Is going to China needed to speak very fluent mandarin?

[mulans]

Hi there =),

I have heard a few people say they went to China to learn more Mandarin.

What I wonder is the following. I am someone from Belgium, and without wanting to toot my own horn, I believe my English is extremely good as a non-native.

Most of my English came from school and watching movies, I have never been to the U.S., I have only been to the U.K. for a couple of days.

Wouldn't this apply to Mandarin also?

I would love to go to China, I just don't imagine it would help me in learning Mandarin.

Would anyone with or without experience of going to China like to chime in?

Thank you very much.

[skylee]

without wanting to toot my own horn,I believe my English is extremely good as a non-native.

As you are someone from Belgium, I guess that people in China would tell you that your Chinese is very good as a non-native even if you could only say "xie xie" and "ni hao".

[jkduck]

no matter what speaking a little chinese is better than none.

[mulans]

As you are someone from Belgium, I guess that people in China would tell you that your Chinese is very good as a non-native even if you could only say "xie xie" and "ni hao".

Thank you.

Let me put it this way, would you be able to tell I was from another country if I didn't bring it up? My spoken tongue is at a comparable level through practice.

However I didn't visit any English speaking country to get to this level. I put forth the premise that visiting the country of origin is no longer needed to speak or write any language fluently thanks to the abundance of resources available. I would like to hear someone either confirm or challenge this.

[Lu]

I'm from Holland, have also never spent more than a few weeks at a time in English-speaking countries and see where you're coming from. But. Consider how much time you've spent watching English-language movies and tv, listening to English-language songs, reading English-language books and media... Hundreds, maybe thousands of hours. If you can spend a comparable amount of time consuming Chinese-language things, your Chinese will still not be as good as your English (because it's easier to learn English when you already speak French/Dutch and because you are not in your teens anymore (I assume)), but it will be very good indeed. I believe the All Japanese All the Time guy did exactly this and ended up with excellent Japanese.

However, that takes a lot of time and dedication and effort finding the things you like. On top of that, since you're learning Chinese, I assume you're interested in China. For that reason alone, it's worth coming here. But also, when in China, Chinese is all around you, even if you don't seek it out, and that makes you learn faster.

[mulans]

no matter what speaking a little chinese is better than none.

Thank you.

[mulans]

I'm from Holland, have also never spent more than a few weeks at a time in English-speaking countries and see where you're coming from. But. Consider how much time you've spent watching English-language movies and tv, listening to English-language songs, reading English-language books and media... Hundreds, maybe thousands of hours. If you can spend a comparable amount of time consuming Chinese-language things, your Chinese will still not be as good as your English (because it's easier to learn English when you already speak French/Dutch and because you are not in your teens anymore (I assume)), but it will be very good indeed. I believe the All Japanese All the Time guy did exactly this and ended up with excellent Japanese.

However, that takes a lot of time and dedication and effort finding the things you like. On top of that, since you're learning Chinese, I assume you're interested in China. For that reason alone, it's worth coming here. But also, when in China, Chinese is all around you, even if you don't seek it out, and that makes you learn faster.

Thank you very much.

I understand what you are saying. When I do go to China, I hope to find a way to engage with people there, maybe I will be considered an outsider and perhaps this will limit my exposure to mandarin I sometimes wonder. Since we speak the same language, do you have an easy time interacting with Chinese people as a foreigner, are they open to commication or is there a barrier to overcome? Thank you.

[icebear]

Your opportunities/needs to interact in a meaningful way with high-level English speakers in Belgium are probably greater than in Mandarin. But it is possible - if unlikely.

[li3wei1]

There are native Mandarin-speakers everywhere, and if you spend enough time with them, you can become fluent. I knew someone who learned her Chinese by doing Jehovah's Witnesses missionary work amongst the Chinese population of Leicester, and her Chinese was very good. It's just a whole lot easier if you go to China.

[mvdberg112]

I think you can get close, but isn't it difficult to find Chinese partners to talk with?

Anyway, when foreigners live in China to study Chinese, they sometimes have most contacts among foreigners, which does not help of course, unless these do not speak a common language like English.

I think that pre-practice with things like Movies, books, study books, and Pimsleur will help to get basis, and yes there are many movies, but I found it difficult to learn Chinese from them when I was at a low level (but my friend did so easily, guess what a different learning style).

I think that being 'immersed' for a time, will do something that can only be achieved are much longer painstaking efforts otherwise. So, you don't need to say 100%　 of the time in China, but for while will help. Or going to China town in a big city might do the same trick...

[imron]

However I didn't visit any English speaking country to get to this level. I put forth the premise that visiting the country of origin is no longer needed to speak or write any language fluently thanks to the abundance of resources available. I would like to hear someone either confirm or challenge this.

this thread

You might find this thread interesting.

