Month #1 in China
大家好！Hello and welcome to my monthly blog where I will be giving you all an insight on a Uni student’s life in Tianjin 天津China中国!
The first two weeks here were very frenetic and exciting as classes had not started yet, so we had the chance to travel every day around 天津, seeing new 地方 and eating 好吃的东西。
(As you’ll have noticed I will be using Chinese words now and then as a little quiz, if you don’t know what the words mean see if you can guess from the context or grab a dictionary and good luck with finding the radical!…there is a vocab list at the very end…)
Our campus is located very close to 天津中心, making it very 方便 as you don’t need to travel far to get to Tianjin’s most lively and interesting places.
Another perk to staying at this campus (not the main campus) is that on one side we have the view of the Tianjin Broadcasting and Television Tower 天津广播电视塔，and on the other side we can see the building in which our lessons take place. Classes do start early (早上八点) but they are also right next door.
Lovely view of the Television tower from underneath our dormitory building.
Our first two weeks involved very long walks around 天津 and allowing our stomachs to get used to the cuisine along the way.
Contrary to what we thought before arriving, September is the best month to be in 天津 as it’s no longer 夏天 but not quite 秋天 either, so for us 苏格兰人, the weather is perfect! This of course meant long walks in parks such as the 天津水上公园, literally “Tianjin park on the water”. We found this to be a great place to zone out from China’s super busy roads as well as to take a break once the intense classes start…
Now let’s try out some vocab and grammar!
中国 zhong1guo2 China (central country)
天津市 tian1jin1shi4 Tianjin City (Royal Port City)
学生 xue2sheng1 Student
大学 da4xue2 University (big studies)
走一走 zou3yi1zou3 going for a stroll (walk-one-walk)
地方 di4fang5 place/location
好吃 hao3chi1 tasty (good to eat)
东西 dong1xi5 object/thing (east-west)
广播 guang3bo1 broadcast
电视 dian4shi4 TV ()
苏格兰 su1ge1lan2 Scotland (transliteration)
夏天 xia4tian1 summer
秋天 qiu1tian1 autumn
走一走：The v. 一 v. structure is often used when describing you are doing something a little bit or for a short amount of time, however the verb must be a single-character verb:
看一看 “take a look” 试一试 “give a try” 说一说 “speak”
好吃：In Chinese when describing adjectives such as tasty, you split the expression into adverb (好) and the verb (吃):
好喝 “tasty/good to drink” 好听 “pleasant to hear”
东西: to describe the concept of an object or thing, in Chinese you say “east-west” because between these two directions there must be something
Hope you all found this first blog interesting and helpful. If there is anything in particular you would like me to talk about next month then just let 王老师 know and I’ll get right on it for you guys!