Studying (Bronwyn)

This month I’m going to be talking about studying at TNU. Over the past year I’ve had fairly consistent plans for studying, such as; studying flashcards, watching tv shows on apps such as iQIYI, and reading books on the app 微信读书. There is a library in the northeast of campus but that is regularly full of students studying so it can be fairly hard to find a place there. Unlike in most libraries in Scotland you’ll see a lot of students in the library reciting to themselves as they try and memorise the course content they’re learning which is a different kind of noise to get used to when compared to libraries in Scotland where there are usually quiet areas and areas where people talk quietly. The reason that there are so many students in the campus library all year round which is unusual for university libraries in Scotland is because there are no  real desks in the Chinese student dormitories which consist of six beds, four in a bunkbed format, with bathrooms for each floor of students to use. Instead of the school’s library I prefer to study either in the international student school buildings which are always open or outside of campus at coffee shops located in the city centre.

In terms of studying techniques I prefer using the pomodoro method, which is when you study for periods of 25 minutes with 5 minute breaks while giving yourself a longer break after two periods of 25 minutes. I find this method good to use for studying flashcards as it gives me a break between memorisation and ensures that I am actually able to remember the characters in the future. The apps I use to do this type of studying are Pleco, Anki, and Quizlet. My favourite app to use to memorise vocabulary for class (which we need to do for dictation which commonly happen for comprehensive class and listening class) is Pleco. This is because the app allows me to sort new words into collections and then make practice tests on my phone when I am shown either the meaning, the audio, or the character itself. My phone gave me this addition for free but I know for some phones, such as apple, that this is a paid addition. If I wasn’t able to use that function on pleco then I would use Quizlet for the same purpose as the flashcard function is free and allows you to hear the pronunciation of the character as well as how it is written which is important for dictation. Anki is what I use to study HSK characters as you can access shared flashcard packs online which already include all of the characters needed for each level. The drawback for this is that (at least for the flashcards I use) all of the meanings of the character are shown instead of the specific meaning which you need to know for that HSK level.

In terms of speaking, the easiest way to practice this is to talk to friends in mandarin. I am language partners with a couple of students at the university who are studying English so we can help each other practice things such as pronunciation as well as listening. I’d say studying in Tianjin is fairly similar to back home, you just have to find out what works for you.