when to study in China

[hongputaojiu]

Hi guys

To get the best out of my semester studying in China, with the ultimate goal be comfortably conversational, when do you think is a good time to come to China?

That is, how many semesters of study at home is "enough" or "not enough" from your experience?

I am studying 6 credit points per semester, which is roughly 15hrs a week, but with only 2hrs tutorial per week, the rest is self study.

Another way of putting it is, is it better to go to China after 3-4 semesters at home, and then continue my university program upon my return at a higher level or spend an extra few semesters at home studying and then go to China?

My decision only needs to made based on which would be better for my language learning!

Any advice from your experiences or those you've studied with would be much appreciated!

best wishes

hongputaojiu

[Daan]

My home university recommends going abroad after four semesters in Europe, which equals approximately 1000 hours of coursework if I'm not mistaken about the credit points for the Mandarin courses. This seems a pretty good guideline to me, since it's enabling me to move from learner-oriented material towards native-speaker material. At a glacial pace, obviously, but it's still good to be able to read a newspaper with a dictionary instead of reading only those boring Integrated Chinese texts.

We did have a lot more classroom hours than the two hours/week you mentioned, though. We also had to take approximately Classical Chinese (about 300 hours of coursework), which is proving rather useful as my reading is moving on to authentic material.

[HashiriKata]

I think generally, the better you're in Chinese, the more you'd benefit from being in China. However, the sooner you're in China, the earlier you'd benefit from being there. So, you'll have to balance the two, taking your own circumstances into account. From these two basic reasons, ask yourself: "When would be the-optimal-time-for-me to go?"

(Most universities send their students to China after the 2nd year but this is due also to various other reasons.)

[chrix]

Yep, went abroad after two years of study. We had 7-8 hrs per week, Classical Chinese was extra, about 1-2 hours.

Heidelberg sends its students abroad after subjecting them to an intensive course of 5 hours a day for 1 year. They go straight to Beijing

[zhouhaochen]

I agree with the above. I dont think it matters so much at which level you come to China. You will progress a lot faster when you are here and probably slower (or backwardws if you dont keep it up there) when you are back.

The main thing I would say is to immerse yourself into the culture as much as possible (get a Chinese flat mate!) when you are here.

[adrianlondon]

I did some self-study with the part-time help of a Taiwanese tutor for an hour a week. I did the equivalent of two months' full time study and hence jumped into the second semester class when I got to BNU.

One thing I recommend, which I didn't do at the time (and led me to really struggle for the first few days) is to learn some school/education vocabulary.

If I'd known what the mandarin for stuff like homework, page, question, class, exam etc was then I wouldn't have sat there in total incomprehension during the first few classes ;)

With hindsight I'd grab the text books of whichever Uni I was going to pick (BNU, BLCU etc) and go through the semesters that i wanted to skip, to ensure I was ready.

You could come with nothing, and most of the friends I made at BNU did just that, but I felt quite cool at least knowing some basics and able to get from the airport for example. However, I didn't know words for "toilet paper" or "supermarket" which would prove quite useful when I first got my dorm room, as it had none ;)

[taylor04]

I moved to China after a year of studying at my University. I would say that I probably wasn't ready, but I don't regret it at all. It was hard at first, but I learned very very fast. I would definatly do a lot of practice and find people to practice speaking with, this is vital. While I only studied a year, I had a couple language partners, went to Uni 3 days a week, and listened to Chinesepod everyday. If I didn't fully prepare, I would've been lost. The decision on how prepared you want to be is up to you, there are advantages/disadvantages to going earlier and later, it will be harder if you go earlier, but you will advance much faster. Pick a city without a lot of foreigners ie not Shanghai or Beijing, its too easy to hang out with the English speaking crowd.

[knadolny]

I would suggest heading to China only after you have a solid foundation in the language. I met too many people at BLCU where I studied that went there with only basic Chinese. They fell back into talking English (and English wasn't necessarily their native language) and I didn't think their Chinese improved much over the year.

I studied for two years at Cornell's program which is pretty intense before heading to China. 8 hours of class per week for the first year and then 5 hours a week the next. I think that intensity made my life in China much more beneficial for my Chinese studies. I hung out with Koreans and Japanese to get around the speaking English problem.

Of course you can make the best of any situation but my thoughts are to get a Westerner to teach you, a Western, the fundamentals of Chinese. They know your perspective better and can teach you the best. Then go to China for the immersion.

Cheers,

Kevin

Edited November 27, 2009 at 08:11 AM by knadolny
found the signature function so putting my homepage there

[whereishunter]

I came to China with only know 5 words or so. I studied you one semester full time then moved into teaching English to extend my stay in China. I felt that it was hard to start with but you get out as much as you put in.

So I think when you are willing to "put the hard yards in" of study then you are ready to come.

Also for the record I am still teaching and studying more than two years on. So I am one of those teachers that can actually speak Chinese. (I think doing both is very easy to do if you are focused enough). Everyday I continue to study and things are always improving.

[knadolny]

I felt that it was hard to start with but you get out as much as you put in.

I think if you ask around then you'll get quite a few answers, but I like how whereishunter sums it up. At the end of the day you'll only get out as much as you put in no matter where you start.

Kevin