IUP and Princeton in Beijing - Writing Characters Required?

[myann23]

Hey fellows,

I've been in China for a little over three months now having been studying at TLI in Beijing for 2 months and now in Dalian for a semester at DUT here along with continuing at TLI's Dalian location (albeit with much less hours per week). I've focused on listening and speaking my first two months here and a few weeks ago I've just started to learn characters (read, not write).

I plan on applying to PIB and IUP hopefully in the future, but I want to know how much they stress writing characters. Do you need to be able to write characters to get into the program and complete it, or is just reading fine? As I need to learn Chinese for professional reasons, I don't really need to learn how to write so I tshould learn a lot quicker. These programs seem like ideal bootcamps for learning Chinese, but I'm not sure I could attend if I don't learn how to write.

Aside from that question, do you think 3 hours a day 5 days a week of 1-on-1's for 2 months, and then subsequently 4 months of university classes in Dalian supplemented by 6 hours a week of private tuition be able to bring me up to the level of Chinese required by these programs?

Thanks for any assistance. I plan on writing my full review of TLI Wangfujing later today.

Mike

[Long Pan]

Is what they talk about in this article in relation with what you want to do; if so it might interest you.