Efé's Journey

A review of the HSK books and why I am transitioning to ACCC.

When I first started learning Chinese, I started with taking classes in my high school. They were great, and they are why I can keep continuing to learn this damn thing. The books we were using — fortunately — were NPCR. I believe before I left the school in about ~2 years, we've finished the first and the second book. I liked them, they were a classic, old school, designed to be used in classes kind of books.

About the time we went into summer holiday, I've decided to take 1-on-1 classes. We first used The Routledge Intermediate Chinese Reader due to my request of using it, and I really liked that book at that time, even though it was a bit hard for me. About three chapters in with the book, I moved to another country. This led to me having less time to commute to actual classes, and suddenly my class hour lessened by %50. Due to this, we have decided to change the textbook. Then we started to use HSK textbooks. These.

We have decided to go with the HSK4 books and started to use HSK4上. Now, at this moment, I am at the 18th chapter (the 8th chapter of the 2nd book, HSK4下). I think this is a great time to discuss and inform the reader how a 'unit' is formed in this book:

Later on, I will compare this structure to the ACCC's structure (A course in contemporary Chinese) and you will probably understand why this structure is bad. On paper, without additional words or explaining about the sections, this plan looks great! Right? You got the “understanding common speech” part, you got the “but can you read newspapers?” part, grammar part and the words!

No. No it isn't. Let's talk about each subsection and how it is.

HSK: Activities

The sole purpose of why these fellas are here is to “familiarize the students with the content”. I don't really have a problem with these, but I just want to say that these really shouldn't exist, I am wasting time matching pictures with words.

HSK: The topic selection

Let me start by saying that I absolutely hated the topic selections. Maybe it's because I'm young, maybe it's because I saw actual interesting textbooks that could select topics that are both useful and interesting. For example, a topic in the HSK4上 is “Money can't buy happiness”. I remember reading about environmental issues and the special day when they don't use lights for one hour.

Mind you, I know about 1200 words, possibly closer to 1500. Learning about these topics won't bring me anything. Where the heck do they suppose me to use those vocabs when I can barely read 兔兔大王? I want to talk about how can I get to the hospital, how can I order food. Oh wait, the book did include food in its syllabus. It was “how Chinese people bring their loved ones to dinner”. My guy, what is the point in all of these if I can't order a meal?

If you are using this book, you will have to bear with a lot of philosophic discussions and really weird topics like “how you should raise your child?”. This is really dumb considering the fact that HSK4 is like A2.2. Believe me, Even though it's like the 4th out of 6, it's not that high.

The book contained numerous instances that made me think, “why are we talking about this?”

HSK: Grammar

Ah yes, the distant enemy of mine. First, I want to start with the fact that I love grammar and I absolutely love learning about it.

Not when a simple grammar is being explained to me in crayon eating terms that takes up about half of one single page. Putting the fact that they consider straight up normal words as grammar aside, their explanation goes into so much detail that it just bores even me, a grammar nerd.

Also, exactly one out of the five grammar explanations have a follow-up section where they compare it to another grammar point that is vaguely similar. I had 1 1/2 pages of just comparison. Wild stuff, boring stuff, unnecessary stuff. I hate this stuff.

Every grammar point has an exercise with 3 fill the blank type of questions. You generally have to complete the sentence. I think they aren't doing much but eh, three is better than none, am I right?

The solution

I have decided to change my textbook. This change came with another one, I am transitioning to traditional Chinese now! I think I should talk a little bit about this because it made an impact on my textbook selection. Firstly, I don't want to give up on simplified all together because of the population of it. So I will continue learning both of the scripts. But my main ways of consuming media will shift towards traditional. This has its own reasons behind it, but know that I am biased towards traditional.

I have decided to use a book that utilizes both simplified and traditional script in my private classes. I have a couple of selections that I forwarded to my teacher in which she replied “They look great, let's use them all at once” but the reality is, that is too much work for the both of us, and we are likely to use just one of them. My selections were Integrated Chinese 4th edition and Chaoyue.

On my own, I have decided to study with A Course in Contemporary Chinese. A book that is used mainly by Taiwanese universities and an actual all-rounder, unlike HSK books.

They are fairly recent, popular enough that I have pre-made Anki and Pleco decks out of the box, and also can find the audio. This book, unlike the other two mentioned above, is fully in traditional script (note: higher level do the books does include simplified counterparts of the texts). They also cover up from A1 to C1 (and yes, they use an actually sensible framework where the highest level, where the holder of the level can explain themselves spontaneously and precisely. Unlike HSK which is… well their own best level contains 6000 words, which not enough to read Harry Potter series fully).

I have decided to start from the first book with the addition of Anki deck. I can finish the first two books in one month, if not faster. The main reason behind why I'm not starting with 3rd or 4th month is that I want to make myself familiar with the script and want to fill in the gaps.

I am going through an Anki deck that has 5k words in it. Yes, you heard me right, I am starting Anki again. RAAAAH!

On the 4th level of ACCC, the unit (they call them 'lessons') is as follows:

I am done with writing this, if you are learning Chinese, first of all, why would you subject yourself to such torture? And secondly, good luck.

#2025 #chinese #language-learning