Ever tried learning a new language? Well, Mount Vernon student Tori Oelrich has. As of last summer, she decided to take classes to learn Mandarin Chinese. 

Learning a new language can be difficult especially when going through a pandemic which is what Oelrich had to do during the outbreak of Covid-19. Oelrich was attending Mandarin classes on a full-ride scholarship through the state department. Tori was meant to take these classes in Taiwan or China while living among a host family for a full six or seven weeks but was unable to due to the pandemic. Instead, she had to do her learning online. Even though Tori was unable travel for her learning, she said that she will be able to do her learning there next summer and is lucky for getting early learning of the language before living with a host family. Included with the Mandarin classes were lots of homework that took two hours to complete each night and classes that were three hours long. 

The reasoning behind why Oelrich decided to take Mandarin classes was because her older sister’s boyfriend was from Taiwan so his main language was Mandarin and her sister had to learn Mandarin in order to speak with him. Since her sister had learned Mandarin she encouraged Tori to try it. Tori said she was “hesitant at first didn’t really see a reason to learn Mandarin, but the more I practiced it I guess I kind of fell in love with the language.” For homework, there were two and a half hours of reading, recording monologues and essays with some vocab words and flashcards to test yourself with vocab or just notes. Other homework would be cultural assignments on Chinese culture such as the painting style using calligraphy and Chinese dishes or drinks like boba. For Oelrich, calligraphy was her favorite because it is “beautiful and has deep historical value in Chinese culture.” 

During Mandarin classes, Oelrich would have thirty minutes of conversation with a partner who was most likely a high school student like herself. Sometimes, they would practice material learned in the previous night’s class. For the start of class, Oelrich said, “Usually we had started about our day in Mandarin, moving on to powerpoints and Kahoots.” After that, they would take a break to go over their materials and possibly play Chinese bingo with new vocab or practice writing with calligraphy. Tori said, “ Friday presentations give new sets of info each week for presentation.”