Of all of my academic experiences at the University of Virginia, learning Chinese has been by far my most rewarding. Professor Tseng has been an excellent teacher and I highly recommend the course because she is such an amazing teacher. She consistently presents the materials in a way that is conducive to learning Chinese. Learning Chinese is a daunting task given the plethora of complex characters that make up the Chinese writing system; however, Tseng-laoshi focuses one's study on those characters that are integral to learning more advanced levels of Chinese. Even though Chinese is an everyday course, I have found this to be its greatest strength in that it is consistent and comfortable. Eventually one learns the names and faces of each classmate, something that is rare in a major university such as Virginia. After having studied Japanese for five years I initially began this course hoping to increase the depth and scope of my Hanzi/Kanji understanding. In this task I have succeeded but surprisingly I find myself eager to continue on to Chinese 201 and I one day hope to have a firm grasp of the language.