I feel a little overwhelmed.

[acatt]

I just want to go to china and study chinese literature. However there are too many options such as: 北大，北师大，南大，复旦，and 浙大。Which one is the best, and why is that? The program that I am looking for is one designed for Chinese students, not the 老外 version. Little to no foreigners in the class and the rest native chinese speakers. 请多指教，多谢。

[gato]

Beida has probably the most serious and talented humanities students, so in that sense it's the best.

[jkhsu]

I hope my reply to your other post was helpful as I thought you were looking for a Chinese Literature degree for Chinese speakers.

Based on overall reputation, 北大 is going to be the best. If living in a major city matters to you, then either 北大(Beijing) or 复旦(Shanghai) are great choices. While 北师大 is ranked high in literature, its overall reputation is not on par with the other Universities on your list. So I'd go with 南大 or 浙大 instead of 北师大 (assuming you don't get into either 北大 or 复旦). You really should take a trip and visit these Universities, tour the city and see if you like living there.

[gato]

See this thread as well. A major problem is that most students in China just don't care about what they are studying. But at Beida, you might find a slightly higher percentage of students who do care a bit.

http://www.chinese-f...erature-at-bnu/

Studying Chinese literature at BNU

[OneEye]

What are you wanting to do with your degree? What do you mean by Chinese literature? In the Chinese lit departments in Taiwan (can't speak for China), the vast majority of courses are in pre-20th century literature. How is your 文言文? Are you able to write well enough to do term papers (obviously this will improve the more you do it)?

In Taiwan, 國立台灣大學, 國立台灣師範大學, and 國立政治大學 all have very good Chinese departments. But if your 文言文 isn't up to snuff, you can forget about it, because you'll be lost.

[acatt]

My plan is to use my degree for nothing more than being competitive when the time comes to apply for grad school. I will be studying Chinese literature from classical to contemporary, from 四大名著 to 韩寒. This is intended to be the most intense four years of study in my life and I'm looking for a make or break, sink or swim kind of program where I am surrounded by native speakers in a semi-competitive environment. This kind of stuff motivates me for some reason. I narrowed my selections down to 北大 and 南大, however I have not been to either one of these cities, only 上海 and 广州 for a very brief visit back in July. My 文言文 is fairly solid, although one should always seek improvement right? This forum has definitely helped me get a better sense of where I will go and what I will do. I plan on attending grad school to major in translation and interpretation after my four years of study and a possible one year internship in the Middle Kingdom, hopefully this will prepare me for the challenges I will face when studying simultaneous and consecutive interpretation. I feel one must know the ins and outs of both a language and culture to achieve the level required to convey the meanings of two people and in a sense acting as a bridge or liason between two cultures. One must be a master of both languages and efficient at interpreting complex ideas into layman's terms for both parties. Simplicity at its finest. Interaction with the people and constant immersion over a long period of time is the only way this is possible, but I digress. In short, thanks everyone for the further insight and regardless of my final decision, I will make sure to pay it forward and continue posting on this site.

[OneEye]

I will be studying Chinese literature from classical to contemporary, from 四大名著 to 韩寒.

The 四大名著 are not classical, they're vernacular (or to be more precise, a mixture of the two), and from the Ming and Qing dynasties. That's pretty recent in my book. How's your reading ability when it comes to, say, pre-Qin texts? What about 唐詩 and 宋詞? Obviously, this will all improve by virtue of the fact that you're doing a degree in Chinese, but you still want to enter the program on as level a playing field as possible.

Anyway, if a career in translation and interpretation is your goal, I'd look for a program that allows you to focus mostly on modern literature, while including a significant linguistic component and allowing you to get at least a solid grounding in classical literature. But that's just me, and translation isn't my field, just something I do on the side.

[anonymoose]

I think you would probably learn quite a lot on such a program. One thing you should bear in mind, though, is that if you are competing with native Chinese speakers, no matter how good your Chinese is, you are likely to come near bottom of the class in all exams and assessments, especially if you are at a top university like 北大. Students at these universities didn't get in just because they are smart, but also because they are study machines. You will have a hard time keeping up.

I have no idea of the procedure for applying to grad school (in the US presumably?), but if stellar grades are necessary for you to be competitive, then you might be putting yourself at a disadvantage.

[gato]

If his goal is interpretation and translation, practical language skills would be more important than paper grades in of itself. In that sense, it does make sense to challenge himself as much as possible. I would recommend the top schools because the learning atmosphere would be substantially better there, and that would make for much more positive experience, the challenge of keeping up with the academics notwithstanding. Most schools that accept foreigners grade foreigners more leniently, so you don't need to be overly concerned about that.

By the way, in your research, you should also contact some professors in translation/interpretation programs and get their opinions. You'll also want to research what the career outlook is like because this will be a big investment, and you don't want to be surprised.

[acatt]

While far from mastery, I have a reasonable grasp over the 子's: 孔子，老子，孟子，庄子，孙子，墨子，荀子，韩非子 等等。宋词 is hit or miss, it all depends on if I have studied it before. As for 唐诗，I would say they are the easiest of the three. In the end, grades are grades. I'm not too worried about it. The most important thing to me is to discover how far I can push myself.

[acatt]

My undergrad and grad degrees are already covered. I have been saving up to do this for 5 years now. Chinese is my passion and if it takes me falling flat on my face in the process, I'm okay with that. I can always resort to teaching English if all else fails right? Haha.

[jkhsu]

This is a bit off topic but another option for you is to study Chinese law instead of literature. You can then go for an LLM in the US. That might give you some additional / better career opportunities.

[fanglu]

This is a bit off topic but another option for you is to study Chinese law instead of literature

It'd be nowhere near as good from a language perspective though. Language in literature is much more varied and used in far more interesting ways. Legal writing (particularly in Chinese) is dull.

[jkhsu]

It'd be nowhere near as good from a language perspective though

I agree that it'd be more interesting majoring in Chinese literature, however, I was thinking in terms of future career potential. If the OP is set on getting into translation and it all works out then great. However, if it doesn't and the OP ends up just teaching English, it would be such a waste from a Chinese language perspective.

Career wise, a legal degree offers opportunities that involve language more than most other degrees. I'm not an attorney but I work with attorneys in my company (a US company). They're either in the legal department or business development where they're involved in contracts and negotiations. They read and write more than anyone else in the company, except for maybe people who just do documentation. If someone is interested in language but wants to work in a company setting, I'd say a legal degree is a great choice.