Notes · Chinese (Mandarin)UK · A-Levels

传统: the four festivals and the customs around them

This topic carries the first sub-theme of Edexcel Theme 2, 中国文化 (traditional 中國文化): 传统 (傳統), which the specification exemplifies as 节日 - 春节, 端午节, 中秋节, 清明节 - 和习俗. Theme 2's two sub-themes are split across the two artistic-culture slots rather than kept together, because a festival calendar with named customs and a survey of film, television, music and reading are genuinely separate bodies of content. This is the one place in the whole specification where a candidate is expected to know particular cultural content rather than general social argument: four named festivals, when each falls, what people do, and what the customs mean. It is also the place where description is easiest and analysis is scarcest, so the topic is built to move a candidate up the AO4 ladder from what happens to why it matters and how it has changed.

5 sections~37 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

T·0333 / 13

Exam profile

AO1 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to spoken Chinese about festivals and customsAO2 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to written Chinese of descriptive and cultural registerAO3 · Manipulate Chinese accurately, using a range of lexis and structure to describe, explain and evaluate cultural practiceAO4 · Show knowledge and understanding of, and respond critically to, the festivals and customs of the Chinese-speaking world

Operators:描述解释比较分析评价论证翻译

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is accurate and specific description: the name of each festival, when it falls, two or three customs attached to it, and what a family typically does. The vocabulary should be exact - 年夜饭 rather than 大饭, 扫墓 rather than 去墓地 - and the sentences should be sequenced with 首先, 然后, 最后 rather than left as a heap.

higher level

The full A-Level expects a candidate to say what a custom means and how it has changed. Why is 团圆 the organising idea of two of the four festivals? What does it tell you about a society that its largest annual population movement is people going home? Has the digital red envelope changed the meaning of the red envelope or only its medium? Is commercialisation a loss or a form of survival? Language should reach for 不仅…还…, 之所以…是因为…, 象征着, 体现了 and the concessive 虽然…但是….

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

传统: the four festivals and the customs around them

春节: the festival everything else is measured against#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9CN0 Theme 2 中国文化 - 传统: 节日 (春节) 和习俗DfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The four festivals the specification names

Fig. 1Three of the four are dated by the traditional lunisolar calendar and move against the Western year; 清明 is the exception, because it is a solar term and therefore falls at almost the same Western date each year, in the first week of April. The emphasised cell is that exception, because it is the detail most candidates get wrong and the easiest one to be right about.

春节 (Chūnjié), the Spring Festival, falls on the first day of the first month of the 农历 (nónglì), the traditional lunisolar calendar, so its date in the Western calendar moves between late January and the middle of February. It is also called 农历新年 or, in English, Chinese New Year, and it is the longest and most important holiday of the year. The evening before is 除夕 (chúxī), and the meal eaten that night is the 年夜饭 (niányèfàn), the reunion dinner. The word that organises the whole festival is 团圆 (tuányuán), reunion or being whole together - it is the noun to build an analytical sentence around, because it explains why the customs are what they are. One further point of vocabulary belongs here because candidates constantly need it and constantly get it wrong: the verb for observing the festival is 过, as in 过春节 or 过年 - to pass or spend the New Year - and not 庆祝, which is closer to celebrate in the sense of marking an occasion.

The customs are specific and should be named precisely. 贴春联 (tiē chūnlián), pasting up the paired red couplets on the doorframe; 贴福字 (tiē fú zì), the character 福 for good fortune, often pasted upside down because 倒 (dào, upside down) sounds like 到 (dào, to arrive), so an inverted 福 says fortune has arrived - that pun is a genuinely idiomatic piece of cultural knowledge and is worth one sentence in an essay. 红包 (hóngbāo), the red envelope of money given to children and to unmarried younger relatives. 放鞭炮 (fàng biānpào), setting off firecrackers, which many cities now restrict or ban for reasons of safety and air quality. 拜年 (bàinián), the round of New Year visits. 守岁 (shǒusuì), staying up on New Year's Eve. Two further customs are worth naming because they are describable and specific. 大扫除 (dàsǎochú), the thorough clean of the house before the new year, carries the idea of sweeping out the old; and there are foods with meanings attached - 饺子 in the north, 年糕 whose name puns on rising higher each year - which is another instance of the sound-based symbolism the 福 pun illustrates.

Two modern institutions belong to the festival as firmly as the old ones. 春晚 (chūnwǎn), the Spring Festival Gala broadcast on the eve, has been an annual television fixture since the early 1980s and is watched, argued about and complained about by enormous numbers of people - the arguing is part of the custom. And 春运 (chūnyùn), the Spring Festival travel period, is the annual movement of people back to their home regions and back again, routinely described as the largest regular human migration in the world. 春运 is the single best fact in this whole topic for connecting Theme 2 to Theme 1 and Theme 4, because it is a cultural practice made visible by an economic pattern: people travel because they work far from home. There is an argumentative use for both facts and it is worth having ready. 春晚 is evidence that a tradition can acquire a new institution within living memory, and 春运 is evidence that a tradition's difficulty is produced by economic change. Both let you argue that traditions are not simply inherited but continually remade, which is a far stronger AO4 position than describing customs.

