Studying Mandarin in China from UK

[Joren]

Hi,

I've been studying Mandarin in the UK (10 weeks with a college in the evenings and about 4 months solid with a private tutor) but I'm looking to study in China for maybe 6 months to a year.

Are there any particular courses anyone can recommend? I'm ideally looking into Shanghai. I just wonder about some of the types of courses where the agency in UK will send you to China to study and what is on the syllabus? Do language schools in China teach similar things (I guess more practical such as greetings) or go deeper into grammar?

I'm willing to do whatever it takes to learn Mandarin fluently. My ultimate goal is to take the HSK exams.

Thanks!

[anonymoose]

You have a number of options if you wish to study in Shanghai. There are several universities which offer Mandarin courses on a 6-monthly basis. There are also many private language schools which offer anything from individual to group classes. You could also just hire a private tutor. However, the universities and some of the language schools would be able to help you obtain a legitimate visa.

Universities are pretty inflexible in the courses they offer. Most courses consist of reading, writing, listening and speaking, with their set text books. Private language schools, on the other hand, may be more flexible with your personal requirements.

Anyway, if you are really aiming to become fluent in Mandarin, 6 months or even 1 year will be nowhere near enough. Of course, if you work hard during that time, you should be able to make some good progress, but to become really fluent takes (most people) several years.

[rezaf]

I would go to somewhere in northern China for learning Mandarin. The quality of life in Shanghai is the best in China and the city is really alive but the problem is that most people in shanghai(Shanghainese and non-Shanghainese) don't speak the standard accent which is very good as you should get used to different accents of Mandarin but I don't recommend it for beginners. As a beginner I had a difficult time getting used to all of these accents but I think it would have been better for me if I had had a solid foundation of the standard accent first.

As far as I know the textbooks and the syllabus are pretty much similar in all the universities and it isn't really satisfactory but coming here gives you a good upportunity to communicate with Chinese people. I think applying for a unversity course and learning with a tutor in the afternoon can be a good combination.

I agree with anonymoose. Unless you are extremely talented, you shouldn't have any high expectations for quick results. Working hard for a year might help you to get a good result in HSK but if want to become fluent( lets say as fluent as a 9 year-old Chinese kid) you will need at least 4 or 5 years.

[amandagmu]

I agree with all the advice, except that the locals don't speak mandarin with a "standard accent" just about anywhere outside of the classroom and academic settings (or on TV!). While it's true that many people in Shanghai speak Shanghaihua with each other and the neighbors, the local accent in Beijing is no better (although obviously since it's not a dialect one can understand much more of it than, say, Shanghaihua) once you're out on the street. I found the same to be true in Taibei, where you get lots of locals speaking with a Taiwanese accent or Taiyu. Having studied in both Dongbei and Taiwan, I really don't think it's fair to say that there is one place that has a more "standard" accent than any other. Let's face it: wherever you go, if you're a laowai, most people will somewhat adjust their language to a "standard" accent (the kind you hear on language learning tapes or in the classroom) just because they know you are a non-native speaker. Besides that, I had to adjust to the local er-hua coming out of the mouths of taxi drivers and my apartment handymen, just like in Taibei when I had to adjust to the landlord speaking Chinese with 'shi' sounding more like 'si', and often using my hands to indicate the difference between 10 and 4.

With all that said, I'm currently in Shanghai visiting a friend who also studied in Taibei at ICLP. I have to say that this is my first time to Shanghai in 7 years, and while the people are super-friendly compared to Beijingers (I was shocked to discover this actually, since I wasn't sure what to expect here!) and the city life much more on-par with somewhere I might consider living a long time, I do think that Taibei and Dongbei are better environments for language learning. Taibei was very encouraging for me because people there were extremely friendly and interested in helping me practice, and the teachers I had were often very experienced and professional (the job market there doesn't fluctuate quite as much as on the mainland it seems). Furthermore, they couldn't understand me when I spoke without tones and thus I was forced to use them (not true in Beijing I found out!). I learned how to speak and read formal and academic speech, which is what I needed for my research.

So what have I found Beijing helpful for? All that kouyu and colloquial speech, and vastly improving my vocabulary and speed of talking about random subjects. Why? Because few people in Beijing speak English well enough and thus you MUST speak Chinese. Beyond that, things don't seem as comfortable as in Shanghai, meaning that in Beijing it seems like I'm always fighting for something -- an electricity bill, the laundry machine broken, the paichusuo (police office), using the library, a fair price on apples or the jianbing, swearing at some idiot almost running me over, or to get somebody to give me the proper change, or dealing with the stupid people in my uni's liuban office, etc etc ETC! Compared to my friend in Shanghai it really does seem like my kouyu in random vocab has increased exponentially in Beijing.

[amandagmu]

Also, I should add. If you're really looking to gain fluency in a short amount of time, it is worth considering the ICLP and CET (Harbin) programs. They might be too advanced for you at your current stage, but they do produce results in a relatively short amount of time. Alternatively, a very strict and intense uni program (you'll really need to research this message board some more for this) combined with some one-on-one classes (not just any old tutor but someone who knows what they're doing!) might do the trick. A lot will come from self-discipline, but having the small group classes (3-4 people max) at ICLP did wonders for me because people were so competitive and serious about learning (not partying). I am still amazed that I pumped out, on average, two essays per week in addition to nightly homework assignments and lesson prep.

[rezaf]

Kouyu should be learnt on the street and I know that nowhere in China people speak the pure standard Mandarin on the street. There is no problem in learning Putonghua with an accent but that accent should be related to Putonghua like Beijinghua, Hebeihua, even Tianjinhua and Dongbeihua . Shanghainese or many other southern dialecs are very different from Putonghua in vocabulary and grammar and when they speak Putonghua the problem is not just in how they pronounce the words but also in their choice of vocabulary. The other problem is that in Shanghai there are lots of people from different (mosly southern) provinces and this way you can't focus on one accent as a beginner.

[Joren]

Thanks for all the replies they are very helpful ^^

I know a year isn't enough to be fluent in Mandarin but a year in China is worth a lot more than a year studying in UK where I can't be fully submersed in the language. I'm trying to change my career and want to be at least fully bilingual (I have a Cantonese background and have studied some Japanese).

In the future there is a very high possibility I will be living in China with my partner so I can learn more at that time but for now I want to keep going really strong with my learning.

I understand the dialects might be a problem and my current private tutor is teaching me what she calls "standard" Mandarin whereas before at the evening college I went to I had two different teachers - one was from Beijing and the other from Taiwan so there was some big differences with certain words.

I'm not sure where to look for a university course that only teaches Mandarin though. I have a friend who mentioned one in Beijing university that she went to for a year and I want to find one similar but in Shanghai. I would guess I need to find a course before I go because I would need the visa but if I was planning to visit Shanghai in the next few months could I apply to a course then come back to the UK to get the visa? Is there any way to change a Visa when you are in the country?