CHNS GU4015

I took this course to improve on my Chinese, especially to improve on my ability to communicate with others better in Chinese - potentially even in the workplace in future. This course has been extremely helpful to me. Professor Meng is kind, caring and extremely supportive of each and every one of her students. Rather than rigidly sticking to one single plan, Prof Meng adapts her lessons to accommodate our needs - slowing down or speeding up when necessary, which I found to be a refreshing and highly effective way of thinking.

I've improved markedly in my Chinese fluency. Listening, speaking, reading, writing, and beyond in terms of grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, phrases and more. I'm extremely grateful for taking this class this semester and can honestly remark that it was my favorite class!! Even with my other three classes being music classes!

This course is wonderful, but the true diamond in the rough is the professor. Meng 老师 may come across as intimidating at first, but the more time you are able to spend with her, the luckier you feel for learning under her instruction. Meng老师 is intense because she truly wants for you to succeed, and at the same time she will challenge you to think deeply and truly in the Chinese language, pushing you on to contemplate meaningful and interesting topics through the lens of Mandarin Chinese in a way that familiarizes the language with your thinking and makes it easier to understand, communicate, and learn in Chinese. I feel truly extremely grateful for getting to take this course with Meng LaoShi this semester, and I look forward to continuing to learn with her next semester. This has been a truly illuminating experience, and it has given me grounded and firm hope and belief that I may be able to realize my dreams of being able to proficiently if not fluently communicate in mandarin Chinese. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Spring 2022 Course: CHNSGU4015_001_2022_1-MEDIACHINESEII : CHNSGU4015_001_2022_1 - MEDIA CHINESE II Instructor: Yuan-Yuan Meng

So. Much. I learned about aspects of world politics that I didn’t even know how to articulate in English, and now I can in Chinese!

A lot of new vocabulary. By the end of the course, I was more comfortable expressing complex ideas in Mandarin.

I learned a lot about how Chinese state media and Chinese language sources discuss social and political issues.

I learned grammar and vocabulary related to Chinese news and media

Great way to elevate your Chinese speaking and reading abilities as an advanced learner. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Spring 2023 Course: CHNSGU4015_001_2023_1-MEDIACHINESEII : CHNSGU4015_001_2023_1 - MEDIA CHINESE II Instructor: Yuan-Yuan Meng

every chinese course is effectively the same: you are presented with content in some form and you 1) learn new words 2) learn new grammar / collocations / sentence structures 3) memorize and or practice these things so that you are a better reader writer listener speaker. Media Chinese does this with "media sources", some current some quite old. Better than an archaic textbook? Yeah, sure.

This course was the best Mandarin experience I've had at Columbia—that isn't to say that the rest were not good, but rather, Meng laoshi's class was simply outstanding. I learned functional, relevant skillsets that not only improved my Mandarin abilities, but gave me a foundation for self-studying in the future.