HSK5 is AVAILABLE on Chinese New Year

Haha, reminding us of what you want it is not a bad idea. We do take suggestions made in this forum very seriously.
Lets see how many votes for HSK 5+ we get on here :grinning:

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Everybody, please :heart: @Andreas_Admin_Flexi’s comment if you ever want to be able to take HSK5 classes! :slight_smile:

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It is great that there is a HSK 3+ and 4+. It gives me a good feeling that there is more than just going through the curriculum once. I like it that in LTL some grammar points re-appear, with an extension or in another context, and I like it that LTL is not strictly HSK but quite a bit ahead. But as every lesson is a unit in itself this is never a problem.
I had a look into the first lesson of HSK 5, and I already know some of the “new words” like 建筑,单身, and can read some sentences “except some words, haha”。(So stupid, but I feel proud :rofl: :wink:)
As the layout of the lesson looks so familiar I can imagine being able to do it some time. The higher numbers of HSK don’t scare me anymore.
LTL will really look perfect if HSK 5+ will come soon, and even 6, (or however you will deal with the new HSK levels up to 9). It will look good even for newbies how far one can get with the LTL system.

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I am still working on HSK4 and plan on moving soon to HSK4+. It would be great to have HSK5+ also made available. While I have a bit of work before getting there, I love knowing that the next lessons are there and I can continue my learning!

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Well done @Rosie-Cao on keeping up with new levels! We all appreciate the work you do! I’m still happily (or usually happily) working through HSK3 classes, but it’s good to see other students working through your HSK5 lessons. I really understand why LTL moves more to 1:1 classes as students get to higher levels. I currently pull a lot of funny faces on camera as I try to improve my pronunciation. Got to love a westerner saying 出去 (!) :rofl:

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Great to see HSK5+ is in the works. I’m definitely interested in seeing this develop, but I still have 250 lessons to work through before I get there. :sweat_smile:
HackChinese says I have 25% of the HSK5+ vocab so far. I’m about to start HSK3 on LTL, about 60% through HSK4.0 in HackChinese, almost finished New Practical Chinese Reader vol. 2 and soon to start vol. 3 in my uni diploma, but still on HSK1 in Skritter! All over the place…

Personally, I’d love to explore Chinese literature and history. I noticed there were a couple of topics like that in HSK5.0 like Lu Xun, the Monkey King.

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We’re going to make HSK5+ as many of you are getting advanced in Chinese.
We will have the class called “Talk to the native” where you are able to talk freely about one designed topic with native Chinese teachers.
We do not know what to do for the other regular topics. Is there any suggestion? we can tailor-make the topics that you like.

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Here are a few ideas:

  1. Hand-writing / calligraphy. I think hand-writing is a really important skill because it helps with hanzi familiarisation. But student and teacher’s webcams would need to point down at their desks. Maybe both would need two cameras, so there would be “four” people attending (two Zoom identities each)?
  2. Deep-dive into grammar This is the main grammar textbook for my university diploma: https://ia801903.us.archive.org/13/items/modern-mandarin-chinese-grammar-textbook/ModernMandarinChineseGrammar_Textbook.pdf
    Any grammar points not yet covered in the LTL Mandarin course perhaps could be included in the new 5+ course?
  3. Translation Advice This would be an interesting way to study literature or improve translation skills. Students could present a text they’ve chosen to translate and see what the teacher thinks. It could be an ongoing project.

P.S. I noticed the “list” option doesn’t work as expected. One has to click the list icon each time to add a new list item, but it keeps saying “1”.
Kelly

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Thanks. Which List functionality are you referring to? Could you send me a screenshot or URL?

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@Andreas_Admin_Flexi
Sorry, my fault. I was looking at the editor text rather than the “wysiwyg” graphic on the right side of the editor. The List feature doesn’t work as I am used to, where [Enter] creates the second list item. Here, [Enter] creates a new line. Clicking the [list] button does create a 1. List item, but it actually appears as the second item in the list at the right hand side. My bad.

Using HTML tags works as expected though, so I can use as well.

  1. Hello, this is the first item
  2. Hi again, this is the second item.
Sorry for the unnecessary alarm.
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Oh thanks so much for the explanation. I hadnt even used that List feature yet. And now I know how it works too. Thanks a lot!

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Hi Kelly,
to1. hand writing - I once had hand writing tasks in my LTL lesson. :wink: I simply wrote on paper and held it to my camera. Of course the teacher couldn’t see whether my directions and order of strokes were well done.
I now normally use an extra camera put on top of my laptop and not the laptop’s own camera. So I could always take this “eye” and show whatever I like to.

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That’s a great idea, @Sonja-Mandarin-HSK_3. Do you mean, you move your portable webcam’s perspective back and forth, to show the teacher your hand-writing or back to your face? Or is it stationary, and you use the integrated webcam as well?

I have two webcams for my laptop, too: a portable wired webcam and the integrated webcam. So I could have a Zoom lesson with two identities to use both cameras. I can clip the portable webcam to my shirt pocket to show my writing. I might try this for a future lesson.

Hugs (can’t find a suitable emoji)… Please keep well and take care of yourself. Thinking of you!

You don’t need two identities, simply switch the camera with Alt+N in zoom. I used to have my second camera on an extra stand to show my hands on the piano (and the laptop built-in camera only for my hopefully encouraging looking face. :star_struck:)
I don’t have many online lessons now, and only with older students. Now I only use my portable camera clipped on my laptop (it is much better than the built-in), and show things quickly if needed, a hand on the keys, but also something in books or inside the piano or the weather outside, haha.

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Wooooooo HSK 5+. Very happy!

I think I gave some suggestions in the other threads but I add some here:

  1. agree with Kelly’s suggestion on translation. I have started trying to translate things in my head recently and I had no idea how hard it was or how much of a different skill/different part of your brain it takes!!
  2. Menus for typical restaurants
  3. Chinese zodiac
  4. star signs / blood type
  5. business negotiation vocab
  6. Chinese temples/gods - for example I had a recent lesson about 月老 and thought it was really cool.
  7. Word guessing game (like articulate) - small game to try to describe words on a list without saying the word
  8. Dinosaurs
  9. Space (meteors, planets, rockets)
  10. Using iPhone in Chinese. I know you guys said before it is on the earlier levels but I feel like since I started using my phone in Chinese there is a lot of words I’ve learnt. Even 拷貝,貼上, 剪下, 搜尋. Just my suggestion!

Personally I am not interested in handwriting, but I understand others are, so if that was a class I would just skip it.

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thanks thanks. All ideas are put on the list. Will see how our PDF creator work on it

sound pretty cool. I wonder what if somebody doesn’t have two laptop or cameras. I wonder the technical prepare will be the obstacle for people to book this kind of class

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Yes, of course. Only a reminder, if you use one laptop and don’t use the in-built camera, but use an extra better camera. You could switch easily and quickly the cameras with Alt+N and use both cameras. Then you can show how you write and switch back to face quickly.

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What about using the whiteboard in Zoom to hand write on there?

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I’ve had similar @Sonja-Mandarin-HSK_3 and @Kelly-Mandarin-HSK_3 but the teacher put a blank screen up and gave me control of the cursor in paint mode so she could see my stroke order. It wasn’t meant to be practicing nice handwriting, rather the strokes, but it was a good experience. I’d had a number of classes with that element now, but only when I was the only student. When it has come to handwriting, I’ve written the characters on paper, taken a photograph then uploaded it into the Zoom chat during the class. That works when it is just about how the characters look.

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