s HCL a need or a want? If you have an option do you opt for HCL?
HCL technically is valid if you are going to a SAP school as it provides an SLIGHT advantage AND you have to be overall good in your results in the first place (<AL12 overall) so studying HCL should not be a burden unless you are the kind of negative Chinese students who Hates Chinese or have no interest in Chinese.
Else if you are keen in Chinese related things and sincerely wanted to improve your Chinese knowledge, go for HCL.
Or if you think you are not sure but loved Chinese, go for it and you can drop it at the end of primary 5. (there is no loss on your part unless you have super high expectation of your other subjects.)
Don’t go for HCL otherwise.
what you can expect for opting in for HCL:
1, More vocabulary than CL to learn, and able to speak fluently in Chinese.
2, high level of comprehension for Chinese essays.
3, more homework than CL and more difficulty too.
4, More time to study too as you have a more difficult paper to handle (more higher order thinking questions).
So do you still want to try?