H S oKay

This evening I had my first Chinese lesson with my new Chinese teacher. Just like non-native speakers who study English have the IELTS and TOEFL tests, Chinese has the Hanyu (Chinese) Shuiping (level) Kaoshi (test) or HSK for short.

The test has a listening section, a grammar section, a reading comprehension section and a 'fill in the blanks' section - though don't let that trick you into thinking it's easy! Filling in those blank characters is enough to give me nightmares. My most recent anxiety dream is of sitting in the HSK exam hall and being given a whole test paper of blank squares. Any of you reading this who have any experience of this dreaded exam will know what I mean.

Last May I took the HSK in London. With the careful guidance of my lovely teacher, Sunny, I prepared and prepared and prepared. The test was hard. Really hard. But I did it and I was glad I did...until 5 months later when the exam board told me they had lost my exam script so I would not be receiving a grade. I was gutted. Writing this has reminded me just how gutted I was! As compensation I was offered a chance to take the test again...3 days after the Board sent the email to explain about the missing paper. I didn't grab this opportunity as I was too cross to even consider picking up an HSK book.

However, I am ready to start training again and I am determined to pass the HSK this year and get a grade that I am happy to tell people about. Writing about this on here is all part of my commitment. There are only a few chances a year to sign up for the test. I'm aiming to try once in June and once in November. Sitting in a classroom and staring blankly at some exercises this evening was strangely comforting as it took me back to days at Fudan where a particular word or sentence pattern wouldn't make sense to me for weeks and weeks until the penny finally dropped and then I'd got another string on my linguistic bow. Tonight's class was devoid of dropping pennies but it reminded me that the pennies are on their way.