<p>So I want to take Chinese 1A (Elementary Chinese for non speakers), but it's five fat units (one hour M-F). There doesn't seem to be a final group (does that mean there's no final?).</p>
<p>I'm just wondering how much work a language course requires and if the course is fairly rigorous.</p>
<p>no chinese experience = hard</p>
<p>Try searching for the forums. You’ll find plenty of relevant discussion about foregin languages classes at Cal.</p>
<p>ps. I tried searching “language” in topic titles on the Berkeley board and found many relevant threads.</p>
<p>If a class listing doesn’t list a final group, do not assume there will be no final. The final just might be in-class instead of during finals week. The best way to figure out is looking at a syllabus or asking the instructor.</p>
<p>Short answer: language classes at Berkeley are pretty hard, but you will learn a lot very quickly.</p>
<p>Languages at EVERY college are grade boosters. Hard = EECS, or any premed course in which you haven’t already taken the AP course. Of course, Chinese is one of the hardest languages courses offered, and much harder than Romance Language 1…</p>
<p>The key for at least a B is to attend every class (and yes that means Friday), participate and go to language lab.</p>
<p>If you have never studied Chinese before, and don’t have experience writing characters, Chinese 1A will be very difficult and require a tremendous amount of studying. They expect you to start learning characters from day one.</p>
<p>Late post, but just in case you are considering Chinese 1A next year…</p>
<p>I’m in Chinese 1A right now and I think its really fun. I took the classes knowing only like 5 characters so I didn’t have any unfair advantages but I’m getting good grades and learning a lot. There is no midterms and final, but you have 2 vocab quizzes every week and either an oral test or written test. I freaked out at first, but I got used to it and it doesn’t seem like a lot anymore. This class is super enjoyable in my opinion. Take it!
Its not like chem where you study hard and get a C… I would say this class is a GPA booster.</p>
<p>It’s a GPA booster if you put the work in! You won’t get an A without doing anything like some other classes.</p>
<p>It depends on the person and their skills. Back in high school, did you do well in your foreign language classes? If so, then an A is pretty easy to obtain as long as you do all of your work. There are daily assignments; but with good reason since you will best learn a language if it is constantly re-enforced. Some people are just naturally talented at absorbing languages. I personally prefer doing language exercises and having conversations in Chinese, French, Russian, etc on a daily basis… than to spend hours on problem sets for math or to write 10-15 page papers for poli sci.</p>
<p>I want to take a Vietnamese class this semester, is it a one-semester thing or a two semester thing?</p>
<p>How hard is Chinese 100AX</p>