The greetings are production vocabulary and must be learnt to be said, not merely recognised. 新年快乐 (xīnnián kuàilè), happy new year; 恭喜发财 (gōngxǐ fācái), congratulations and may you prosper, particularly associated with the festival and with Cantonese-speaking communities as 恭喜發財; 身体健康 (shēntǐ jiànkāng), good health, the greeting offered to older people; 万事如意 (wànshì rúyì), may everything go as you wish. Note the grammar of a good wish: it is normally a four-character phrase with no verb of wishing attached, and adding 我希望 in front of it makes it sound like a translation exercise rather than a greeting. It is also worth knowing which greeting goes to whom, because choosing correctly shows a grasp of register that a memorised list does not: the general ones go to anybody, 身体健康 goes to older relatives, and to a child the conventional line is 学习进步 (xuéxí jìnbù), may your studies advance - a wish, not a compliment.

Worked example

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English of a festival passage

Translate into English. 每年春节前后, 中国都会出现世界上规模最大的人口流动, 人们把它叫做春运. 很多在外地工作的人, 一年只有这个时候才能回家和父母团圆. 除夕晚上, 一家人围在一起吃年夜饭, 一边看春晚一边聊天. 近几年, 红包也慢慢变成了手机上的电子红包, 不过大人给孩子压岁钱的习惯并没有改变.

每年春节前后, 中国都会出现世界上规模最大的人口流动
前后 after a time word means around or in the period surrounding, not before and after as two separate moments. 都 with 每年 is the totality adverb that regularly accompanies 每 and English simply omits it. 会 here is habitual futurity - there occurs, there will be. 出现 is the appearance verb Chinese prefers where English says there is. 世界上规模最大的 is a long attributive: the largest-scale in the world. Render: every year around the Spring Festival, the largest movement of people anywhere in the world takes place in China.
人们把它叫做春运
把 plus object plus verb is the disposal construction from the Appendix 3 list, and 把它叫做 X is its standard use with a naming verb: people call it chunyun. Note that a 把 sentence requires something after the verb - here 做春运 - and a bare 把它叫 would be ungrammatical. In English keep the Chinese term and gloss it, because it has no equivalent: which people call chunyun, the Spring Festival travel rush.
很多在外地工作的人, 一年只有这个时候才能回家和父母团圆
在外地工作的 is a relative clause preceding its noun: people who work away from home. 只有…才… is the conditional pair from the grammar list - only at this time of year can they. 才 is obligatory and pre-verbal. 团圆 as a verb here: be reunited. Render: many people who work away from home can only get back to be reunited with their parents at this time of year.
除夕晚上, 一家人围在一起吃年夜饭, 一边看春晚一边聊天
除夕晚上 is a time phrase at the head. 围在一起 is verb plus locative complement: gather round together. 一边…一边… expresses simultaneous action, watching and chatting at once. 春晚 is the Spring Festival Gala and should be glossed rather than transliterated blind. Render: on New Year's Eve the family gathers round for the reunion dinner, chatting while the Spring Festival Gala plays.
近几年, 红包也慢慢变成了手机上的电子红包
近几年 is in recent years, a time phrase at the head. 变成了 is a change-of-state verb with 了 - has gradually become. 手机上的 is an attributive of location: on the phone. Do not translate 电子红包 as electronic envelope; digital red envelope preserves the custom the phrase depends on.
不过大人给孩子压岁钱的习惯并没有改变
不过 opens the contrast. The whole clause 大人给孩子压岁钱 is nominalised by 的 and modifies 习惯: the custom of adults giving children lucky money. 压岁钱 (yāsuìqián) is specifically the money given at New Year and is a more precise term than 红包 for the money itself. 并没有 is emphatic negation - has not at all changed. Render: but the custom of adults giving children lucky money has not changed at all.
Where the marks are
The examinable joints here are 前后 as around, the 把…叫做 naming construction, 只有…才… as only… can, 一边…一边… as simultaneous, the nominalising 的 on a whole clause, and 并没有 as emphatic negation. Notice that four of the six are structures, not words. A candidate who has drilled vocabulary but not the Appendix 3 structures will produce a passage that is 80 per cent right and loses the marks that separate the bands.

Result: Every year around the Spring Festival the largest movement of people anywhere in the world takes place in China, and people call it chunyun, the Spring Festival travel rush. Many of those who work away from home can only get back at this time of year to be reunited with their parents. On New Year's Eve the whole family gathers round to eat the reunion dinner, chatting while the Spring Festival Gala plays. In recent years the red envelope has gradually turned into a digital red envelope on the phone, but the custom of adults giving children lucky money has not changed at all.

