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Comprehend China through the “Little Ming” in Chinese Listening

People who are interested in the Chinese listening while you learn Chinese must be quite interested about the character “little Ming”, “Little Ming” is the most familiar stranger for the post 70s’ and 80s’ generation, and had accompanied the development of the whole generation through constantly appearing in all types of materials, such as the text books of our primary schools, all types of mathematical application problems as well as different kinds of compositions.

It is noteworthy for people attending Chinese learning programs that “Little Ming” had reappeared recently, still as the male lead, what is different from the former ones, is that this time it shows up in the Chinese listening comprehension tests, some people had predicted that this time nobody is going to avert the trend of the foreign students being confused by this character.

It is interesting for people in one-on-one Chinese learning programs to know that the Chinese students who had been afflicted by receiving the tests such as the CET4, CET6, TOEFL, IELTS must had thought secretly and resentfully in this way, that one day they would create a type of Chinese listening completion tests to enable our foreign friends to have a taste of the torture that they had once endured.

Therefore, this sentiment of “resentfulness” had become fermented on line in concentration, under the continuous contributions and efforts of the group wisdom from the folks, a serious of Chinese listening test band 4~10 had become vogue on the blogs, which had attracted many people to conjure up with their own inspirations, and until now, the question bank had become magnificent and spectacular to arouse the attention from the foreign students attending HSK preparation program in China.

Here is a question bank of band eight to be shared with friendly volunteer in China, which goes like this, “A:Xiao Ming(Little Ming), Thank you for the red and blue stereo glasses that you’ve sent me! B: Not at all! Question: What is Little Ming’s last name? A. Red, B. Yellow, C. Blue”.

It is quite obvious for Chinese scholars who always learn Chinese on line free that the appearance of this types of spoofs are originated from the strong sense of imbalance among the commonplace tests sitters in China, however, they are not dubious about the importance of learning English in the modern society.

People, including those joining volunteer programs in China should not deny that the English is the most widely used language in the international communities, although some non-native speakers carries poor English with strong accents of their native languages, and even be despised upon when making inaccurate pronunciations, the effects in the using of English language in cross-cultural communications is much better that that with the body movements. The only way out is to come into contact with English and face up with the reality and bravely make choices from numerous ABCDs.

It is true for foreigners who enjoys to learn Mandarin Chinese that there are some distasteful elements in the spoof Chinese listening practices, which had given rise to a lot of laughter among the people, and here is a question from the added question bank offered by the net friends which goes like this, “A: Little Ming, there is a football game played by the China team tonight, would you like to watch? B: Watching! No! Question: Will Little Ming watch soccer tonight? ” well, it is also not hard for us to discern some elements of the profoundness and charming of Chinese culture from those seemingly unscrupulous questions.

And here is another question selected from one of Chinese classical style of writing, which goes like this, “季姬寂,集鸡,鸡即棘鸡。棘鸡饥叽,季姬及箕稷济鸡……”and the candidates are required to translate this paragraph into contemporary Chinese language with the adoption of homonyms, and the differentiations of the intonations are allowed. However, it is not difficult to be discovered by people who are waiting to study Mandarin Chinese in China that the smooth and meaningful articles made up with the same pronunciations can probably be achieved with no other languages in the world but Chinese.

Another professional-leveled question is about the practical applications of the polysemous word “意思”, which can be real understood by people looking for internships in China if been put into the cultural contexts. Actually, it is practical and reasonable for the long-established HSK test which had been set up to evaluate the non-native Chinese speakers’ Chinese levels to absorb or make some consultations on the folk contributions, it would not only reveal the profoundness of Chinese language and culture, but also help the candidates in real immersion into the living culture of China.

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