posted by jarrellebarton on June 6, 2010 | 4 comments
hello everyone!I am planning on studying in china next year but in order to get into the uni I need to be an hsk level 5...I am learning chinese on my own and from chinese friends here in my state and online...I can read and write chinese so-so and speak with native speakers but i can not yet fully understand a chinese magazine... how should i go about reaching a level 5?is it too late?im 17 years old and know about a few hundred words i think... thanks so much! I love the site!its so helpful
jarrellebarton,
It sounds like you need level five on the traditional HSK. This is a low-intermediate level (the traditional HSK scores from 1-11) and is usually the level they ask for admissions to university. And congrats on going for the Chinese language classes too.
If you're asking for advice, I'd suggest going over the vocabulary lists here and looking for words you don't know. Don't worry about memorizing the words you don't know -- it isn't that kind of test. Just try to see which words you don't know since they're all pretty high frequency. Maybe there will be a pattern. Then focus on taking all the Beginner and Intermediate sample tests you can. You should be able to do really well (consistently) on the beginner tests. But the Intermediate tests will probably be a bit hard. Assuming you're still in your free trial print them all off or save them or something.
Just on a personal note, the hardest thing for me the first time I took the HSK was the reading exercises. I don't know if there's any way to speed this up except more reading. Good luck. :)
@jarrellebarton,
One effective way to handle the mistakes is to write them down into a notebook, and take a look every now and then. Or you can visit our test pages and save the mistakes too. You'll find you won't make the same mistakes again.
You still have plenty of time. I think all you want to do is focusing on how to answer HSK questions. Don't worry about Chinese magazines. Try to do as many tests as you can. Just practice how to answer HSK questions. 加油！
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
jarrellebarton on June 7, 2010 | reply
thanks so much for the wonderful and veryyy helpful advice!this has taken so much pressure off of me cause im a very busy person...I try to also speak chinese as much as I can at home and with my friends and online chinese language partners...this sight is very helpful and if my parents would give me some money i would buy some online lessons tooXD....jia you
walid.shaari on June 7, 2010 | reply
jarrellebarton,
I do not think it would be difficult for you at your age to reach and memorize a large number of Chinese characters, along with this site i am subscribed to skritter, and using it makes learning hanzi fun and time efficient, there are some skritters who have done 1000 chars in a year, some have done it in a month. try it is free for the first two weeks, also take a look at learning chinese characters from tuttle or remembering simplified hanzi "Heisig & Richardson". good luck in your endeavor