Rough

Why do I always sit in the front row in class? The range of individual skill levels in my Mandarin 4 class is pretty extreme. There are several people who have lived and/or worked in China, and a few who studied at the college level in the past. There are also a few people who should probably consider starting over with Mandarin 1. I think I'm somewhere in the middle and I guess I should have sat somewhere in the middle. The teacher turned to me first every time she wanted someone to give examples of grammatical structures or to spontaneously make up sentences or stories in Chinese. She speaks at full conversational speed and I feel like I'm only comprehending about 40% of what she says. I can tell she's going to be the toughest instructor I've had yet.

Nam's got it rough too. Her class has only got 5 students and all of them have at least a little background in either Korean or some East-Asian language, which she does not. On day one of her beginner-level class she was singled out for being the only one who was not able to read the Korean alphabet. She's working really hard at home to catch up, and I'm inspired by her determination. 

She's got two classes per week, and tonight's one of them. I'll be meeting up with her in K-town for dinner afterwards, maybe Korean BBQ...... I'll take pics and post.