Typical mistakes

Saying 春节 is on 1 January. It falls on the first day of the first lunar month, which is a different date each year in the Western calendar.
Writing 红包 as a present in general. It is specifically money in a red envelope, and who gives it to whom is part of the custom.
Claiming firecrackers are banned everywhere or nowhere. Restrictions vary by city and have changed over time; say 很多城市限制放鞭炮.
Translating 团圆 as party. It means being reunited and whole as a family, and the mistranslation destroys every argument built on it.

Active revision

用中文写一段大约 130 个字的文章, 说明春节最重要的三个习俗, 并且解释为什么团圆是这个节日的核心. 至少使用象征着或者体现了一次, 以及之所以…是因为… 一次.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

端午节和中秋节: two festivals, two organising ideas#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9CN0 Theme 2 中国文化 - 传统: 节日 (端午节; 中秋节) 和习俗DfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

端午节 (Duānwǔjié), the Dragon Boat Festival, falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, usually in June. Its two defining customs are eating 粽子 (zòngzi), glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves and steamed, and 赛龙舟 (sài lóngzhōu), dragon-boat racing. Traditionally the festival is associated with 屈原 (Qū Yuán), a poet and minister of the ancient state of 楚 (Chǔ) who, in the story, drowned himself in a river; the boats are said to represent the search for him and the rice parcels the food thrown into the water. Present that as the traditional association it is - 传说中, 这个节日和屈原有关 - rather than as a documented cause, because the origins of the festival are older and more various than the single story. The dating convention itself is worth one sentence in almost any answer about festivals, because it is the fact that explains why the dates move. Say 农历 rather than 中国历, and note that the lunisolar calendar keeps months aligned with the moon and years roughly aligned with the sun by inserting an occasional extra month - which is why the Western dates shift by weeks rather than days.

中秋节 (Zhōngqiūjié), the Mid-Autumn Festival, falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, when the moon is full, usually in September or early October. Its customs are 赏月 (shǎng yuè), appreciating the moon, and 吃月饼 (chī yuèbǐng), eating mooncakes, which are also given as gifts and have become an object of commercial competition and, at times, of official disapproval of extravagance. Its organising idea is the same as the Spring Festival's - 团圆 - and the moon carries it: 月亮圆的时候, 人也应该团圆 - when the moon is round, people too should be whole together. The character 圆 does double duty for round and for reunited, and that pun is the heart of the festival. The gift dimension of mooncakes is worth having ready as a second strand, because it links this festival to the everyday customs discussed later in the topic. 送月饼 is an act of 送礼 with all the conventions that attach to it, and it is one of the clearest cases in the specification where a festival custom and an ordinary social custom are the same practice.

Here is the analytical move that lifts this section out of description. The four festivals are not four of the same thing; they organise around three different ideas. 春节 and 中秋节 are festivals of 团圆, of the living family gathered. 清明节 is a festival of 纪念 (jìniàn), remembrance, of the family that is no longer living. 端午节 is different again: it commemorates a figure from antiquity and is the most public and physical of the four, raced on rivers rather than eaten at home. A candidate who groups the festivals by what they are for, rather than listing them by date, is doing exactly what the AO4 grid means by critical analysis. The grouping also gives you a ready-made comparative structure for Task 1. 四个节日里, 两个是关于活着的家人的, 一个是关于去世的家人的, 还有一个是关于一个古人的 - of the four festivals, two concern the living family, one the dead, and one a figure from antiquity. That single sentence organises the whole sub-theme and takes twelve seconds to say.

The productive language for this section is the vocabulary of meaning. 象征 (xiàngzhēng), to symbolise, used as 圆月象征着团圆 - the full moon symbolises reunion; note the 着 which is idiomatic here. 体现 (tǐxiàn), to embody or reflect: 这个习俗体现了中国人对家庭的重视 - this custom reflects the importance Chinese people attach to family. 传说 (chuánshuō), legend, used as 传说中… to mark a story as a story. 纪念 (jìniàn), to commemorate. And the explanatory frame 之所以…是因为… - the reason X is that Y - which is the single most useful structure in this whole topic: 中秋节之所以吃月饼, 是因为月饼的形状象征团圆. One warning about 象征 and its relatives. 象征 states a symbolic relation and is strong; 代表 is weaker and closer to stands for; 意味着 means implies or signifies and is the right verb when the relation is inferential rather than conventional. Choosing among the three rather than using 象征 for everything is a small, visible mark of control.

Worked example

Moving one sentence up the AO4 ladder, four times

Take the flat descriptive sentence 中秋节的时候, 中国人吃月饼 - at Mid-Autumn, Chinese people eat mooncakes - and rewrite it four times, each version one rung further up the AO4 ladder.

