How bad is the degree of North Americans at BLCU?

[AlexanderH]

Hey everyone,

So I'm headed to China this summer, for a few years to continue studying martial arts, and I figured the best way to stay long-term is to simply become a university student.

I have already graduated university, so am merely using this as a place to stay, and to improve my Chinese.

I've studied Chinese for 1/2 a year, and will be doing another half a year before I depart. However, I have one major concern.

I've read that BLCU is a BIG hub for north americans (Americans, Canadians), and therefore there is a LOT of English spoken.

I want VERY little English -- I've already studied abroad for French, and ended up meeting WAY too many Americans and my French never improved nearly to the degree it could have.

The Universities I have written down are the following:

BNU or BLCU

I really have no idea what to pick. I figured that I'd prefer to have little to no native English speakers, since I can easily find them at BLCU or the bars/clubs if I really want friends to hang out with.

Any help would be tremendous.. thank you!

Edited November 30, 2009 at 01:24 AM by AlexanderH

[knadolny]

There are a lot of posts you can check out concerning this question. As for BLCU, I would say it's 1/3 westerners, 1/3 Korean, and 1/3 Japanese (more or less). A lot of people do say that BLCU is a great place to improve your English. But hey, anything is what you make of it. I had a blast at BLCU and learned a ton of Chinese in the process. If you're looking for complete immersion, why not study in Dalian or some other smaller city? I spent a summer in Dalian and thought it was a fantastic city. There are more Russians there than North Americans and then a lot of Japanese and Koreans.

Kevin

[BrandeX]

A scan through google came up with a few kung fu places that claim to be able to get you visa's. Perhaps you would prefer living in one of those places instead of in an intl. university.

http://www.shaolins.com/

http://www.chinashaolins.com/before.htm

http://www.shaolinskungfu.com/GeneralContentShow1/&contentid=f3512686-7a79-4d1b-8a05-3bfd8ef977c6&comp_stats=comp-FrontCommonContent_showTree-065816.html

[roddy]

Have you decided upon Beijing? If you're just looking to be in China, then there are plenty of other cheaper cities. Similarly, even in Beijing, you could find much cheaper universities - off the top of my head places like Capital Normal, Jiaotong, the Forestry University - I'd imagine these will save you money and have fewer English speakers.

Given that you've already studied some Chinese, you'll likely find you're better off doing mainly self-study / tutoring rather than university courses - I'm not sure how much benefit there'll be paying for a name-brand university.

[greenarcher]

There are not as many Americans as Koreans, Indonesians (and South East Asians) and Eastern Europeans. These 3 take up the majority of the student population this semester. I have only met a couple of (North) Americans. 30% of the population are Koreans and probably 50-60% of the population are Asians where only Filipinos and Indonesians speak decent English. There are at least 2 Koreans in every class though there's fewer of them in the beginner class. In my opinion, there are 5 decent english speakers in a class of 20 students and probably 5 more who can speak a little.

Read my review of BLCU in this thread and why it's not entirely bad to have English-speaking students:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/23293-which-university1yr-language-course-tsinghua-bnu-beihang-cnu-or-blcu.

[Lu]

Roddy: the OP will have studied Chinese for all of one year when he comes to China. Depending on how intensive that one year was, he might want a bit more formal instruction before proceeding to self-study.

Any place that teaches Chinese to foreigners will have a lot of foreigners. You will really have to go out and find Chinese to talk with, there are plenty of those, but they won't be in your class.

[kdavid]

Not sure about martial arts schools, but Harbin would be great improving your Mandarin. There are very few foreigners. As such, little English is spoken by the locals.

An issue you'll have in any big city is that many locals will automatically speak English to you, assuming you can't speak Mandarin. This will be a pain in the rear until your Mandarin is better than their English. Cities such as Harbin which have few foreigners also have fewer English-speaking locals, making Mandarin a must for survival.

Bincai, a well-known private language school, is a great value for your money, though you'll need to be self-motivated in directing the instructors with exactly what you want to do.

If your stuck on Beijing, just avoid English speakers at all costs. As for locals approaching you with English, just respond in Mandarin: "Sorry, but I don't speak Russian".

[zhouhaochen]

hey,

1) Try to choose a school in an area where there are not as many foreigners (outside of Haidian and most of Chaoyang).

2) If you are interested in Martial Arts, that is an excellent way to immerse yourself into the Chinese language environment. There are plenty of schools in Beijing. If you manage to get into one without foreigners, force yourself to speak Chinese there only and organise some kind of tutoring in your free time you will improve very very fast.

3) The rest is up to you. You can immerse yourself into Chinese at BLCU as well, though it admittedly is more difficult there and you will end up speaking quite a lot English or Chinese with people who's Chinese is not that much better than yours.

[Brian US]

Simply stay away from Westerners and you will be fine. Call it anti-social, being broke, or wanting to study. The worst ones are the students here for 1-2 semesters and don't ever plan on using Chinese again. Direct quote from another American, "Where's the bars? I'm not here to study!"

Now, I'm not the best student and I enjoy the English speakers in my class explaining some grammar rules. I suggest going with the English-drug campaign and next time you are invited to Sanlitun儿...just say no.

[AlexanderH]

Thank you for the responses everyone.

Yes, I have already decided on Beijing. Remember, first and foremost I'm going for martial arts (I already have been studying martial arts, and I'm continuing with a style that has a high concentration of quality practitioners in Beijing).

By all means -- the cheaper the language school, the better. I really am just looking for a place to stay, and chinese language lessons to take. If that means I get to save 50% more money instead of going to a university -- it's totally worth it. That's why I have no idea where to go.

[roddy]

the cheaper the language school, the better. I really am just looking for a place to stay, and chinese language lessons to take.

I doubt very much the four universities you mention will be the cheapest. Find a list of universities in Beijing (Wikipedia will have one I assume) and look at the more obscure sounding ones.

Do you know where you'll be studying martial arts? You're going to want somewhere not too far away.

[AlexanderH]

Yeah,

I'm going to be training in the Temple of Heaven or the Summer Palace until I can find someone who is legit, and hopefully have that as my teacher.

I guess that's a good idea about choosing a more obscure university -- thanks for the tip.