Opinions on where to study :)

[Cactus543]

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Edited April 4, 2010 at 11:33 PM by Cactus543

[renzhe]

Other than Hong Kong, you should be able to survive with putonghua just fine in any of those cities.

You might run into the odd person whose accent is so strong that you can't communicate occasionally, but generally you should be fine.

Any of those cities should be great to study in, so you should look into other factors to decide. Size, pollution, nearby attractions, nightlife, expat community, school quality....

[scottishlaura]

Just to agree, I live in Chengdu and the accent is generally not too bad. Obviously when locals speak amongst themselves it's harder to follow but when they talk to you (or any other outsider) they speak "chuanpu" sichuan-style putonghua. So don't discount Chengdu as it's a great place to live.

[youngmick]

You also shouldn't rule out Shanghai. I studied abroad at ECNU there. Mandarin is widely spoken and understood and if it's nightlife you're vying for, Shanghai is probably the premier place to be. There are clubs, restaurants of all types Chinese and non, bars, etc. One thing you should consider, though, is the large amounts of ex-pats (this comes hand in hand with the big nightlife). You'll still have the opportunity to really learn Mandarin but there isn't as much immersion as a smaller city. Your preference...

[Cactus543]

All right thanks for your opinions!

[redmini]

well, im for beijing through and through. love the nightlife here, there are so many little bars and spots to explore. expat culture is apparent, though not as strong as shanghai, which is probably a good thing given that you want to immerse yourself in a china environment.

how long did you stay in chaoyang for? i guess if you've already been to beijing and didnt fall in love with it, you might want to try your hand at visiting a smaller city.

[anonymoose]

I don't know why people worry so much about local dialects. About the only people in Shanghai who cannot speak Mandarin tend to be people over about 70 years old, and let's face it, how much time are you going to be spending chatting with people from that age group? Assuming you'll be socialising mostly with Chinese people in their 20s, they will all speak to you in Mandarin (or more likely, English), and the majority probably won't even be able to speak Shanghainese. It's true that if you sit on a bus, go to the corner shop, and so on, you will frequently encounter people speaking in Shanghainese amongst themselves, but again, how much Chinese do you expect to learn by eavesdropping on other people's conversations? Those people will still switch to Mandarin when addressing you.

If you have any other dislike about Shanghai and wish to study somewhere else instead, then fine, but my advice would be, don't rule Shanghai out simply because there's a local dialect. This will have minimal impact on your ability to learn Chinese.

[chrix]

well, if the university has sufficient national standing, it should attract people from all over, but if you're bound to end up in an environment where most of the population would consist of locals, it's reasonable to assume they'd speak in the local language, I think many people would feel reservations to expect locals to switch to Mandarin all the time just for them.

However, I do think that a Mandarin shift is taking place all across non-Mandarin areas in China, especially in Shanghai (and it does attract people from all over anyways), so here the worry should be that not enough people keep speaking Shanghainese, rather than the other way round....