Day Trips to Shenzhen

[royce]

I've just moved to HK for work, and sadly not finding many opportunities to practice my Mandarin.

What I'm hoping to do is to find a tour guide in Shenzhen that can double as a language tutor. My Mandarin is roughly old HSK level 7/8. My kouyu is OK, but also what needs the most work. I think the odd 8 hour day on a weekend with a tour-guide, speaking only Chinese, could do me some good. Also, based on the few prices I've seen, it seems day prices in Shenzhen are around 400rmb - that's almost what one pays PER HOUR here in HK for an ok tutor.

What do people think of this as a way of improving one's kouyu? Does anybody have contact details for someone they think might be suitable?

Much appreciated!

Royce

[xianhua]

I could be wrong, but I wouldn't imagine a tour guide would make an ideal language partner. For a start, what would you do all day? Also, the tour guides are probably used to taking tourists to specific destinations and then taking a cut from the owners so the 400RMB is possibly going to impede their potential earnings. Add to this the fact that they probably have only ever spoken to foreigners in English and may not know the first thing about teaching their native tongue.

[Meng Lelan]

I think xianhua is going to be correct. To my experience tour guides are tour guides because this job lets them use English all day long. Unless you were thinking of joining a tour group of native Chinese?

[PanShiBo]

Agree with xianhua .

[roddy]

Might work for the sake of language practice, but I think you'd be better off just finding a tutor in Shenzhen.

[jbradfor]

In thinking about it, I like the idea of "learning while touring". It might help the problem where a lot of what you learn is not "real world" enough. If you tour around town, practicing real-world stuff, it could be good. Although I've heard Shenzhen is a pretty boring place when it comes to fun.

Like others, I'm not sure a tour guide would be better than a tutor for this.

Personally, I couldn't practice speaking for 8 hours straight. 90 minutes is all I can do.

[abcdefg]

What I'm hoping to do is to find a tour guide in Shenzhen that can double as a language tutor.

I did something similar two years ago while spending several days in Shenzhen as part of a leisurely extended Hong Kong visa run. Was staying at a hotel in 华侨城 so I could visit nearby Splendid China 锦绣中华民俗村 theme park, since I like going there. It was a solo trip.

Hired an English speaking guide at Splendid China with the agreement that we would use Chinese unless I got really, really stuck. We hit it off during the course of that morning and the guide told me she was a new hire and only working there part time. I asked if she could show me around town the following two days. I paid her 50 RMB per hour plus took care of transportation fees, meals, and 门票。

I realize that’s hit or miss and a lot depends on personal chemistry. We just worked out together where to go and what to do and proceeded at a slow and easy pace. I found it enjoyable as well as useful language practice.

Alternatively, you could have a look at the Shenzhen Party website. They have lots of language exchange ads, as well as quite a few ads offering tutoring services. Might find something suitable there for a longer-term, ongoing arrangement.

http://www.shenzhenparty.com/classifieds/?catid=42&set_add_ad_cat=#axzz1S2aKrKam

[PanShiBo]

I find speaking with same native person whole day and longer is not effective, regardless who he/she is, tutor, guide, girlfriend, etc. They get quickly tired (who will not?) and stop correcting your mistakes, especially pronunciation. They start to be good at guessing what you meant. You also get used to the vocab they understand. Often, their accent can be not Mandarin but its variation. They even may speak non-Mandarin dialect as first language. I know this from my experience in Shanghai, which was similar to abcdefg's. It is much better to have 5-6 sessions every day with different new persons, can be street vendor, ticket office clerk, student in the book store, passenger on the train, bus stop, restaurant crowd, park, etc. etc.. Once you strike conversation often other locals join, so you end up talking with crowd of 5-7 people at the same time. In the end some of them might even ask your QQ address or cell phone number. And all that is for free. I don't see any solid reason to pay money to practice language when being in China.

[wushijiao]

I think day trips to Shenzhen can be good for practice. However, before getting a tour, why not just go to Shenzhen and walk around, buy things here and there, and see how many conversations you can get into for free?

Also, I might suggest getting a massage (of the non-yellow sort). Sometimes the woman massaging you will chat the whole time. Again, cheaper than a language tutor too.

[PanShiBo]

One more good place to talk is real estate offices, they all want to get you inside as if their performance review / commissions depend on it. Once I had to spend good hour in one Shenzhen's office talking otherwise it didn't look polite to leave.

[royce]

Thanks for the posts guys, some good points and good ideas here. Sorry for the delayed reply, been traveling.

One point I'd mention is the distinction between "normal" conversations and "language" conversations (ones where aspects of the language enter in as focuses of the conversation and/or ones where feedback is provided on mistakes).