Rung 1 - description, which is where most answers stop
中秋节的时候, 中国人吃月饼, 也一起赏月. Accurate, specific, and worth very little on its own: the AO4 band descriptors call ideas of this kind straightforward and generalised. Everything you add from here is worth more than anything you add at this level, so do not spend forty seconds of a speaking answer accumulating more customs.
Rung 2 - description with a stated meaning
中秋节的时候, 中国人吃月饼, 因为圆圆的月饼象征着家庭的团圆. The custom now has a reason and the reason is internal to the culture rather than external. 圆圆的 is adjective reduplication from the Appendix 3 list and it is doing real work here - roundness is the point. 象征着 states the meaning. This is roughly the middle of the AO4 grid.
Rung 3 - meaning plus a change over time
不过, 月饼现在也变成了一种礼物, 有些包装非常豪华, 价格也很高, 所以有人批评这种商业化. Now the custom has a history and a critic. 包装 (packaging), 豪华 (luxurious), 商业化 (commercialisation) are the precise words. 有人批评 attributes the criticism instead of your asserting it. This is the rung where a candidate starts sounding like a reader of Chinese sources rather than a memoriser of a textbook.
Rung 4 - a judgement, conditional and your own
在我看来, 商业化并不一定是坏事: 只要月饼还是在中秋节和家人一起吃的, 它的意义就没有消失. 只要…就… is the conditional pair - as long as X, then Y. 并不一定 is a carefully hedged negation, not necessarily. The judgement is yours, it is qualified, and it is argued from a condition rather than proclaimed. That is the top AO4 band: convincing interpretations consistently justified.
Why this counts as argument
The four rungs are cumulative and the whole ladder takes about thirty-five seconds to say or seventy characters to write. It is the most transferable exercise in this subject: take any custom in any sub-theme, state it, give its meaning, note a change, judge the change conditionally. Practise it on 红包, on 扫墓 and on 春晚 until the shape is automatic, and Task 1 stops being a memory test.

Result: 中秋节的时候, 中国人吃月饼, 因为圆圆的月饼象征着家庭的团圆. 不过, 月饼现在也变成了一种礼物, 有些包装非常豪华, 价格也很高, 所以有人批评这种商业化. 在我看来, 商业化并不一定是坏事: 只要月饼还是在中秋节和家人一起吃的, 它的意义就没有消失.

Typical mistakes

Calling 粽子 a rice cake. It is glutinous rice with a filling wrapped in leaves; 月饼 is the cake, and confusing the two is very visible.
Stating flatly that the Dragon Boat Festival exists because of Qu Yuan. The association is traditional; the festival is older than the single story.
Saying 中秋节 falls in September. It falls on the fifteenth of the eighth lunar month, which is usually but not always September.
Using 象征 without 着 in a present description. 象征着团圆 is idiomatic; the bare 象征团圆 sounds like a dictionary entry.

Active revision

用中文写四句话, 每一句说明一个节日的核心意义 (团圆, 纪念, 传说, 赏月), 每句都必须使用象征着, 体现了或者之所以…是因为… 之一, 而且四句不能重复同一个结构.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

清明节和习俗: remembrance, and the customs that are not festivals#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9CN0 Theme 2 中国文化 - 传统: 节日 (清明节) 和习俗DfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

清明节 (Qīngmíngjié) is the odd one out among the four and the fact is worth knowing precisely, because most candidates get it wrong. It is not dated by the lunar month at all: 清明 is one of the 二十四节气 (èrshísì jiéqi), the twenty-four solar terms of the agricultural year, so it falls at almost the same Western date annually, in the first days of April. Its central custom is 扫墓 (sǎomù), sweeping the graves, and the broader act is 祭祖 (jìzǔ), making offerings to ancestors: families clean the grave, lay flowers or food, and burn incense or paper offerings. A second, quite different custom belongs to the same day: 踏青 (tàqīng), walking in the new spring greenery. Remembrance and renewal on one date is itself an observation worth making. There is a second calendrical point that follows and is worth knowing: because 清明 is a solar term, it is one of very few traditional observances that a Western-calendar diary can predict, which is why it appears in fixed-date lists while the other three do not. Noticing that asymmetry is the kind of precision the AO4 grid rewards.

The sub-theme's second half, 习俗, extends beyond the festival calendar to everyday custom, and the specification's wording invites exactly that. Gift-giving, 送礼 (sònglǐ), has rules worth naming: a gift is often refused once or twice out of politeness before being accepted, and certain objects are avoided because of homophones - a clock, 钟 (zhōng), is avoided because 送钟 sounds like 送终 (sòngzhōng), attending a funeral, and pears, 梨 (lí), are avoided for sharing because 分梨 sounds like 分离 (fēnlí), to part. Numbers work the same way: 八 (bā) is favoured because it resembles 发 (fā) in 发财, to prosper, and 四 (sì) is avoided because it resembles 死 (sǐ), to die. Two further conventions belong to the same family and are worth naming. Gifts are conventionally given and received with both hands, and the same applies to a business card or a cup of tea; and money gifts are given in even amounts rather than odd, except at funerals. Each of these is a describable practice rather than a generalisation, which is what makes them usable evidence.

