Rachel Esme

I am in Year 11 at Haberdasher Aske's Hatcham College and study GCSE Mandarin. I have almost completed the the GCSE and have achieved A*s in my speaking and writing exams, I am yet to take my reading and writing exams but my school have predicted me an A* overall. I'm going to continue Higher Level Chinese at Dartford Grammar School out of pure interest. If you're a linguist, or polyglot should I say then even the reading and writing won't be too difficult. I grew up speaking Yoruba a language that shares the same phonology and SVP syntax as Mandarin so I haven't found Mandarin speaking difficult at all. I'm an avid learner or languages so I choose to adapt to the writing style with ease but I do agree that for children in the primary phase a language like Mandarin shouldn't be mandatory. Not all of them will be lucky enough to speak a similar language already like I did it's almost pointless. I went to China for the entire summer last year and the city folk insist on speaking 'my language' English to me -_- I can't even speak Mandarin in restaurants down here they're all Cantonese. Learning a European language like Spanish has been far more rewarding and useful for me but I still love Mandarin it's a very beautiful and culturally rich language. *Rant over*