Should have clarified in my first post that my goal is to practice my kouyu via normal conversations AND get feedback on that practice. I'm at a stage now where I can fairly easily communicate whatever I want to communicate (although not necessarily in the best way), and I find in normal conversations with vendors, agents, friends, etc I tend to get zero feedback on any mistakes I may have made.

With "language" conversations, I find they're one-sided, and yeh, it can get tedious for the person on the other side. I also tend to feel like I'm simply using the other person; I don't mind paying for "language" conversations.

The goal of the tour guide approach would be to walk down streets, chat to vendors, etc (as panshibo had mentioned) having "normal" conversations with essentially a tutor in tow. That seems like it'd be useful because I'd have someone I could talk to afterwards about the conversations I'd just had and obtain both the feedback and the "normal" conversations. I'd also get the exposure to loads of different people and different types of conversations.

(An alternative I guess would be to have a recorder, and discreetly record conversations that you could break down and go over afterwards with a tutor who could correct mistakes made and go over any points of interests in what was said.)

The tour guide element might be a bit unnecessary though. Thinking it through in light of whats been posted, a tutor first and foremost with the added benefit of someone who knew of interesting places to go is probably a better choice given what I'm looking for.

Anyway, this admittedly might not be such a good idea, who knows. In practice having a tutor in tow might not make for "normal" conversations. I'm keen to experiment though, tired of the same old same old.

[royce]

also - Wushijiao, the massages were something I'd tried too. When I was starting out a while back, a friend and I (with similar levels of Chinese) would play this game where we'd try to get our masseuse to say a relatively hard word that we had looked up before-hand (I remember we once picked asparagus). The first person to get their masseuse to say the chosen word won. The masseuses knew the game we were playing - and with an beginner/intermediate level of Chinese it's the equivalent of charades with poor Chinese instead of hand gestures. The masseuses thought it was hilarious, and did make for memorable experiences.

[abcdefg]

The goal of the tour guide approach would be to walk down streets, chat to vendors, etc (as panshibo had mentioned) having "normal" conversations with essentially a tutor in tow. That seems like it'd be useful because I'd have someone I could talk to afterwards about the conversations I'd just had and obtain both the feedback and the "normal" conversations. I'd also get the exposure to loads of different people and different types of conversations.

I did that several years ago in Kunming when I was near beginner level. My teacher pretended to be Korean. He never said a word, but jotted occasional notes for later discussion.

One of the most aggravating things when walking around with a Chinese friend is that locals will talk to him or her and not to you. It’s almost like you aren't there, even if it's you who asked a question. You ask, "How much are those peaches?" And the vendor tells your companion they are 7 RMB per jin.

My teacher was a good actor, and would throw up his hands in mock despair when that happened. I would then patiently explain that he did not understand or speak a word of Chinese since he just arrived yesterday from Seoul.

[roddy]

(An alternative I guess would be to have a recorder, and discreetly record conversations that you could break down and go over afterwards with a tutor who could correct mistakes made and go over any points of interests in what was said.)

Or I think just keeping notes yourself - if you pay attention you'll notice when people fail to understand, are slow to respond, confirm what you've just said with you, etc. When that happens make a note of what you'd said and bring it up during a lesson.

My teacher pretended to be Korean.

I've sometimes told waiters and taxi-drivers my companion is a Chinese-American oil tycoon, and I'm their translator. Fools nobody, but you make your point . . .

[jbradfor]

One of the most aggravating things when walking around with a Chinese friend is that locals will talk to him or her and not to you. It’s almost like you aren't there, even if it's you who asked a question. You ask, "How much are those peaches?" And the vendor tells your companion they are 7 RMB per jin.

Haha, I have the same problem when my wife is with me. Even when I speak to them, they usually reply to her. While I agree she is much cuter than I am, it still seems weird.

Maybe we'll have to try that Korean idea. Even when we tell people that she speaks only Cantonese, it seems a Cantonese-speaking Chinese trumps a somewhat-Mandarin-speaking laowai.

[Meng Lelan]

I did that several years ago in Kunming when I was near beginner level. My teacher pretended to be Korean. He never said a word, but jotted occasional notes for later discussion.

You had great teachers in Kunming! Absolutely amazing. I should learn about teaching from them.

[roddy]

Isn't 'listen to students, take notes' pretty basic? I know I honed my excellent eavesdropping skills as a classroom teacher. Or are you going to start pretending to be Korean?

[Meng Lelan]

are you going to start pretending to be Korean?

No, but I can pretend to be from Russia or Hungary.