Colour and hierarchy complete the everyday picture. 红色 (hóngsè) red is the colour of celebration - weddings, festivals, envelopes - while 白色 (báisè) white is associated with mourning, which is the opposite of the British convention and therefore an ideal comparison point. At a meal, seating, the order of 敬酒 (jìngjiǔ), toasting, and who pours tea for whom encode seniority. Two nouns carry all of this and both should be defined rather than name-dropped: 面子 (miànzi), face, meaning social standing that can be given, kept or lost, and 关系 (guānxi), the network of reciprocal personal connection. Both are frequently misused in English writing about China, so define them and use them once each. One further everyday convention repays study because it is so easily misdescribed: the contest over who pays for a meal. 抢着买单 - competing to pay the bill - is a genuine social practice with its own etiquette, and describing it accurately is far more interesting than the generalisation that Chinese people are hospitable.

For the exam, the strongest thing you can do with 习俗 is compare rather than catalogue, because you have a British frame of reference the examiner shares. 在英国, 白色是结婚的颜色, 而在中国, 白色和丧事有关 - in Britain white is the wedding colour, whereas in China white is associated with funerals. 而 here is the contrastive conjunction and it is what makes the sentence a comparison rather than two facts. Follow it with 这说明… (this shows that…) or 由此可见… (from this it can be seen that…), the formal deduction connectives from the Appendix 3 list, and you have converted an observation into an argument. The comparison also protects you from a real risk in this sub-theme, which is that a description of customs can slide into presenting a culture as a set of rules. Attaching every observation to a British counterpart keeps it comparative rather than exoticising, and comparative claims are also the ones an examiner can most usefully follow up.

Worked example

Paper 2 Section A: translation into Chinese of a comparative passage

Translate into Chinese. In Britain white is the colour of weddings, whereas in China it is associated with funerals, and red is the colour of celebration. This shows that the same colour can carry completely different meanings in two cultures. For this reason, a gift chosen without thought may make the person receiving it feel awkward.

In Britain white is the colour of weddings
在英国, 白色是结婚的颜色. 在英国 is a coverb phrase of place at the head of the sentence, which is where Chinese puts it. 结婚的颜色 uses 的 to attach a verb phrase to a noun - the colour of getting married. 是 is required; Chinese cannot drop the copula before a noun as it can before an adjective, and 白色结婚的颜色 is ungrammatical.
whereas in China it is associated with funerals
而在中国, 白色和丧事有关. 而 is the contrastive conjunction and belongs at the head of the second clause. Repeat 白色 rather than using a pronoun: Chinese tolerates and often prefers repetition of the topic where English pronominalises. 和…有关 is to be related to, and it takes the thing related as the object of 和. 丧事 (funerary matters) is the right register; 死 would be crude here.
and red is the colour of celebration
红色则是喜庆的颜色. 则 is the formal correlative adverb, roughly whereas or for its part, and it is pre-verbal - a neat register lift over another 而. 喜庆 is the adjective for festive or celebratory occasions and is exactly the word this sentence needs; 高兴 would mean personally happy and would be wrong.
This shows that the same colour can carry completely different meanings in two cultures
由此可见, 同一种颜色在两种文化中可以有完全不同的含义. 由此可见 is the formal deduction connective from the Appendix 3 conjunction list. 同一种 needs the measure word 种. 在…中 brackets the domain and stands before the verb. 含义 (implied meaning, connotation) is more precise than 意思 here. 完全不同的 is a long attributive with 的.
For this reason, a gift chosen without thought may make the person receiving it feel awkward
因此, 一件没有仔细考虑就送出的礼物, 可能会让收礼的人感到尴尬. 因此 concludes. 一件 is the measure word for a gift. The English passive chosen without thought becomes a pre-nominal relative clause: 没有仔细考虑就送出的礼物. 让 is the causative - make someone feel. 收礼的人 is the person receiving the gift, again a relative clause before the noun. 尴尬 is awkward or embarrassed.
Where the points-based marks sit
Almost every mark in this passage is a structural one: the fronted place phrase, the obligatory 是, 和…有关, the correlative 则, 由此可见, the measure words 种 and 件, and above all the two English relative clauses that must become pre-nominal 的 clauses in Chinese. Section A rewards each correct section of language, so the candidate who converts English post-modification into Chinese pre-modification cleanly will out-score one with a wider vocabulary and English word order.

Result: 在英国, 白色是结婚的颜色, 而在中国, 白色和丧事有关, 红色则是喜庆的颜色. 由此可见, 同一种颜色在两种文化中可以有完全不同的含义. 因此, 一件没有仔细考虑就送出的礼物, 可能会让收礼的人感到尴尬.

Typical mistakes

Dating 清明 by the lunar calendar. It is fixed by a solar term and therefore lands in the first week of April every year.
Describing 扫墓 as sad in a simple sense. It is a family occasion combining respect, tidying and often an outing; flattening it misses the 踏青 half.
Using 关系 as a synonym for corruption. It means reciprocal personal connection; whether a particular use of it is improper is a separate judgement.
Writing 白色是死的颜色. 白色和丧事有关 - associated with funerary matters - is accurate and idiomatic; the blunter version is neither.

