Test myself, lose yourself

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.


[Last week, I went to Datong, Shanxi with my Chinese tutor. All pictures are from Datong]

Ep.39 Test myself, lose yourself

I just took HSK yesterday. I mentioned this test in my first post of this semester. It is the Chinese standardization test, which measures your Chinese ability. Of course, it cannot be a perfect measure for one’s fluency in Chinese, however, it gives a pretty good sense of where one’s standing in terms of language ability.

Many Korean and Japanese students take this test because its score can be used in their resume and it is a good proof that you can speak Chinese. However, as for me, I don’t need that “proof”. I am not planning to get a job in Korea like others (I am planning to take a test and become a civil servant, in which I don’t need a resume), and even if I do, I don’t think I need a proof like this. I can just tell them I am able to speak Chinese. Then, you might wonder why I even bothered taking this notorious HSK.

As I told you before, I invested my whole weekends to attend this private HSK school for a month. The tuition was around $100 and the test itself cost me $60 (it is even bigger investment if you consider my monthly allowance is only $300). I didn’t tell my dad I am taking this test, so I paid them with my own money. So many sacrifices and investments for this stupid test!


[Datong is famous for Yungang cave, where more than 52,000 Buddha statues are carved in twenty different caves]

I can say I took it for fun. More honestly, I took it to challenge myself. It was my way to improve my Chinese quicker than others. I thought taking Chinese classes is not enough to improve my Chinese as fast I want, so I started to take regular college courses. However, that is also not enough to me. I decided to take HSK, so as I study for the test, I can try harder to learn Chinese.

Taking test, regardless of what kind of test you are taking, gives you stress and pressure. That pressure helps you study hard. It is not the same as you are studying for some class or studying with a language partner. The test gives you the clear result that corresponds with how much you studied. Of course, Chinese that you learn from studying for the test is quite different from Chinese you learn from talking to locals—that’s the point. As I study for HSK, I can learn different parts of Chinese that my Chinese classes cannot cover. I don’t know if I am explaining this clearly. I am not saying that studying for a test is the best way to learn one language: it is not, it might be one of the worst ways to learn the language. What I am saying is that, even that worst method can add a little to my studying and improve my Chinese.

This little theory of improving one’s language ability through taking a test is what I learned when I was studying English in the States. When I just got to the States, I was in my end of sophomore year which meant I would become a junior soon and need to take SAT. I first needed to learn conversational English to survive. I also needed to study for high school classes and at the same time I had to study for SAT. SAT verbal English was surely not my level. Nonetheless, through studying for SAT and due to the pressure of college entrance issue, I improved my English fast. You can say that I am trying to copy exactly what I did when I was learning English.

What I want to emphasize is that learning a language is a multifaceted process. There are conversational (speaking and listening) and written (reading and writing) parts of the language. There are also the slangs and formals. There are also words that are used in daily-life and words used in a professional world. There are also words that are only used in literature or in old (or historical) form of the language. I am not saying they are all different from each other. These different parts of one language are indeed all connected. So leaning one part of the language helps improving the other parts. One needs to figure out where his strongest is and his weakest is and develop one’s own strategy to improve language proficiency in every aspect.

[The Nine Dragons]

Actually, I did a good job of studying Chinese through preparing for HSK. I went to prep classes every weekend and try to memorize words with flash cards and stuff. I stopped studying for HSK because of Jingdezhen trip and Datong trip and started again two weeks before the test. I solved a hundred practice questions every night for a week. I was pretty proud of myself, but unfortunately, I got sick after the first week of hardcore studying. I was sick for the whole second week, and I was even sick on the day of the test. I failed to manage my health and therefore lost my chance. I really regret that I didn’t take care of myself better. I could do much better on the test if I wasn’t sick, but that’s also a part of the test, I guess.

Surprisingly, the test itself wasn’t very hard, but I didn’t do well on the test. I did fine on the first three parts (listening, reading comprehension, and grammar), but not so well on the later two parts (speaking and writing). The problem was that I was too nervous. I mumbled a lot during the speaking part and forgot to write some simple characters on the writing part.

After the test, I was very disappointed at myself. I thought I was better than that, and I found out that I wasn’t. It was a very humbling experience. I realized that I still have a lot to study. My Chinese is still poor and I have so many areas to work on. I don’t think I can achieve my original goal, 10th level, and I might take the test again in June.

Today, it just happened to be that my Chinese teacher talked about learning foreign language. She told us that we shouldn’t give up, but keep studying and studying to achieve one’s goal, that is attaining some level of proficiency. She also told us to go crazy studying Chinese (yes, it sounds ridiculous). But I actually agree with her. Sometimes, you need to lose yourself if you want to get something. You don’t get anything if you don’t lose anything. In other words, you can get more if you are willing to lose more. I recommend you guys who are studying a foreign language, or pursuing anything that is important, to test yourself, and lose yourself.

[My friend's tutor and me]