<p>Hey guys! First post on CC :)</p>
<p>Anyways, next year I'm going to be a sophomore and I was given the opportunity to take AP Chinese... this is a big deal because my school usually doesn't allow any APs whatsoever until Junior year. I'm not Asian and I don't know anyone that speaks Chinese, so I'm already at a bit of a disadvantage for getting a 5 on the exam next year. I <em>definitely</em> want to get a 5, so I'll do anything possible in the next year to reach that goal. </p>
<p>I have two questions for you all:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What is the most helpful program(s) that I can purchase/download over the course of the next year or so to improve my Chinese? I'm decent at reading and writing, but I'm absolutely terrible at speaking and listening. (stuff like Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, etc.)</p></li>
<li><p>How much time should I put aside each night to study Chinese? I have a really busy schedule next year but I'm positive that I could stop some procrastinating that I do on a daily basis and squeeze out an extra hour or two every night.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Any other tips for studying for an AP language exam would be appreciated... I'm not exactly a very language-oriented individual. Thanks guys!</p>
<p>It is impressive that you are taking AP Chinese without being native. I suggest that you buy the Barron’s book and if your essays are even as half as good as the essays on Barron’s (that scored a perfect) then you can earn a 5 on the exam. That being said, the Barron’s book will over-prepare you. Alongside that, I guess listening to Chinese in movies (ex. anime) can help you learn. The listening on the test is fast and content-dense, so practice the listening (from the book’s CD or online) and as a tip, be sure to take notes on what you listen to so you can refer back to your notes to answer questions</p>
<p>The exam itself was quite hard, imo for non-native speakers. My friends and I took the test and were freaked out because the Barron’s had so much culture stuff that we didn’t know about and we were all pretty much native speakers. However, it is not impossible and I hope you do good on the exam, I took it and got a 5, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask.</p>
<p>Take Barron’s ?
I have no idea.
I’m native Chinese. So I want to tell that Chinese is quite a difficult language, especially for non-east Asian ones.
But Chinese is also easy, since we don’t have conjugation and you just need to memorize about 3000(?,may be less) characters.
It’s very common that one’s good at R and W but bad at S and L. And I do think spoken Chinese is very tough for foreigners since you don’t have tones and there are a lot of slangs in Chinese.
My suggestion is you should read a lot of Chinese materials(newspaper, magazine, etc) and listen a lot.
Only when have enough input can you have a good output.</p>
<p>If you want to practice your speaking, you can contact me.</p>
<p>Good luck for your AP Chinese !</p>
<p>PS. Here’s some websites useful for you.
1 <a href=“http://cn.hujiang.com/[/url]”>哎呀，您可能迷路啦~; This is a famous study website in China, mainly outstanding for it’s English and Japanese. But a couple of years ago, it put Chinese part for foreigners.
2 CCTV, you must know it, the Chinese version of CNN. But it contains too much political parts. If you don’t want to always hear Chinese leaders, communism or something, skip it.( but thankfully, this part is mainly for 19:00-19:30, most Chinese TV have the same thing at that time) I recommend CCTV2(economy, market,etc) CCTV9 and 10( one is for documentary, like Discovery, and one for science, humanities, and so on) .Also, maybe is CCTV7(?), mainly talking about laws.
3 Hunan TV. Chinese people love calling it Mango TV for it’s symbol. It has many interesting shows. While I don’t watch them for years, it still attracts lots of people. The most famous show is Happy Camp on every Saturday night.
4 and for more reading materials, you can use weibo(twitter, but be careful there’re many false information), yahoo china. Douban is very great if you love movies, photos, reading…
5 if you want to make friends with Chinese, you can download WeChat in your smartphone.</p>
<p>1)Cheng & Tsui Ap Preparation Series, I personally bought this practice book off amazon and it really helped me. Maybe because it was actually written by native authors. But every book has its unique qualities, so whichever one you get will help you in a way.
2)For a non-native speaker to take AP chinese <em>claps</em> you are really awesome. I would recommend you to have at least 1.5hrs each evening. Why .5, haha because you might want to chew on a snack bar and heads out to the kitchen for a quick drink, so having 1.5hrs would really give you a pure 1hr studying time!
3)As a native Mainland speaker, I won’t say its easy because my reflexes aren’t really good when it comes to the 2minute presentation and they only give you 4 minutes to prepare. Im sure other native speakers might say easy, but kind of not for me. And I have a decent accent but for non-native speakers to actually get the tones right, I suggest you buy a chinese dictionary (doesnt have to be fancy, just has a dictionary where they actually have the - / ^(upsidedown haha) \ tones.</p>
<p>I hope you will succeed in your testing! Good luck!</p>
<ol>
<li>I’m a sophomore and I’m not from a Asian background neither. So I’m striving for 5 just like you. I’ve been learning Chinese for almost a year now. I had tried stuff like Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur etc., unfortunately they didn’t work out for me. </li>
<li>Until I found a online Skype tutor from <a href=“chinesehulu.com - This website is for sale! - chinesehulu Resources and Information.”>Loading..., I started to feel I’m learning something. They are really professional and patient! The rate is also reasonable, so just check it out! </li>
<li>For me, I’m studying 30 minutes to one hour a day depending on how busy my schedule is, which includes twice a week one hour online tutoring with my tutor.</li>
<li>Also I found self-made flashcards extremely helpful to my learning.</li>
</ol>
<p>Hope this will help! Good luck! Let’s go for 5!!!</p>
<p>Hello everyone, this is a great forum to exchange information. I’m taking AP Chinese test soon and I’m wondering if anyone would like to form a study group maybe on Facebook? : )</p>