Studying chinese in the east/northeast

[Chrisse]

Hi, I need some help. I have been starting to think about studying one year in China to aquire some knowledge in chinese. That is my main objective with this year. What I was thinking was to apply for a university program which you can get the CSC for, maybe like Nankai in Tianjin. I am not that interested in studying in Beijing, maybe a place with a little less smog and foreigners. But still a big and interesting place, not to cold though.

I've heard that university programs are usually more in to teaching how to write and read and you don't get as much oral speech training. But if I get this scholarship I won't have to pay the tuition fee and then I will have no problems spending a couple of 100 RMB every week for private 1-on-1 tutoring.

What would you recommend? Is Tianjin a good place to study? Can I have some use of my chinese outside the classroom?

Any other place you would recommend?

[shanghaikai]

Oral speech training occurs when you choose to break your comfort zones and communicate with Chinese people each day. When you're in China, you'll have Chinese people around you all the time. There is no reason ever to say that you lack opportunities for oral speech training. If you anticipate relying on a classroom setting to practice oral Chinese, there's no reason for you to waste your money and come to China.

Now, I understand that speaking and listening is important, but I personally prefer that my tuition goes towards structured instruction on reading/writing because speaking/listening Chinese is absolutely free in China. There will be far more people willing to lend you an ear and help your pronounciation or tones than those who are going to sit down with you and teach you characters. You'll be in class for 3-4 hours a day. Think of how many more hours you have left for oral practice.

I'm a bit biased but I think any "intensive" spoken/listening course/program is pretty lame, especially those offered by private businesses, unless its about a very specific set of terminology. Go out, make some friends, and seize those opportunities. You'll be surprised with how helpful Chinese friends can be. Save your money and tutoring for the hard stuff...and don't be surprised if you find out that there are some words you simply cannot physically pronounce. Many of us are hardwired by the sounds we were exposed to when we were first learning speech. This isn't an excuse for you not to pursue good pronounciation, but I still don't think you need to fret about a lack of opportunities to learn or improve in that area.

Good luck!

[StudyinUSYD]

ususally people in Tianjin have their own accent,which is quite different than the formal one.

Studying in capital cities in northern China is a good choice,such as Changchun,Harbin...

[Chrisse]

Thanks for replies. I am not sure I want to study that far north. I was thinking Qingdao? Is their dialect relatively near to standard chinese? Is it a good place to study?

[StudyinUSYD]

formal chinese,or mandarin,is indeed formed by the language around beijing.so usually,people in the north could speak relatively formal chinese.

Qingdao is in Shandong Province, i am sure many of them in that city have their own accent.if you really do not want to go to north china,try to study in the capital cities of the provinces you may prefer(the new generations in the capital cities see speaking mandarin as a sigh of being well-educated,so they seldom have local accents)

Good luck.

[zerolife]

smogs in Tianjin is actually much worse than in Beijing. They have all the big trucks running around in the city while Beijing has restrictions for trucks during the day time.

Seriously, Beijing is already fairly clean with all the preparations for the Olympics.

as shanghaikai said, if you want oral practises, then do it with real Chinese friends than your international classmates.

[md1101]

i know of a few people in xi'an who had your point of view chrisse. there were two guys in my uni (xi'an foriegn language university) studying with me in the first semester. in the second semester they went off to some other uni apparently renouned for a highly intensive oral course. i could ask them the name of it if you have any interest in studying in xi'an.

to StudyinUSYD - what year are you? im at usyd too.

[Chrisse]

md1101: Sure that would be super! I haven't really decided where I want to study yet. Right now I am kinda in to Qingdao, some of my friends where there at a private language school during the summer. They said that they really liked it.