配音比赛
十一月初我跟我女朋友去了上海玩儿了三天。我们是坐高铁的，高铁是 中国的最快的一种火车。从北京到上海只花费了我们的五个小时！跟北京比起来上海的天气很暖和，让我们觉得很舒服。我们在上海去看了一些名胜古迹，包括上海老城街、豫园和上海滩。我们也去了一个我特别喜欢的地方，叫田子坊。在这里的街上有很多石库门，一种有一个大石门的上海老房子。现在田子坊的石库门都是小商店，有各种各样的小商品，比如说，服装店、小吃店、艺术品店。在田子坊也可以买很多种小笼包，也有可以喝汤的包子，叫蟹黄包。那些包子都很好吃。我们在田子坊逛一逛一半天，然后找到了一些小酒吧喝了啤酒和金汤力。
回来北京以后我继续拼命地学习中文。十一月底我参加了一个配音比赛。在这个比赛中我需要录我自己配一个中国电影场面的音。我选择了《英雄》，一个关于中国秦朝的秦始皇的电影。通过这个比赛我学到了一些很老的中文词和历史。我觉得参加这场比赛很好玩儿，也对我的汉语很有用，因为除了学习生词以外，我也仔细的学习了演员说中文的节奏。通过这样的学习，我希望我的中文能说得更自然。
At the start of November my girlfriend and I went to Shanghai for a short break. We took the high-speed train, China’s fastest type of train. It only took 5 hours to travel from Beijing to Shanghai. Compared to Beijing, Shanghai’s weather was very warm, which made a nice change. In Shanghai we visited several famous sights including Shanghai’s Old Town, Yu Garden, and the Bund. We also went to a collection of streets called Tianzifang, which I especially liked. Tianzifang’s streets are lined with Shikumen style buildings, which is a traditional style of Shanghai architecture which features courtyard houses with large stone gates. Nowadays Tianzifang’s old houses have been converted into small shops selling all kinds of arts and crafts, clothes shops, small restaurants and bars. In this area there was also a large selection of xiaolongbao available including a very tasty crab soup dumpling. We stayed in Tianzifang all afternoon and evening, ending up in the bars drinking beer and gin and tonics.
On returning to Beijing I continued putting all my energy into studying Chinese. At the end of the month I took part in a movie dubbing competition. For this competition I had to choose a scene to dub from a Chinese film. I chose the film Hero, which is in part about the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, Qin Shi Huang. Through participating in the competition I learned many old Chinese words, as well as learning some Chinese history. The competition was a lot of fun, and I think it helped my Chinese not only through learning new words but also through studying closely the rhythm that the actors spoke with.