This is my first year taking a Chinese language class. Surprisingly, it is one of my favorite classes even though we are required to meet everyday. An hour everyday is definitely needed to learn Chinese. Sometimes it seems as if this is not enough! Tseng laoshi is an excellent teacher and she has strived to transform the class into a community. She understands that Chinese is a hard language to learn, especially the prononciation, and she is understanding of people's frustration yet she still pushes us to do our best. I thought that knowing Vietnamese and some Cantonese , both tonal languages as well, would help me with the Mandarin Chinese tones. Although, it might have given me a slight advantage, I was still confused at first along with the rest of the class. My favorite part about the class is the hanzi or characters. Although a bit more time consuming than English letters, hanzi is a beautiful way to express one's thoughts and is something I will proudly take away from this class.