Studying a Major in Chinese (Problems)

[swordmaster]

Hi,

Last year (September 2009 June 2010) i have studied the Chinese language for one year, did the Hsk and got level 3. This year (September 2010) i have started my major. I'm a Chinese Government Scholarship Student.

I study with Chinese students!

The problem is i don't understand anything the teacher is saying. I think 1 year of Chinese is not enough to start a major. But i dont understand How so many students do it and actually are in their 3rd or 4th year of their major currently. How do they do it?

Their are so many words i don't understand in the course books, so how do i manage to pass exams or understand the things that i am being taught? How do i understand the books? The teacher?

Thanks for Help Guys!

[gato]

What is your major?

[swordmaster]

My Major is accounting

But the first year i have to take these courses:

Modern Political Economics

Economics of Money and Finance

Management Principles

Computing

Any Advice how to manage my studies appreciated.

[taylor04]

I'm assuming when you say so many other people are doing it, you don't mean people who have only learned Chinese for a year. An HSK 4 is usually the bare minimum to get into a university program, but even that doesn't seem enough. Accounting is hard enough in English, let alone learning it in a foreign language. I don't have any experience studying in an actual university program in China, but with what you're saying, the only thing I can imagine you doing is study, study, study. Maybe finding some Chinese classmates that would help explain things could be beneficial.

[abcdefg]

The problem is i don't understand anything the teacher is saying. I think 1 year of Chinese is not enough to start a major.

You may be right about 1 year of Chinese not being sufficient. I would hate to try it myself. Is it feasible to call a temporary halt to your major coursework for more language study and then resume the economics again in September of next year?

I have a Chinese friend who is in the US pursuing a PhD in an advanced bio-science field. Her conversational English is OK, but she has lots of trouble understanding the lecturers. One strategy she used was to buy a small recorder to take to class so that she could later replay the parts that were confusing. She also found that doing lots of preview preparation (预习) before classes made them easier to grasp.

[daofeishi]

Doing an all-Chinese degree after only 1 year of preparation is, to say the least, very ambitious.

A language is supposed to be a tool to aid your learning more than it should be an obstacle. If you feel that the language is keeping you from learning the material, it might create new problems from you down the road when you have mastered the language but you find that you never really learned the fundamental concepts of what you are trying to learn.

I think I'd give you the following advice: If you find that you can't follow the lectures and learn the material, take at least a semester off to work on your language. Perhaps the university would allow you to sit in on some classes without without having to take the exams? Then a second exposure would seem much easier.

I would not feel disheartened about your situation if I were you. Picking up a language like Chinese and using it to get a degree is a serious undertaking that few people are able to do. Mastering the language is in itself an endeavor that will take you as much time as getting an ordinary degree, and you want to get a degree on top of that. I seriously doubt that I would be able to follow a Chinese lecture with only 1 year of Chinese under my belt, and I have a really hard time believing that there are that many people who would be able to do it, at least not in a program not specifically tailored for non-native speakers.

[natra]

1. I am not a native speaker either, and find that reading ahead as much as possible helps me to understand the agonizing four hour lecture for each of my weekly classes.

2. Chinese universities in general are very lenient with international students. My adviser here has told me of international students whom will fail courses throughout their studies and still receive a degree, which is just one of the many reasons that I have become somewhat disillusioned with the idea of continuing to stay here.

I have become convinced that the Chinese government is mainly interested in issuing out so many scholarships is because a large inflow of international students brings 面子. The standard of education in mainland China is already quite low. Add on the fact that there is essentially no organized system in place to ensure that you are even getting a passing grade to continue receiving your scholarship and monthly stipend. Even if you do not understand half of what your professors say in lecture and do next to nothing for your coursework, you will most likely be allowed to graduate. It is a complete joke.

[gato]

It'll probably be best for you to ask for another year to improve your Chinese before starting your major's course work.

I have a Chinese friend who is in the US pursuing a PhD in an advanced bio-science field. Her conversational English is OK, but she has lots of trouble understanding the lecturers. One strategy she used was to buy a small recorder to take to class so that she could later replay the parts that were confusing. She also found that doing lots of preview preparation (预习) before classes made them easier to grasp.

