Guangxi Normal University

[roddy]

This topic is for discussion and reviews of Guangxi Normal University. Accommodation, courses, on-campus facilities and activities - anything to do with Guangxi Normal University goes in here. If there's a lot of discussion about any one particular topic we might split it into a new thread and leave a link here.

[jscott4321]

Hello,

I did a short term study at guangxi normal. I was there for a month, while there I took 4 weeks of intensive language study. Guilin is incredibly beautiful, and incredibly humid. I had already taken Mandarin courses at my university in the U.S., so I had some of the basics down. It was a huge campus, and the students were incredibly friendly. The foreign dormitory was very nice, some what new. However, I can't say the same for the cafeteria located on the first floor, poor quality. Although they had a better cafeteria located just a 5 minute walk away. The teacher was very kind, and was very quick to offer help. Overall I would call it a very good experience.

[Frank Jansen]

Hi guys, I'm considering to study a Chinese Language Program at Guangxi Normal University, but I cannot find much experience stories online (and the only here above is also from four years ago). Is there anyone here who has studied at this university and can tell me something about the quality of the Chinese Language Program?

[Tomsima]

hi Frank, Ive not studied there formally, but studied at the affiliated CLI (Chinese language Institute, see studycli.org), and two of my teachers were teachers at the university. the quality is high, and the school is well known nationally for its 對外漢語 quality. the 魅力漢語 series was printed by their press, and one of my teachers was a contributor for the project.

 

with the university being in South China, most students in the Chinese Language department are from South East Asian countries, Thailand and Myanmar in particular. as a result I hear the lingua franca at the department is 普通話. if you study there you will be taking classes in 七星區, not their more famous campus at 王城 (the yellow buildings in pictures on their website). that's not necessarily a bad thing as 王城 is in a pretty dilapidated state to be honest.

 

 

[Frank Jansen]

6 hours ago, Tomsima said:

hi Frank, Ive not studied there formally, but studied at the affiliated CLI (Chinese language Institute, see studycli.org), and two of my teachers were teachers at the university. the quality is high, and the school is well known nationally for its 對外漢語 quality. the 魅力漢語 series was printed by their press, and one of my teachers was a contributor for the project.

 

with the university being in South China, most students in the Chinese Language department are from South East Asian countries, Thailand and Myanmar in particular. as a result I hear the lingua franca at the department is 普通話. if you study there you will be taking classes in 七星區, not their more famous campus at 王城 (the yellow buildings in pictures on their website). that's not necessarily a bad thing as 王城 is in a pretty dilapidated state to be honest.

Thanks, this is very useful. 

How is the Guilin accent? My current Chinese level is not very high (I passed HSK 3) and I would like to use Mandarin as much as possible in my daily life. Do you think it's possible for elementary learners to understand the Guilin accent or would you recommend me to go to Beijing?

[Tomsima]

4 hours ago, Frank Jansen said:

Do you think it's possible for elementary learners to understand the Guilin accent or would you recommend me to go to Beijing?

there are (as usual) a bunch of different accents bumping around next to each other, no single guilin accent as it were. in general you will come across three accents, people speaking general southwestern style putonghua (ie. sh→s, zh→z n→l), people speaking with a 粵-region accent (here the tones sometimes end up a bit different to what you hear in standard putonghua, and people speaking 壯(庄) accented putonghua (ie. 想哭→香菇 ) . I have never lived in Beijing so can't give you a comparison, but all I can say is I suppose I had no more trouble getting used to the accents (much less pronounced in younger generations) than one might getting used to the 兒话音 up north. glad to hear you're up for getting out and about, best way to hear all the amazing mixture of 'Chinese' down south, and of course your listening skills will get good quickly!