My First Time

My first time was funny yet painful,  with neither dignity nor grace. Yet, this experience had to be made and I don’t regret it. There was no other way to do it. I still couldn’t care less…. Of course I am talking about my first exam failure! (tut-tut, what were you thinking?) 😉

Friday was my oral Chinese exam! And my listening exam too! That the listening part could not have been worse and I randomly answered the questions. I am sure I got three questions correct, which is more than I expected. After this already frightening exam, it was time to present my and a colleagues dialogue. It was supposed to be six minutes long and we were so sure it would be long enough, but after we had heard the first two groups, we were panicking and decided to add three random questions at the end of our dialogue: How many family members do you have? What are you studying? What do you like to do? That, we thought, would give us the opportunity to just say two sentences each and ask: ni ne? (and you?)

The first 5 lines went great, but my partner suddenly forgot six more lines and jumped straight to the restaurant scene. I was confused and stared at her not knowing what to do next. Our text was already quite short so I really didn’t want to shorten it even more. Suddenly she realised what she had done, apologised and went back to the original script… for one more line. She introduced herself to me (according to plan) and told me what she was studying (not according to plan). I didn’t know what to say other than: Interesting (which I am really proud of, because I hadn’t used that word in months). My name is Angi and I am studying Linguistics. What do you want to eat? (which was again according to plan. I wanted her so desperately to stick to it.) She completely ignored that question and everything was confusing from that point on. Not only for the audience, but first and foremost for me. I sat down (in the restaurant) and then she asked: Do you have a reservation?-No. Ok, no problem, take a seat. Great… I had already done that.

After paying the bill, there was an awkward silence, because we needed to talk a bit more. So I said: That was good! And she nodded, because she hadn’t understood what I had said. Then I asked: Tell me about your family! She mumbled one or two sentences and said: ni ne? And I told her that my parents were both doctors (not quite, but the closest I could get) and my brother was a student (well… close enough). Then I asked about her hobbies and when she asked me the same question I was like: I like to read books, to dance and listen to….erm…erm….I like to hike.

Another awkward moment followed. Then: Bye! Bye!

And the moral of this story is simple: You should not improvise in your oral exams if you don’t know the language. 🙂

Saturday was even worse.

It all started at half past ten when I woke up and realised that my phone’s batteries had died and my alarm hadn’t gone off (alarm fail). This meant there was just half an hour left to get to my Chinese reading exam in time! (initially I didn’t want to go, because I had had no time to learn the characters, but after flipping a coin I my colleagues forced me to go). I brushed my teeth, dressed and got there ten minutes early. Let me tell you… this exam was an absolute disaster. Imagine a page full of Chinese characters… exactly how I felt. 😉 The questions were in English and we were allowed to answer in English… the question is what to say if you have no idea what is going on? I could only answer one question, the rest was sheer guesswork. Why does he want to drink coffee?-Because he likes it. Which problems does he have with the taxi driver?-The driver wants too much money.

I have no idea whether that is remotely true. I am glad I don’t have to see my Chinese teacher ever again. That would be more than embarrassing.

The whole day was a complete failure… basically everything from Friday until now was a failure, disappointment and disaster. This means that it can’t get worse; just better. Looking forward to tomorrow! 😀