[liuzhou]

I would love to go to China, I just don't imagine it would help me in learning Mandarin.

Of course going to a Mandarin speaking part of China would help your Mandarin. Exposure to the language can only help someone learn that language, whichever it is. Conversing with native real speakers will bring you on much quicker than watching movies.

You probably had a lot more exposure to English than you realised.

[Meng Lelan]

someone who learned her Chinese by doing Jehovah's Witnesses missionary work amongst the Chinese population of Leicester, and her Chinese was very good.

After I finished two years of Chinese in the US, I got a campus job as apartment manager of university owned housing for graduate student families. My Chinese really skyrocketed after four years of managing an apartment complex that was 90% Mandarin Chinese speaking back in those day in the 1980s. And this was in Illinois.

[liuzhou]

My Chinese really skyrocketed after four years of managing an apartment complex that was 90% Mandarin Chinese speaking back in those day in the 1980s. And this was in Illinois.

So you were talking to native speakers. Less opportunity for that in Belgium I suspect.

The idea of not imagining moving to China would help in learning Mandarin is just silly. More exposure has to be better.

[renzhe]

I think that basic Mandarin (characters, essential grammar and vocabulary, conversational level) can be learned anywhere. You can get listening and speaking practice through TV shows and local Mandarin speakers. I don't think that being in China is crucial, though it helps.

For getting to advanced levels, I think that immersion is really important. In my experience, learning Chinese requires much more exposure than learning European languages. It's hard to get enough practice and exposure without living in an immersive environment.

Everybody I've met or heard about whose Mandarin was top-notch has spent a significant amount of time in a China.

[hibicc]

Hello!

At BICC we get about 8-10 students every other month from Belgium for 3 weeks Intensive Chinese lessons and after 3 weeks they intern with a Chinese company for 8 weeks. This program is sponsored by Belgium Government. All the students are absolute beginner and after 3 weeks they have decent knowledge of survival Chinese.

[Steingletscher]

I would love to go to China, I just don't imagine it would help me in learning Mandarin

When I do go to China, I hope to find a way to engage with people there, maybe I will be considered an outsider and perhaps this will limit my exposure to mandarin I sometimes wonder.

I'm assuming these two quotes are connected, but could you elaborate?

[OneEye]

I would love to go to China, I just don't imagine it would help me in learning Mandarin.

I can (kind of) understand thinking that it isn't necessary to go to China, but to think it wouldn't help just makes no sense at all. Don't you think your English would have been better sooner had you lived in an English-speaking country? Can you really not imagine how being surrounded by the language at all times would accelerate your progress?

I've never heard of anyone who speaks Chinese fluently but hasn't lived in a Chinese-speaking country. I suppose it's possible, but I haven't seen it. Going from Dutch to English is a whole different thing than going from either language to Chinese. Dutch and English are very closely related, so going from one to the other is very easy. But going from either language to Chinese is going to be very hard, because they're completely unrelated. You're going to need a lot more time, and (IMO more importantly) a higher density of time spent in the language. I really think 2000 hours in a year is better than 2000 hours spread over 6 years, but it's going to be hard to get that in Belgium, and so very easy to come by it in Taiwan or China.

[tooironic]

As a fluent speaker of Mandarin and someone who has only spent three months in total in China (spread over 14 years of learning the language) I can testify to the fact that you can improve your proficiency in the language regardless of geographical location.

The key is - can you find and befriend native speakers of Mandarin where you live? That social aspect is incredibly important. Thankfully, large numbers of Chinese people can be found in most international cities.

[hedwards]

You definitely don't need to come to China to pick up Mandarin. And I've found that it's often times counter productive to be in China while learning the language. It has helped immensely with my characters,, due to the constant exposure and self testing, but there's a huge amount of variability in the language as pronounced.

For example down here in the south, the "h" will dissapear in many words leading to a very different pronunciation. I have no idea why they do it, but shi will become si making for confusion with foreigners as si4 and si2 sound very similar and one generally expects the latter to be shi2. (To be clear, that's supposed to be 4 and 10, not one of the other shi2 words) :-P

Over the last year I've been all over China teaching English and my accent is horrible. I do more or less perfeclty mimick the people around me, but there's so much variability, that I know I have a substantial accent. But, I'll poish that up in the future off of the news or similar high class material.

The other aspect is that it can get lonely if you're sticking mostly to areas where there aren't a lot of foreigners.

As far as quality of Chinese goes, pronunciation and tones seems to be the first thing they judge you on, so, even if you only know a few sentences, they'll say you have good Chinese. Mostly because foreigners usually aren't anywhere near correct.