<p>I keep getting told by my parents that I shouldn't take Chinese because a lot of native speaking Chinese students will enroll in the course just to earn A's and boost their GPA, which will therefore, lower my ability to earn an A in the class. Is this true?</p>
<p>I have Chinese parents and have grown up in America my whole life, so I can speak very limited Chinese, and read nothing in Chinese.</p>
<p>Chinese is hard to learn, especially if you aren't already somewhat familiar with reading/writing. That will lower your chances of an A, the hard work required. The course isn't curved, however, so the proficiency of your fellow students shouldn't impact you directly.</p>
<p>So at Berkeley, you just get shafted with the language class? Damn.... I was hoping I'd actually get to learn something...</p>
<p>How do you get shafted at Berkeley with a language class? Just take Chinese if you want to! What do your parents know about Chinese courses at Berkeley? The performance of your classmates won't hurt you. Native speakers of Chinese (Mandarin) will be taking Chinese 1AX. While dialect speakers or people with Chinese heritage will be taking Chinese 1AY. Some students who take Chinese 1AY, can't read or speak Chinese! (I'm assuming you're a Cantonese speaker.) Also, as stated before, the class isn't curved. </p>
<p>Is the class an easy A? No, but it isn't terribly difficult. It seems like you want to learn Chinese and not get an easy A, so I advise you to take it! You might end up liking it so much, that you'll take more Chinese courses at Berkeley and might even want to study abroad.</p>
<p>How are you getting shafted? Chinese is a difficult language. They expect you to learn to read and write Chinese. This is Berkeley, not community college. If you learn how to read and write all the characters in the textbook, and learn the grammer in the textbook, then you will get an A in the class. I don't see how that shafts you.</p>