A Year in Beijing

[claus3600]

Hi All

Apologies in advance for the lengthy post.

I've been learning Mandarin here in London since early 2007 and took GCSE - the standard exam for 16 year olds in the UK - in the summer of 2008 getting an A 'star' and then got an A at A-level last year. The A-level oral consisted of 15 minutes to prepare a 5 minute presentation on an unseen question on one of four general topic areas. I've received the breakdown of the scores and rather surprisingly got 27/30.( I think the American equivalents to an A-level, which are normally 2 year courses, are SATS, AP or ACT. We normally do 3 when we're 18 to get into university)

I'm 39 and of non-Chinese heritage and apart from a 2 week visit to China in September 2009, and weekly one to one tutorials and classes, I've not had any real exposure to a Chinese-speaking environment. I'm therefore really conscious of the limits of my conversation skills. However, I plan to go to Beijing with my partner and 2 daughters (they'll be 4 and 2)in March 2012 for a year, where I hope to rack-up 2000 hours of full-time formal study, focusing on speaking and listening.

I would like to know;

1)how much progress in terms of speaking and listening can I realistically expect to make in a year of full-time study in China? What sort of conversational proficiency will I be able to gain?

2)Whilst I'm in London, can I really improve my listening skills by watching hours and hours of Chinese language TV? I got into the habit of watching the dramas on Phoenix TV with the simplified character substitles - being able to follow what was going on felt truly awesome - however, without the Chinese subtitles, I don't think I would have been able to understand much. Is simply listening to real Chinese -without English or Chinese subtitles -enough to improve listening skills? If so, what sort of quantity of time are we talking about?

3) Does anyone know where I can get English language films with Chinese subtitles? I watched a couple on the plane and thought they would make good learning tools.

4)I can 'read' Chinese newspapers and the BBC news e-mails that I've subscribed to, generally understanding 90% of 90% of the articles. Some stories are easier than others, and at times my reading speed can be pretty slow! Will this improve? (Despite having a BA in English Literature, I'm not going to bother learning how to read Chinese novels; I think the effort would finish me off! Getting to GCSE level - which is relatively basic - required more effort, concentration and time than an MA I did; working up to A-level standard took more excruciating effort than the 3 A-levels I did at 18 and my BA put together. Throw in duties around becoming a new dad and working full-time and you'll perhaps see why I'm looking to bring some sort of closure on this!)

5) My Chinese tutors have told me that my level of written Chinese and character re-call are both good and that there's no great need to spend lots more time developing them. However, does anyone know how to develop a credible looking Chinese written style? Something that looks slightly more, hmmm, adult and authentically Chinese?

5) We plan to go to Beijing with £10,000. Will this cover living and study costs for a year? (This was our budget for when we originally planned stay in Dalian, but apart from the pleasant coastal drive, we found it soulless.)Will we be able to live somewhere reasonably interesting and central in Beijing. And are there any local play groups that cater to non-Chinese speaking children? My partner hopes to get some teaching work there, so I'm trying to work out how we're going to organise any necessary childcare.

Thanks in advance

[Scoobyqueen]

You already have a very good basis.

The people I have meet who have started out around your level were pretty fluent after 3-5 months of intensive study which means fours hours of class room study Monday to Friday. Fluent here means able to converse on a wide range of topics and open bank accounts, find housing etc.

2,000 hours of full-time study in one year is quite ambitious. The students I have known taking four hours of one-to-one lessos a day Monday to Friday wanted a break over the weekend.

You will improve quicker if you have one-to-one lessons though. They cost around 120-180 yuan in Beijing. However, beware teachers may not accept your preferred exlusive listening/speaking approach ie they will often want you to read a lot of stuff too and learn characters. Teachers in China are sometimes quite inflexible. abcdefg, a user here, can tell you about his experience in this area.

Good luck.

[abcdefg]

Teachers in China are sometimes quite inflexible. abcdefg, a user here, can tell you about his experience in this area.

