Has anyone studied chinese in 台灣台中?

[xifbk]

Just asking on the off chance anyone here has experience studying at universities in taiwan.

Im currently looking at 東海大學 and 逢甲大學. 逢甲大學's fees are about half the price, but more importantly how good are the teachers.

[jbradfor]

I studied at 東海大學 for 3 months, but that was back in '89, and it was with an exchange program through Dartmouth (although I was not a student there). So I'm not sure how relevant my information is.

That said, I very much liked the program at 東海大學. They had a program setup just for foreign students to learn Chinese, with separate teachers and separate classrooms. I thought the teachers were quite good, obviously trained in teaching Chinese to foreigners, and, with one exception, all had very good standard Chinese accents (to my ears at least).

I'm not sure of what living arrangements you have in mind, but the main reason I picked this program was that we lived in the standard dorms with the other Chinese students, with 5 Chinese students and me all packed into one room.... If it works for your lifestyle, I highly highly recommend a program that allows you to live in the dorms.

[Shi Tong]

Hello,

I would say it's a little more likely to come across less standard accents in taizhong, BUT all of the teachers at universities ARE trained to teach Mandarin with a standard accent, so..

I studied at wenhua daxue in Taipei, and I can highly recommend the teaching there.. but again, this was 9 years ago.. so who knows?

Another thing I would say is that; yes, get in a dorm, or make sure that you're living with people who are constantly speaking and are more comfortable with speaking Mandarin, not English, or, IMO, you'll end up speaking English too much and not Mandarin.

[xifbk]

My wife has relatives in 台中, which in some ways makes it better for us to study in 台中 (although in other ways makes it better for us not to, hehe).

It is also relatively cheap to live in 台中，you can buy a small apartment for the equivalent of less than 6 months rent of an apartment in Melbourne (Australia), so I like the idea of being able to buy a small apartment that would be like a home base whenever we travel to 台灣. As long as its near the HSR (high speed rail) its not too bad.

[Lu]

Perhaps you can also ask your question at forumosa.com, they are focused on Taiwan, and your chances of getting input from somebody familiar with those universities are higher there.

Southern Taiwan is a lot cheaper than Taipei, but from what I've heard quality of classes may also be lower. It's wise that you try to get some input on this aspect.

[Ah-Bin]

I was there in 1997-8 at Feng-chia. Most of the teachers from that time were still there the last time I went to visit in 2007.

When I was there most of the students were Indonesian Chinese, with a few others thrown in. I believe the student population has diversified somewhat since then.

The good thing about Taichung is that it was nice and central, the university is close to the main bus stations to everywhere on the island. The Fengchia neighbourhood is also very interesting, there is a famous night market there, and the campus is quite nice too.

Some of the teaching staff are very highly trained. Two in particular are excellent at what they do. One of them teaches the higher level classes on Chinese history and culture. These were such fascinating classes that I still have my notebooks from her classes over ten years later. In the lower levels there was a teacher who used to drop English words into her Mandarin all the time, a habit which I found infuriating as those were the very words I wanted to find out how to say and use. Back in the 90's there was no Pinyin used at all, but I believe they do use it now. The other excellent teacher also speaks perfectly fluent English, but never uses it with students of Mandarin unless it is absolutely necessary.

I was never in the lower grades so I can't comment on them, but the higher level classes were the highlight of my time doing Chinese.