Best University For 1-2 Years of Chinese Language Study

[m000gle]

I’m currently a third year undergraduate student (East Asian Studies-Human Geography Specialist-Major) and have decided to spend the next 1-2 years in China to learn as much Mandarin as possible, experience the culture and generally have a good time in the process. This will be building on the foundation of the introductory Mandarin class I’m currently taking as a part of my studies. I’m also in the process of applying for funding through the Chinese Government Scholarship program, so thankfully money is not really a concern (for once...). The challenge has really been university selection.

After reading posts all over the internet, including dozens here on Chinese-Forums, I’ve been able to narrow my university choices down from six (Tsinghua, Beijing Language & Culture, Beijing Normal and Zhejiang Universities, Peking) to four (dropping the final two). However, I’m really having a tough time deciding which should be the final one to go since, unfortunately, only three choices can be listed on the application. The reasons for selecting each one are below, but any advice, recommendations or experiences with the universities/language programs you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

1.

Tsinghua University

feels like it would be a great place to study due to its amazing rank/reputation within China, beautiful campus, proximity to other universities (i.e. people to both study and socialize with). Being immersed in the Beijing dialect would also be a good thing. I selected this over Peking U since it seems to have more information about their language program, but otherwise I would have preferred Peking

2.

BLCU

and

Beijing Normal University

seem to have a good reputation for language classes and the same advantage of location and dialect.

3.

Fudan University

is the odd one out, being in Shanghai instead of Beijing, but has the advantages of being another school with a good rank/reputation; as well as being in a city with which has some familiarity (after staying there for one month in 2007), a couple of friends living there and a climate more suited to my tastes (enjoying rain and not being particularly fond of the bitter cold….even though I live in Canada =P )

I’m essentially stuck between two options, as well as not really knowing if a school's rank/reputation really translates into a good language learning environment:

1. Tsinghua 2. Fudan 3. either BLCU or Beijing Normal

and

1. Tsinghua 2. BLCU 3. Beijing Normal

Thanks for your help! ^__^

[gato]

I'd recommend Peking University over Tsinghua for someone with your background. Tsinghua is an engineering school, whereas Peking is more known for the humanities and sciences. It's like the difference between Harvard and MIT. You'd probably find the student body at Peking University to be more interesting given your liberal arts background.

I'd would choose BNU over BLCU. BNU is a general university, whereas BLCU is school that specializes teaching Chinese to foreigners. Teaching Chinese as a foreign language is probably the biggest major at BLCU.

[greenarcher]

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

[taylor04]

Don't forget the possibility of studying at some random smaller city if your only goal is learning chinese.

Pros:

Less people trying to cheat you

Less foreigners

Less English speakers

Cheaper

I studied at Zhejiang University and loved it, and I've been to Shanghai a few times and hated it. In Shanghai I found too many people wanted to speak English, they were always trying to cheat me(and failed) and there were a lot of foreigners. If your only goal is studying Chinese, I wouldn't recommend Beijing or Shanghai

[m000gle]

gato: Thanks for the input. I would definitely prefer Peking for that reason, as well as the ones above. However, their English brochure (http://www.oir.pku.edu.cn/newoir/stuab/doc/2010/en/2010EN.pdf) only seems to have information for short-term programs, so I wasn't sure if it was an option beyond 1-2 semesters. The other concern I have is the difficulty of being accepted. There's no real information on how the Chinese Government or the China Scholarship Council select recipients of funding, so I don't know how my marks would stack up against the requirements or other applicants. I was easily an honors student in high school (thankfully, my diploma and honours certificate from the Ministry of Education will be submitted along with a partial university transcript), although my marks since have been above average but nothing spectacular (solid B student). Either Peking or Tsinghua could end up being a sort of wasted choice (pessimistic view), if the requirements were too high, but I've also heard some people say that it is much easier for a foreigner to enter there than those from China who do so directly out of high school.

For the BNU/BLCU dilemma, I'm certainly leaning towards BNU now (thanks for the link greenarcher ^^ ).

taylor04: I had decided against a smaller city like Hangzhou, even after originally considering it and loving the city when I visited in 2007 (the campus being right near the lake is also pretty sweet =P ). Several people had mentioned that, with the dialects around the country being so different, it could be hard to learn Chinese "without an accent", unless you studied in Bejing. Did you have any problems with that at Zheda? Also, how good was the program itself?

[taylor04]

I personally loved it, it's a good university, I had a couple really good teachers. It really is all about the teachers. You go to class 5 days a week, with 2 classes a day each class is an hour and a half I If I remember right. You have grammar everyday in the lower levels with listening, speaking and reading. I loved Hangzhou as well, a lot of nice people, rarely felt like people were trying to screw me like when I go to bigger cities.

I think the whole accent thing is a myth, who in China doesn't speak with an accent? Beijing is nothing more than the standard accent, personally part of my decision for going to Hangzhou was because I didn't want to hear R all the time. I also spent the first three months studying nothing but pinyin, and have recorded myself, I think I have a pretty standard accent without a lot of R's. Living in Hangzhou(although I can understand Hangzhou's dialect now) didn't hurt my Mandarin studies. Another good thing about Hangzhou is that most people aren't from Hangzhou, they have to resort to using Mandarin.

Personally I would say to stay away from Shanghai (something else I picked up from Hangzhou's people:D) but I've been to Beijing and liked it a lot, it's a good city. It's just not what I would want. I don't know what you like or what you want to achieve so I'm just speaking from my experience. I still do recommend a smaller city, I've heard Tianjin is pretty good, although technically they have an accent too.

Anyways, no matter where you end up, I hope you have a good of a time in China as I did

[taylor04]

I guess a better way to phrase it, it doesn't matter where you go, if you don't master pinyin and the pronunciation you will end up with the worst accent, the foreign accent