In your friend's case, her English reading ability is probably much better than her speaking/listening skills and good enough for a bio PhD. It would be a different story if she only started learning English a year ago.

[abcdefg]

In your friend's case, her English reading ability is probably much better than her speaking/listening skills and good enough for a bio PhD. It would be a different story if she only started learning English a year ago.

Yes indeed. Without a doubt, the Original Poster is in a different situation. I agree it sounds like the he needs another semester or two of dedicated language learning time. I was just passing on two of my friend's coping tricks for future reference.

[anonymoose]

It's difficult. As someone mentioned, universities are often lenient with international students. Nevertheless, at least as far as I know, they will not just hand out degrees. Or at least the reputable universities won't. I've heard that amongst international students studying medicine at Fudan, the drop-out rate was about half for one particular year.

I think the answer is simply perseverence. As others have suggested, try to preview the material and make a special effort to learn vocabulary relevant to your course. Also, if you can, try communicating more with Chinese people. After all, most classes just involve the lecturer speaking off the top of their head, so to a large extent what they say will be oral chinese rather than text-book chinese. Understanding this comes with practice.

[gato]

An HSK of 3 is pretty low for studying accounting, though, unless the OP already is familiar with accounting in his native language. Right? And if s/he doesn't learn the basics in the 1st year courses, it's going to be harder to progress in later years.

So another idea short of dropping out or deferring is to start reading about the subject matters studied in your native language, as well. This will help you keep up the pace on the subject matter while you are improving your Chinese.

[ChouDoufu]

I'd recommend a two-pronged approach:

1) Find equivalent or similar textbooks on the courses you're taking in English (or your native language) if possible. (some libraries like Tsinghua's, Peking Univ, National Library etc. have extensive textbook collections.)

2) Get a tutor for each course. Make sure the tutors are from that major. The first thing they need to teach you is the major terms. Learn their translations and study the concepts in the English textbooks you bought or borrowed. Then gradually get the tutor to teach you how to express the concepts and terms you need to know in Chinese.

What you're doing is not easy, but don't give up hope. Try recording the lessons so that you can listen to them over and over again. You could probably pay a tutor (or student) to transcribe the audio files for you. That way, you'll be able to study what the teacher says in more detail later.

There's one final way I've heard of that might work.

Ask the teachers if they can tutor you (for money). In some cases, this tutoring will enable you to pass the course (because the teacher won't want to fail someone they personally tutored). Obviously, this has ethical/moral issues attached.

[rezaf]

The only people that I have seen who can do it after just 1 year are people like the Vietnamese students, Japanese and maybe some Koreans. All these people have some background in Chinese or Hanzi and that's why they can do well in the exams even without being able to speak Chinese. Having said that I think one year is very short even for them. I learned Chinese for more than 2 years befor I started my major. The first year I had serious problems understanding the courses(TCM major) but now(in my second year) I don't really have any big problems keeping up with the class. Actually I don't think that I could improve my Chinese like this with one more year of language class. My Chinese is good enough for passing the tests but not for learning them that's why the idea of leaving my major for a year and working on my Chinese is tempting for me :rolleyes: (now that I know the areas I should work on in my Chinese).

[rezaf]

Ask around and see if someone has 重点 and the previous tests. I'm sure something should be available.

[rob07]

Well ... sometimes the answer is not perseverence. Sometimes the answer is to cut your losses and give up. Maybe you were not put on this earth to study accounting in Chinese. If so, there is no shame in that. Not many non-Chinese natives are.

i have studied the Chinese language for one year, did the Hsk and got level 3 ... But i dont understand How so many students do it and actually are in their 3rd or 4th year of their major currently. How do they do it?

To be honest, I think anyone who is going to succeed in studying at a Chinese university in Chinese after one year's language study (or even two years study, I wouldn't assume that another year of language study is going to solve all your problems) is likely to do better than HSK 3 at the end of the first year. You can ask your classmates, see how they did.

