<p>did anyone take chinese or is taking chinese?
i'm going to start takign it my second year
i think it might be kind of cool</p>
<p>Me and my friend happened to randomly meet a Cal alum on campus who apparently learned Chinese while at Berkeley and spoke fluently enough to converse with my friend in Mandarin (I don't speak). Anyway, my friend was impressed, and Chinese was his first language.</p>
<p>Be ready for stiff competition. Foreign languages classes, especially Chinese, are often taken by native speakers to pad GPA's. You will be competing with students who have been speaking the language for more than 10 years. Of course, it's not impossible to do well, but just difficult.</p>
<p>Not quite, beastmaster, students are broken down into groups/tracks, with native speakers, speakers of other related Asian languages and non-Asian newbies (where I was) in separate classes.</p>
<p>The grading is not very hard at all, and the material is a breeze (if you study it and do the homeworks/labs.) No stress at all. go for it, globalD!</p>