Active revision

把下面的句子翻译成中文, 注意而, 的定语, 被动的处理和成语的位置: In Britain white is the colour of weddings, whereas in China it is associated with funerals and red is the colour of celebration. This shows that the same colour can carry completely different meanings in two cultures, so a gift chosen without thought may cause embarrassment.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

传统的变化: what happens to a custom when the medium changes#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9CN0 Theme 2 中国文化 - 传统: 习俗DfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

This section exists because the specification's theme is 中国文化 and not Chinese folklore: a candidate is expected to discuss a living culture, and living cultures change. Three changes are concrete, dateable and safe to discuss. The 电子红包 (diànzǐ hóngbāo), digital red envelope, spread rapidly after mobile payment platforms introduced it around the middle of the 2010s, and it changed who can give one to whom - a red envelope can now be sent to a group chat and grabbed at random, which is a genuinely new practice rather than an old one digitised. Restrictions on 放鞭炮 in many cities changed what the New Year sounds like. And the phrase 就地过年 (jiùdì guònián), spend the New Year where you are, became widely used during the years when travel was discouraged, and it named the absence of 春运. One caution about the third example. 就地过年 is associated with a specific and recent period of travel restriction, so date it and attribute it - 那几年政府提倡就地过年 - rather than presenting it as a settled custom. A phrase that entered the language for a few years is interesting precisely because it was temporary, and saying so is more accurate than implying otherwise.

The second change is commercialisation, 商业化 (shāngyèhuà), and it needs to be argued rather than deplored. Mooncakes in luxury packaging, festival shopping promotions and the marketing of dates such as Singles' Day are all real, and there is a real argument on both sides. One position: 商业化让传统失去了原来的意义 - commercialisation has made tradition lose its original meaning. The other: 商业化让传统在现代社会中活下来 - commercialisation is what keeps tradition alive in a modern society. Both are held by serious commentators. Set them against each other with 有人认为…也有人认为…, then take a side with a condition attached, and you have written the top band of the AO4 grid. It helps to notice that the two positions rest on different definitions of tradition. The first treats a tradition as a set of practices with fixed meanings, so any change is loss; the second treats it as a set of practices that survive by adapting, so change is the mechanism of survival. Naming the disagreement as a disagreement about definitions is a genuinely analytical move.

The third change is geographical, and it is the one that connects Theme 2 to the rest of the specification. Festivals are observed across the Chinese-speaking world, not only on the mainland, and the observances differ. 春节 is a public holiday in Hong Kong, in Taiwan, in Singapore and in Malaysia; Chinese communities in Britain mark it with 舞狮 (wǔshī), lion dances, and public celebrations in city centres, and in Cantonese-speaking communities the greeting a candidate is most likely to hear is 恭喜發財. Saying 在不同的华人社会, 同一个节日的过法并不完全一样 - the same festival is observed differently in different Chinese communities - is precise, defensible and shows the breadth the specification's phrase 华人社会 is asking for. It is also worth knowing that some observances differ in more than scale. Lunar New Year is marked across much of East and Southeast Asia under different names and with different customs, so a claim about how the festival is observed should specify the community it describes. Precision about that is exactly what the specification's phrase 华人社会 is asking for.

The exam habit this section builds is the qualified judgement, and it has a shape you can reuse anywhere in the subject. State the change. Attribute the two views. Identify what would have to be true for each to be right. Take a position conditionally. 电子红包是不是让红包失去了意义? 有人说是, 因为抢红包变成了游戏; 也有人说不是, 因为送红包的心意没有变. 关键在于收红包的人是不是还感到被祝福. 如果是, 那么形式的改变并不重要. Note 关键在于 (the key lies in) and 如果…那么… - the two structures that make a judgement conditional rather than assertive. The shape works because it separates the two things candidates usually conflate: whether something changed, which is a factual question, and whether the change matters, which is a question about what the practice was for. Once those are separated, a judgement becomes possible; while they are joined, an answer can only assert.

Worked example

Paper 3 Task 1: a Traditions card answered under the three grids

The card statement reads: 现代科技让传统节日失去了原来的意义 - modern technology has made traditional festivals lose their original meaning. The two compulsory questions are 你同意吗? and 你能举一个例子吗? Build the opening two minutes.

