Over the years, I've encountered many different experiences. Some of these have been pleasant, some not so much, but none have been quite as unique as my experience of taking a Chinese course at a co-op we go to.
Taking Chinese (or Zhongwen) has been a somewhat bewildering experience. There are over five hundred different characters in Chinese, and some (in my opinion) are utterly superfluous, such as a structural character used at the end of some phrases but not others, in a seemingly haphazard and weird fashion.
Also, the tones drive me nuts. There are five tones: the first, second, third, fourth, and neutral tones, and a slight shift in tone changes the meaning drastically. An example is the word "ma." Although a simple word in English, in first tone it means "mother," in second it means "flax," in third it means "horse," in fourth tone it is the verb "to scold," and in the neutral tone it is a structural character used to change a declarative sentence into an interrogative sentence.
In spite all of that, I would be fine if it weren't for the character memorization. Weekly, my class takes a character-writing test, and I always get a terrible grade. The pronunciation I have no problem with, but I just can't grasp the characters! The character meaning "forever," and the character meaning "water" are almost identical, apart from two strokes, or lines.
Anyway, this is 'ding 2, resignedly duking it out in Chinese I.
