Oct 29
You registered for the HSK and start to feel nervous as the test is drawing nearer and nearer? Or you consider your Chinese acceptable, but you believe that you are a horrible test taker? Here are some advices and test taking strategies to succeed during the HSK. This post is not about the preparation work before the test, but rather the strategies to use during the test! I will focus on the elementary-intermediate HSK, but most of it also applies to HSK basic and HSK advanced. I personally believe that a test can never fully measure a person’s ability or knowledge and in the end it’s all about beating the test. So the most important strategy you need to learn is how to beat the test. But enough ramblings…moving on:
Some request in advance…
Please know the directions for the different components of the HSK from your practice tests. This means that you know in which order the different parts (listening, grammar, reading) come and what type of exercise it is on one glance. So during the actual test, you don’t lose valuable time reading through the large box of directions or listening to the unimportant explanations plus examples. They are really not important and just like in your practice tests and it is much smarter to focus on the coming questions.
Listening comprehension 听力理解
This part exists in all 3 tests and always comes first which is of advantage. When you ripped open the booklet and turned to page 1 听力理解 the teacher will usually explain, check and help quite a while and then it will take quite another while until the sound works and the directions and examples were played through. I found it very helpful to use this time to look through the possible answers of each question and brainstorm what the question could be, because you will listen to the text and corresponding questions only once and only the answers are already in your booklet. Then I’d note down my anticipated questions in a very brief manner, often just one keyword.
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Oct 29
What is it and who takes it?
Since I just took the HSK elementary-intermediate test, I will write an article to give you a general idea of what this test is about. First of all HSK stands for 汉语水平考试 (hàn yǔ shuǐ píng kǎo shì) and is a Chinese proficiency test. It is comparable to the TOEFL, as it tests the proficiency level of Chinese learners whose first language is not Chinese. This means most test takers are:
- Chinese language students
- Overseas Chinese, especially 2nd generation
- Ethnic minority groups in China
The HSK offers three different tests and is scored overall on a scale of 1-11:
- HSK Basic (基础): level 1-3
- HSK Elementary-Intermediate (初中等): level 3-8
- HSK Advanced (高等): level 9-11
Note: Confusingly, level 3 is both the highest basic level and lowest elementary level.
What for?
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Oct 24
Ok, enough of 阿杜 emotional music now. Let’s listen to something brighter and more fun. And practice some Cantonese at the same time. The song is called 德州的故事 (dé zhōu de gù shì, a story from Texas) from Twins. It’s really upbeat and a “Gute-Laune-Mukke” as we would say. Just try to sing along with the Cantonese with these lyrics:
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Oct 24
Finally I found a music video with simplified Chinese subtitles. This song is called 小说 (xiǎo shuō, novel) and is a duo of 阿杜 with 林俊杰. I haven’t heard of 林俊杰 before, but in the video he is the complete opposite of 阿杜, looks so young and boyisch and has such a soft almost feminine voice. Check out the video yourself! But here are the lyrics first:
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Oct 24
Quite uncommon for a male artist to give his song a male name as a title. But here we have 阿杜 again. I really like his voice, although sometimes I think it gets a bit too high. (which is of course the fault of the composer and not his). So here we have the song Andy, which was played over and over again once when I was in a train in China, where they only seemed to have an 阿杜 album for music. Here are the lyrics:
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Oct 23
Another song from 阿杜 called 我的心太乱 (wǒ de xīn tai luàn). Enjoy!
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Oct 23
Right now I’m a 阿杜 (ā dù) mood. So I’ll add some of his songs that I used to listen to a few years ago. However, his songs are all so depressing, so make sure you don’t listen to them too much ;-) This one is called 天黑 (tiān hēi - darkness, when the day gets dark). Here are the lyrics:
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Oct 22
Here is a old classic song called 风中有朵雨做的云 (fēng zhōng yǒu duǒ yǔ zuò de yún, “there is a cloud made of rain in the wind”). The title might sound weird, but maybe it’ll make more sense if you know that the rain drops represent tear drops. The singer is called 孟庭苇 (mèng tíng wěi). The song came out 1993, so it’s almost 15 years ago. At that time I was a kid and we had karaoke evenings and I loved singing this song in front of everybody. (Well, now I’m not quite like that ;-) But this song contains easy characters (like 风 云 雨) so that I could read most of the text at that time. Here are the lyrics:
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