Answer, then immediately qualify
我只同意一半. 科技确实改变了过节的方式, 可是我不认为意义已经消失了. 只同意一半 is idiomatic and it buys you the whole rest of the answer, because you now owe the examiner both halves. 确实 concedes sincerely. 过节 is the verb for observing a festival and is more idiomatic than 庆祝节日.
The example, chosen because it is double-edged
比如说红包. 以前是长辈亲手给的, 现在很多人在微信群里发电子红包, 大家一起抢. 亲手 (with one's own hands) is precisely the detail that makes the contrast visible. 抢 (to grab, to snatch) is the verb actually used for this practice and using the right verb is worth more than any adjective. The example is chosen because it supports both sides, which is why it can carry a two-minute answer.
Give the case for the statement, attributed
支持这个说法的人会说, 抢红包变成了一个游戏, 里面的钱很少, 祝福的意思也变淡了. 支持这个说法的人 is a relative clause naming the holders of the view. 变淡 (to become faint, to dilute) is a compact and vivid verb-plus-complement. Presenting the opposing case fairly is what the AO4 grid means by evaluating issues.
Give the case against it, with a mechanism
不过我注意到, 电子红包让不在同一个城市的家人也能参加. 我奶奶不会用微信, 但是我表哥教会她了, 现在她每年都发. 一个具体的例子比十个形容词更有说服力. A concrete family instance is legitimate evidence in Task 1 and is far more persuasive than abstraction. 教会 is verb plus resultative - taught her successfully - and 更有说服力 (more persuasive) is a useful evaluative phrase.
Judge conditionally and hand over
所以关键在于形式还是心意. 如果收到的人还感到被祝福, 那么形式变了也没关系. 您觉得英国的节日有没有类似的变化? 关键在于 frames the judgement; 如果…那么… conditions it; 被祝福 is a 被 passive doing real work. The closing question invites the examiner's own view, which the interaction grid explicitly rewards.
What the grids saw
AO4: a specific example, both views attributed, a conditional judgement, and a comparison offered. AO3: 只同意一半, 亲手, 变淡, 教会 as a resultative, 被祝福 as a passive, 关键在于 and 如果…那么… - range used to do work. AO1: the answer took the lead, developed without prompting, and ended by eliciting a point of view. That is what a mark in the top band of all three grids is made of.

Result: 我只同意一半. 科技确实改变了过节的方式, 可是我不认为意义已经消失了. 比如说红包: 以前是长辈亲手给的, 现在很多人在微信群里发电子红包, 大家一起抢. 支持这个说法的人会说, 抢红包变成了一个游戏, 祝福的意思也变淡了. 不过我注意到, 电子红包让不在同一个城市的家人也能参加. 所以关键在于形式还是心意. 如果收到的人还感到被祝福, 那么形式变了也没关系. 您觉得英国的节日有没有类似的变化?

Typical mistakes

Describing Chinese tradition as disappearing. Some practices have changed medium, some are restricted, some are growing; the blanket claim is not supportable.
Treating the mainland as the whole Chinese-speaking world. The specification's word is 华人社会, and Hong Kong, Taiwan and the diaspora are inside it.
Assuming the digital red envelope is only a convenience. Group-grabbing is a new practice, and that is the interesting point.
Deploring commercialisation without attributing the view. The examiner cannot reward an opinion presented as a fact.

Active revision

准备一个两分钟的口语回答: 传统节日在现代社会还有意义吗? 至少说出一个具体的变化, 说明正反两种看法各属于谁, 然后用关键在于和如果…那么… 表明自己有条件的立场, 最后向考官提一个问题.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Exam technique: climbing the AO4 ladder in Task 1#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9CN0 Paper 3 Task 1 - knowledge and understanding of society and culture (AO4), 12 marksDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The AO4 grid for Task 1 is worth 12 of the task's 30 marks, and its band descriptors are unusually explicit about what separates the levels. The lowest band describes ideas that are occasionally relevant, straightforward and mostly generalised. The next describes relevant, straightforward ideas sometimes supported by evidence. The third describes ideas that are relevant and occasionally perceptive, frequently supported by pertinent evidence. The top band describes ideas that are relevant and perceptive, consistently supported by pertinent evidence. Read those four descriptions again and notice that the axis is not fluency, not vocabulary and not length: it is whether your ideas are specific and whether you back them. It follows that the fastest route up this grid does not involve learning more Chinese. A candidate can move two bands on the same vocabulary simply by replacing general claims with specific ones and by attaching a piece of evidence to each - which is why this exercise belongs in a topic about festivals, where specific evidence is abundant and easy to remember.

So the ladder has two rails, and this topic is the best place to practise on both. Rail one is specificity. 中国人很重视家庭 is generalised; 春节的时候, 很多人要坐十几个小时的火车回家吃一顿饭 is specific, and it makes the same point better. Rail two is evidence. Evidence in a speaking task is not a citation: it is a named custom, a dated change, a personal observation, or something you read while preparing. 我在准备研究的时候读到… - while preparing my research I read that… - is a legitimate and powerful move, and it is one reason the research project makes you better at Task 1 as well. The research project pays a second dividend here that is easy to overlook. Because you will have read Chinese sources on a topic of your own choosing, you will have at least one area in which you can say what somebody actually wrote - and 我读到的一篇文章说 is admissible in Task 1 as well as in Task 2, on any theme your research happens to touch.

The commonest ceiling on a Task 1 answer is that the candidate has one idea and elaborates it for six minutes. The remedy is to prepare, for each of the eight sub-themes, three distinct ideas with one piece of evidence each - not three sentences, three ideas. For 传统 that might be: festivals organise around reunion; customs survive by changing medium; and the same festival is observed differently across the Chinese-speaking world. Each carries its own evidence, and any of the three can be developed for two minutes. Nine ideas for the four themes you have prepared most is a realistic and sufficient stock. Three ideas is a deliberate number rather than a round one. One idea cannot survive six minutes; two run out under follow-up; four is more than most candidates can hold with their evidence attached. Three is what a well-prepared candidate can produce reliably under pressure, and it is enough for the examiner to broaden in any direction.

