a junior, explained that a Wikipedia article sparked his interest about the Chinese language and motivated him to go to Chinese class.

“Well, honestly, the language has always interested me, and I already had some basic knowledge of the language and wanted to learn more.”

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And what better way to learn than from two people who can actually speak it?

— Caleb Colley

Chung expanded on Colley’s statement about the importance of learning from a native speaker.

“I feel like things online like Duolingo, they are pretty garbage. A lot of the online places teach you how to speak, but they make you speak like Google Translate,” explained Chung. “You don’t sound like a real person. Here, we have two native speakers that can show you how people actually talk and how you should talk to people. It makes it a more opening experience.”

Chung explained that the initial idea for the Chinese class actually began last year, when he ran for a position within the Asian Student Association (ASA). He explained that last year’s ASA was mainly a club for getting together and eating food. Due to the graduation of some members, the club was unable to maintain this tradition the same way as before. Chung wanted to host a language school to make up for that.

Zhang explained how the two prepared to lead the class.

“Well, you know, Steven and I were talking one day and we were like, ‘It would be really cool if we had a Chinese class here.’ We drafted our syllabus over Christmas break, prepared it for second semester, and now we’re teaching the class. It’s a good time.”

Zhang says he was “flattered” by the number of people that attended class.

“Yeah, it’s definitely interesting seeing people get into Chinese culture and language as much as we are,” said Zhang. “It’s fun to see people learn new languages, because they get super excited.”

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I felt bad because there weren’t enough seats, though.

— Jim Zhang

Other Chinese-speaking students may assist Chung and Zhang as teaching assistants in the future if class attendance continues to be high.

Due to the university students being out for a snow day, the first meeting was held in Goen lobby. Future classes will take place in the library on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. This relocation should help mitigate the problem of seat shortage.

Chung wishes they had been able to start the class earlier in the year, but Zhang affirmed that the two will continue leading the class until their graduation in May.

“Hopefully someone will keep teaching it next year,” said Zhang. “We’ll see what happens.”