The Chinese Conversation Lab meets every Tuesday and Thursday in the Gordon B. Hinckley Building, room 422 from 5-7 p.m. The tutors of different levels of experience sit, waiting to help students. Not a lot of students have utilized the lab for the first couple of meetings, but Chuqi Ding, the director of the lab, hopes for a bigger turnout.
“I would love if there are more people to come and we are planning to have some activities,” Ding said.
Last semester, they had a big potluck on Lunar New Year and had over 60 students show up. They also had a movie night and watched Mulan in Mandarin.
“Not the live-action one, the good one,” Ding said.
They are not sure what activities they can have this semester. They are hoping to do activities similar to those of last semester, but for that they will need more people.
Bailey Rogers, a tutor for the lab, took the beginner Chinese class last semester. During that time, she went to the lab nearly every time they met.
“Initially, I thought I was supposed to come a lot more often than I did have to,” Rogers said. “But afterward, I just kinda liked being over here and … sitting here and doing work when I wasn’t actually asking questions. The vibe here is pretty cool. It just really helps to be able to ask questions whenever I needed to.”
The lab gives people an opportunity to actually use Chinese. They can speak it and hear it around them. That is the best way to learn a language, according to Rosetta Stone.
According to Rosetta Stone: Users’ Guide, “The way we learn language as children — immersion in that language — is the best way to learn a new language at any age.”
Rogers expressed the need to speak Chinese aloud.
“It’s a very different set of words and sounds,” Rogers said. “There are even some sounds that we don’t even usually use in English at all.”
Both Rogers and Ding described the lab as having a good environment, and they want anyone interested in Chinese to come.
“Just come,” Ding said. “You don’t need an appointment so it’s a lot more convenient than the tutoring center … Come over and make us busy.”
For an example of Chinese, listen to Ding inviting you to the lab.