Finally, the discipline of not over-claiming, which the top band's word consistently quietly enforces. An answer that says 所有中国人都… will be undermined by the examiner's very next question, and the AO4 descriptors reward interpretation that survives scrutiny. Hedge accurately, not vaguely: 大部分城市 (most cities), 越来越多的年轻人 (more and more young people), 据我了解 (as far as I understand), 至少在我读过的资料里 (at least in the sources I have read). Each of these is short, is honest, and buys you the freedom to make a strong claim about something narrower - which is what a perceptive idea usually is. A useful drill is to record a two-minute answer and then count the absolute claims in it. Most candidates find two or three, usually in the form 中国人都… or 现在没有人…. Replacing each with a scoped version costs about four characters apiece and removes the openings a follow-up question would otherwise exploit.

Worked example

The same claim at four AO4 bands, side by side

The examiner asks 中国人为什么这么重视春节? Write the answer four times, once at each band of the Task 1 AO4 grid, so the difference becomes visible rather than theoretical.

Band 1 to 3: relevant but generalised
因为中国人很重视家庭, 春节是最重要的节日. Everything in it is true and none of it is specific. It could be said by somebody who has read one paragraph about China, and the grid's phrase mostly generalised describes it exactly. Note that the Chinese is perfectly accurate - accuracy is AO3's business, and it will not lift this answer.
Band 4 to 6: relevant, sometimes supported
因为春节的核心是团圆. 除夕晚上全家人要一起吃年夜饭, 就算住得很远也要回来. There is now one supporting fact, the reunion dinner, and one supporting structure, 就算…也…. This is the level most well-prepared candidates reach and stay at.
Band 7 to 9: occasionally perceptive, frequently supported
因为春节的核心是团圆, 而团圆在今天比以前更难. 很多人在离家很远的城市工作, 所以每年出现春运这种规模巨大的人口流动. 换句话说, 节日的重要性和经济变化有关. The idea has become perceptive because it links a custom to a social cause. 换句话说 (in other words) signals that you are drawing a conclusion, which is exactly the move the grid is looking for.
Band 10 to 12: perceptive, consistently supported
我认为春节的重要性正是因为团圆变难了. 如果全家人本来就住在一起, 就不需要一个专门的节日来团圆. 春运每年的规模说明了这一点: 人们愿意坐十几个小时的车, 只为了吃一顿饭. 有人批评春晚越来越商业化, 但是我注意到, 大家批评它的时候, 还是一家人一起看. Three pieces of evidence, one counter-intuitive claim, one attributed criticism, and an observation that turns the criticism into support. This is what consistently supported by pertinent evidence sounds like.
What the grids saw
The four versions run 22, 38, 62 and 105 characters. Length correlates with band here, but it is not the cause: the cause is that each version adds a specific fact and a link between facts. Practise by writing the band 1 version of any answer first, then asking twice what would make this specific and what does this fact explain. Two iterations move most answers two bands.

Result: 我认为春节的重要性正是因为团圆变难了. 如果全家人本来就住在一起, 就不需要一个专门的节日来团圆. 春运每年的规模说明了这一点: 人们愿意坐十几个小时的车, 只为了吃一顿饭. 有人批评春晚越来越商业化, 但是我注意到, 大家批评它的时候, 还是一家人一起看.

Typical mistakes

Preparing one long answer per theme. The examiner will broaden the discussion, and a single elaborated idea runs out.
Confusing fluency with AO4. The AO3 grid rewards range and accuracy; AO4 rewards specific, evidenced ideas, and they are marked separately.
Claiming everyone or always. The band descriptors reward interpretations that hold up under the follow-up question.
Treating personal observation as inadmissible. A concrete family or community example is pertinent evidence in a speaking task.

Active revision

为传统这个副主题准备三个不同的想法, 每个想法配一个具体的证据 (一个习俗, 一个有日期的变化, 或者一个你读过的材料). 然后用两分钟只讲第二个想法, 录下来, 检查里面有没有所有或者总是这样的绝对说法.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

传统: the four festivals and the customs around them

5 sections~37 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 3 · Advanced 2

传统: the four festivals and the customs around them

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English of a festival passage

Key points

Moving one sentence up the AO4 ladder, four times

Key points

Paper 2 Section A: translation into Chinese of a comparative passage

Key points

Paper 3 Task 1: a Traditions card answered under the three grids

Key points

The same claim at four AO4 bands, side by side

传统: the four festivals and the customs around them

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English of a festival passage

Key points

Moving one sentence up the AO4 ladder, four times

Key points

Paper 2 Section A: translation into Chinese of a comparative passage

Key points

Paper 3 Task 1: a Traditions card answered under the three grids

Key points

The same claim at four AO4 bands, side by side