As luck would have it I just saw your post and am in the process of preparing to start classes with a new teacher on Monday morning. It will be one-to-one, four hours a day, Monday through Friday. So I have been thinking about such issues. I have found the best results usually happen when I have first clarified in my own mind what I hope to get from the student-teacher relationship and then pass some idea of that on to her early in the process.

I've made my own page of notes and talking points so that when she asks "What do you hope to learn" I can give a clear answer and then we can take it from there and discuss a bit to see what she thinks about my proposal; I can receive her input and modify my plan accordingly. I don't always stick rigidly to my plan; if I find a teacher is real good at teaching one certain aspect of the language, then I will avail myself of that talent and put some of my other goals on the back burner or hire a secondary tutor. I try not to micro-manage the process (in keeping with the gist of another recent thread.)

What I specifically want to avoid is the situation where I just sit down passively like a six year old and the teacher goes on autopilot. Such flexibility should be the beauty of one-to-one and it's a large part of why one pays a premium for that mode of instruction. If I find out after a while that I have bitten of more than I can chew and it has made my life a living hell, then I cut back some. I want to enjoy the process, not be a slave to it.

I'll attach my notes as they are now on Saturday morning. I will later massage them a bit and also make a shortened version of the "Goals" part to give to her when we meet. I have found that gets us of on a businesslike footing and let's her know I'm serious and we both will need to work hard. I do try to do it in a friendly, non-bossy manner. But since she is not going to know about or care about Skritter, Anki, ZDT, ChinesePod and other specific tools, I won't give her the "Methods" part.

I have found, to my dismay, that when I try to introduce such tools to my teachers, they feel threatened and usually say something like, "Oh, so you have a computer and all this fancy software. You probably don't really need a teacher." I have yet to find a single one who says, "Oh, that's cool. Maybe I can use some of those ideas with my other students. Might help them learn more easily."

2011 STUDY GOALS.doc

[JenniferW]

abcdefg - Have you also posted this on the 2011 Aims and Objectives forum?

[Guoke]

3) Does anyone know where I can get English language films with Chinese subtitles? I watched a couple on the plane and thought they would make good learning tools.

PPS or PPTV

[abcdefg]

abcdefg - Have you also posted this on the 2011 Aims and Objectives forum?

No, but I guess I could. Thanks for the hint.

[renzhe]

I'll just answer the ones where I think I have some experience.

2)Whilst I'm in London, can I really improve my listening skills by watching hours and hours of Chinese language TV?

YES!

!!!!

Is simply listening to real Chinese -without English or Chinese subtitles -enough to improve listening skills?

Probably not. It might help your ear (hearing tones, developing a feel for the language), but not really improve listening. You have to understand what you're hearing in order to improve.

The most useful stuff will be just out of your reach, where you can pick up on a lot of stuff, but unfamiliar words come up regularly. Your wife is Chinese, correct? Then pick a show you can follow and watch it together with her. She probably won't mind (if the show is interesting), and can help you with understanding.

Definitely check the First Episode Project for recommendations, and look into getting PPStream installed for access to more stuff than Phoenix TV.

Almost all Chinese TV shows come with Chinese subtitles. It should be very easy to find them. If your reading is better than listening, then Chinese TV + Chinese subtitles is exactly what you want.

If so, what sort of quantity of time are we talking about?

Hundreds of hours for real, significant improvement.

After you finish two or three TV dramas (about 30 episodes each), you will probably find that your listening has improved a lot.

Some stories are easier than others, and at times my reading speed can be pretty slow! Will this improve?

Depends.

I've found that developing reading speed is a different thing from developing reading comprehension. My speed only started improving after I specifically started working on reading speed. It's a different skill. The newspaper thread might be useful, that's what I'm using to increase the reading comprehension and speed on a wide range of topics.

In general, though, reading is like everything else when it comes to Chinese. It responds well to lots of volume.