Obviously, I am some random internet spectre who doesn't know you, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But if I was you, I'd be looking at how to get into a uni where I could study in English (or whatever your native language is). It never hurts to know what all your options are, right? If you say you studied Chinese for a year and had some great experiences, but as soon as you started studying accounting in Chinese you realised it wasn't for you, no one is likely to be very surprised or to hold it against you. But if you spend three or four years doing the same thing because your uni is too polite to actually kick foreigners out, you might find that at the end of that time you knew very little about accounting and your Chinese is still nowhere near good enough to compete in the Chinese job market, even if you did somehow get a degree. If that happened you are unlikely to have any better luck with Western companies, and then what would you do?

[yonglin]

... If that happened you are unlikely to have any better luck with Western companies, and then what would you do?

rob07, I think you are being a little harsh here. I remember this poster from last year (if you read his previous posts, you might as well), at which time he clearly stated that he is from an African country. In very general terms, many African countries tend to suffer from underdeveloped educations systems and chronic shortages of skilled labour, so there might actually be an economic rationale for pursuing these scholarship studies. After all, China is exerting a lot of effort into building relations and making FDI into a number of African countries, so the combination of Chinese and accounting in such markets could actually be pretty lucrative.

I think that if you're capable of it, you should just tough it out, and there's a lot of excellent advice upthread on that. For most people, the "sink or swim" approach is really pretty effective, and if you're sufficiently determined, you'll learn the relevant stuff a lot faster than sitting through language classes. If you really can't handle the pressure, you may want to think about "exit options".

[abcdefg]

As @yonglin suggested, a re-read of the background postings on this issue really does help in understanding the present problems.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/21649-need-to-study-chinese-to-do-undergraduate-accounting-degree/page__p__176580#comment-176580

[gato]

He's from an African country, but is ethnically Chinese, which can be an asset or a liability depends on the situation. Generally, ethnic Chinese foreigners will meet much higher expectation Chinese level than non-ethnic Chinese.

The best option might be to concentrate another year on Chinese alone. Getting an HSK 3 after a year of full-time study in China is a bit low. He'll have to study much harder to get much out of the program.

[rob07]

Thanks to Yonglin and abcdefg for the reference, as they say the background is very important. But as Yonglin said in the original thread, someone going down the path of doing a real university degree in China should be aiming for around HSK 6 after the first year of study. There is a big difference between HSK 3 and HSK 6. Going into a real university degree in Chinese from a standing start of HSK 3, the question is not whether the OP "can't handle the pressure", the question is whether they are attempting the fundamentally impossible. I don't mean to be harsh when I say I think they probably are. For example, I don't think that anyone with HSK 3 is going to achieve anything by attempting previous year university level examinations in Chinese other than demoralise themselves.

However, those comments only apply if the OP is doing a real university degree in accounting. He may not be. A number of people have noted that as a foreigner the expectations will be much lower, particularly as Zhejiang Normal University is not prestigious at all (seems like it is outside the top 200 Chinese universities from a quick google search). As Anonymoose notes, a university like Fudan will not just hand out degrees, but that doesn't mean Zhejiang Normal University won't. I suggest that the OP tries to find out exactly what the real expectations are. As Yonglin has noted "China is exerting a lot of effort into building relations and making FDI into a number of African countries, so the combination of Chinese and accounting in such markets could actually be pretty lucrative".

Best case scenario would probably be something like this: Chinese companies in Africa want to hire locals who can speak conversational, not necessarily fluent, Chinese to help them deal with other locals. It looks better if they have some sort of business degree, but the Chinese companies don't really care if they know anything about accounting or not. So they have arranged for universities prepared to pass foreigners no matter what to give scholarships to Africans. OP spends four years doing his degree, learns almost nothing about accounting but gets his Chinese to a conversational level so he gets his degree anyway. OP is hired by large Chinese company in Africa, and has a long and happy career helping his company deal with the locals.

I have no idea whether this is realistic or not. I recommend the OP talk to his later year foreign classmates and ideally, any African he knows or he or his family can track down that is working for a Chinese company if Africa to see if it is, and what Zhejiang Normal University really expects of him.

[rezaf]

Finish this semester first, take the exams and see for yourself whether you can continue or not. Close to the exam you might find some useful 重点s or other stuff that can help you pass the test. If not ask your teacher to help you and tell you some of the 重点s. I'm sure since you are a foreigner they will help you a little bit.