Learning Mandarin

如影随形

Learning Mandarin
    “Judging from your Mandarin, I am sure you are from Guangdong or Fujian.” “Yes, I am from Fujian province.” This conversation between me and other people who I meet for the first time often happens in my daily life. Every time when I hear this, I say to myself that I have to continue improving my Mandarin until other people can not tell my hometown from my Mandarin. In order to realize my determination, I made a detailed plan to learn Mandarin. At first, I went to Xinhua bookshop and brought several phonetic books. Then, I read loudly before my mirror no mater when I had free time in dormitory. Meanwhile, I asked my classmates to point out my mistakes and tell me how to pronounce them correctly. I also recorded my sound and listened to it to make comparison with the radio.  After a long time, my Mandarin was much better than before. When I asked my classmates to make a comment on my Mandarin, they would say that I have made a great progress. At that time, I feel all my efforts are worthwhile. Not only the improvement of my Mandarin but also what I have learnt during this process make me believe that it is worth learning Mandarin well.
    The most important thing I have obtained during the process of learning Mandarin is perseverance. At the beginning of learning Mandarin, I felt very frustrated because I could not pronounce some letters correctly even though I put my tongue in the right place. What’s worse, I could not distinguish the right pronunciation from the wrong. Depressed by these problems, I sometimes wanted to give up. Fortunately, I clang to my resolution. I asked Chengyu who is one of my classmates with an excellent Mandarin to have a thorough guidance on my Mandarin. She is so patient and warm-hearted that I finally found the way to learn Mandarin. When I learnt Mandarin with her, I realize the greatness of friendship, which is also the thing I have learnt from learning Mandarin. Without my classmates help, it is impossible for me to improve my Mandarin so much. I really appreciate them that they give me lots of courage instead of making laugh at my poor Mandarin. I am rather thankful for their help and sincere concerns. I am quite grateful for their patience and kindness.
    No pains, no gains. But only with efforts is not enough, because you should also need other peoples help. I think this is the secret of my success in learning Mandarin. By 林瑞霞

Dorothy

It's my pleasure to learn Manderin together with you, dear. Though you described me as the one with exellent Manderin
(which, by the way, makes me very happy ), there're still some sounds that I am not so sure about. So let's keep on working on these together, and I believe that we will make even greater progress in the future.

Cinderella

No pains, no gains.