I went to Popular today and couldn’t find 窗前的小豆豆。Where do you find such books?

schellen:

MintLeaf, I only did Jap at uni and the dicts were recommended by the teachers. Yes, I had the 3 you mentioned. I guess any good ones will do. I remember using 2 of them from Kodansha. That was back when internet was still in its infancy.

I am not familiar with the Arts faculty, or for that matter, the modular system. How long did the language study module/course run?

schellen:

Now, I use online resources more since it's faster and with some experience, I can type in the appropriate keywords to get more accurate results. The site I primarily use is http://www.alc.co.jp and to help me with the reading and meaning of kanji on-screen, I use a Firefox add-on called Rikaichan. (Rikaichan doesn't work on IE or Chrome but I think it works on Safari.) You can google for these software, etc. Just don't use Babelfish or Google to translate directly cos you'll get \"weird\" results.

Thanks for the URL. I did some tests and each time it returned a comprehensive list of explanations/translations. And Rikaichan looks even more promising. I have yet to get it up and running though.

Thanks Serafiel and Schellen for clarifying what Japanese H2 is not. I can see dictionaries for French and German in the Sec 1 booklist, but not Japanese. This is really strange to me given that Japanese has 和英，英和 and 漢字 dictionaries. When did you buy your first dictionary? Before that, did you have access to some online resource (eg free online dictionary) or something else to work with?

skyjuice:

So far I've only seen the offer of S1 Entreprenuer Program in June. Really appreciative that they inform us early of such programs.

This is something new. I definitely don't remember this. Hope your DS has fun with it.

skyjuice:

I wonder are there other programs or classes/ supps to call them back to school in June? Would 3rd wk of Jun be a good time to go away?

My DS has to go back for CCA training in June. But the child can be excused when he goes away. There may be projects to work on in June, but the timing is flexible as it's the team's call when to meet. So you should not have any problem with 3rd week of June.

Hi Daisyt, MSHS is a SAP school, but DS is not in the HMT class. I find the kids in the Express Chinese class quite weak at Chinese. For example, once when they were working on this 爱国英雄 assignment, I found out his project partner did not even know 岳飞。It must be challenging for the teachers to teach, given the great disparity in the linguistic ability within the school.


Holiday assignments could be producing a 500-word write-up on subjects like 街边小贩，人物or completing a comprehension worksheet based on short stories in a book (eg 空城计). Besides this, they have 文化讲义 on topics like 先秦时代，汉朝，端午节的由来。

DS previously did not feel comfortable with conversing in Mandarin at all. He is making attempts now, albeit slowly, to prepare for his oral exam. In his S3 class, there are 16 scholars and quite a number are from PRC. I am hoping the kids will mingle well soon, thereby creating a conducive environment to push up each other’s language skills, given that the PRC scholars have to brush up on English and DS and others have to work on their Chinese.

Thanks Serafiel. It’s the MOELC program that I was interested in and you have provided the information that I wanted.


I am a bit confused if you are still doing Japanese H2. According to the requirement, a B3 at ‘O’ Level warrants one to continue Japanese at H2, hence you would have more than met the requirement. But I am curious, why would you want to do Japanese H2? And why did you go for 3 H2 instead of 4 H2? One more question, is Japanese H2 equivalent to JLPT Level 1?

Thanks Daisyt, for your list of reading materials. This is the first time I see you type Chinese characters.


While I did notice the \"About the Author\" section at the end of every lesson, it did not dawn on me to search for their other works. I have not heard of トットちゃん until you mentioned it. Sounds like an interesting Japanese story that has been translated into Chinese.

I agree we should make learning Chinese more palatable, but it is quite common to see boys slower at picking up languages. This is my problem with DS, and as time is of the essence, we are forced to find the best strategy to tackle the exam first. Having said that, I must confess the amount of effort I put in to help DS appreciate Chinese definitely pale in comparison to yours.

Hi Serafiel,


Do they still have the immersion program to Japan in Sec 3?
If yes, what is the selection process and how many get to go per year?
Any idea how long is the trip?

Hi Skyjuice, Hope you had a good CNY break.


So far we haven't been given the teachers' mobile numbers. There was only one occasion when we somehow got Paul Leong's number.

DS is still using the P6 Chinese electronic dictionary. And I just checked some of his exam papers last year. There was one on 2 Oct and another on 7 Oct, so SA2 is around early Oct. His holiday began at the start of November, hence it was earlier than the primary schools. This luxury is only for the lower secondary. I am pretty sure the S3 would start their holiday at least 2 weeks later.

By the way, next week is CA. After CA1, there should be a meet-the-parent session.

H Blitz, Happy New Year! Didn’t notice the missing Feedback menu item until you mentioned it. Guess you have to send emails to the teachers instead. In the past, we sometimes have to send more than one email to different people before we get any attention, because the first email was missed.