HELP NEEDED!!! nobody seems to speak english in Tsinghua University

[Andy^|]

Hi everyone!

My name is Andrew and I live in Sweden.

I am going to be taking the introductory mandarin course at Tsinghua University this coming semester but there is one problem. I need to get a special form signed by either my teacher or someone that has the authority to sign these kind of things for foreign students, and I need this form signed and sent in to the swedish department of education before I leave Sweden.

I've tried calling them but nobody seems to speak any english at all and my mandarin is horrible (thats why I am taking the introductory course).

I've already tried calling the number I was given in my acceptance letter and the guy there didn't speak any english at all.

So I am kinda clueless on what to do or where to turn :

PLEASE HELP!!!

[yonglin]

I'm Swedish and very curious about what kind of form it is: does it have to do with getting your credits counted for a degree or something, or is it for CSN?

It'll be super-easy to fix once you get there: walk into the office for foreign students and they'll give you all sorts of signatures, red stamps or whatever you could need. How come it is so urgent?

[mandarinboy]

You can try to let a Chinese person do the call for you. If you mail me, I can help you. I'm not really sure what sort of paper you are looking for. I am also Swedish and have been studying in China but I can´t really recall this sort of paper. You do need your acceptance documents to send to CSN but that is it. Look at it from the bright side, maybe your teacher don´t know any English either;-) When I where in Beijing at ligong daxue that happened to me. Not fun for the first couple of month until my Chinese where good enough to understand my teachers. ( yes, I am older so nowadays they do actually understand English). By the way, you are aware that you need to have been studying at least one semester Chinese before you can get CSN support for overseas study in Chinese?( if they haven't changed that recently)

To be honest, very often the staff at the principals office do not speak much english. Teachers and others on the other hand are usualy fluent in English nowadays.

[Andy^|]

it's an piece of paper for CSN

I didn't type that at first since I'm pretty sure that only people in Sweden knows what that is.

CSN told me they needed this paper signed because otherwise they cannot approve of my studies in Tsinghua University and then they won't be able to give me my studiebidrag so thats why I would need this sent in to CSN before I leave.

they told me that it will take at least a month for them to check everything.

[ChineseSpeaker]

The guy who answer your phone maybe university officials or working stuff. As I know those guys can do nothing but speak dialect Chinese. But you don't need to worry for your life in China. Now there are many people who can speak English, especially in big cites, such as Beijing and Shanghai

[applepie42]

Andy,

Have you tried emailing them? I've been getting good responses from them via email (in English). You can try emailing the Foreign Student Office: lxsb@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.

Good Luck!

Applepie

[ChineseSpeaker]

Applepie is correct. Since China English education is test-oriented, so many can read English while can not write English, can speak English but can not listen English.

The guys may be able to speak English, but they can not understand you:)

[Andy^|]

Thank you all for the helpful information and the offers to help me!

but I think I got the problem solved.

once again thanks for the help ^^

[Isabela]

I'm also going there this fall, and called them a couple of times. The few people I talked to were able to speak and understand english. I called asking questions about how to send money for the deposit - the lady told me not to send cash and to make a wire transfer but never gave me the bank account info/ switch code number, so i had to google it I don't know if they associated the deposit with my application, I sent a couple of emails, but didn't get any replies, and about 3 months later I got an acceptance letter!