Self-studier finally going to China - just need some advice.

[StChris]

Hi

I'm finally on my way to China to study Chinese after two years of self-study (and one year of hard working and saving in Australia). I've been studying mostly through Chinesepod (now at upper-intermediate/advanced level), and great as that is, I'm hoping to take advantage of other resources now that I'm in China. I will be studying at Bincai college, Harbin for at least a year (or until a pass the HSK level 6), but just need some help with the following:

1. Can anybody recommend a bookstore in Beijing to buy learning materials (I assume the selection in Harbin will be more limited), and also some good books? I've heard the BLCU bookstore is good. I've heard the Chinese Breeze book are good, but maybe a little too easy (I don't think they've published their intermediate range yet). I've already got Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar by Julia Ross. Maybe at my current level I should just just jump in the deep end and start reing native materials? The Capturing Chinese books seem like a relatively painless introduction to real Chinese books (although apparantly unavailable in China). Any suggestions woul be much appreciated.

2. I've heard Pleco is a great resource, so am looking to buy a smartphone. My Chinese friend has a 1000RMB Huawei one which looks fine to me, but I dn't mind spending up to 2000 if the cheaper one is going to limt me in the long term. I'm not so interested in games (would just be a disraction from learning Chinese), I just want to use it as a tool. I've had a very cheap and basic Nokia for the last few years, so am a bit out of touch with these new-fangled smartphone thingies! Can you please give any advice re model, price plan (contract or PAYG), where to buy in China etc?

3. Any decent websites? I might give Pop-Up Chinese a go.

4. I might do some English tuition on the side. Would 100RMB an hour be reasonable? (I've heard that 150-250 is the going rate in Shanghai and Beijing, so have scaled it down a bit for Harbin).

I've already studied another Asian language (Thai) up to an advanced level, so have a pretty clear idea of what I need to do, but if anyone has any other avice I'd love to hear it.

Thanks

[PBolchover]

Dongbei people have a very strong accent. I'm at lower intermediate level, and have great difficulty just trying to understand what pinyin they are saying, without even trying to translate it. I recommend that you watch some TV / listen to radio to get used to the accent before arriving.

The BCLU bookshop is indeed very good. It's at the very south-east of their campus. You can also find a good selection of books at most large Chinese bookshops - I sometimes browse the shops at Zhongguancun book building (at Haidian Qiao) and at the Xidan bookshop.

Foreign-published textbooks for learning chinese are difficult to find. If you want to use some, then I recommend buying them before you arrive.

For readers, a couple of the level-3 Chinese Breeze books have just been released. This book is the first of a series of pretty good readers (various essays about Chinese life). There are 4 levels, all available at the BCLU bookshop. You can browse the titles here.

[anonymoose]

Dongbei people do speak Dongbeihua, but on the other hand, Harbin is reputed to have the most standard Chinese in China. I don't know if that's generally true in Harbin, as I've not been there, but I did know one girl from near Harbin who had the most standard Chinese of anyone that I've known.

There is a huge bookshop in Beijing near Xidan if I remember correctly, but I'm sure others can give you better directions. Just to say, you can buy many books in pdf format off Taobao. I'm not suggesting you do it, as it's more than likely not legal, but the resource is there.

[abcdefg]

Can you please give any advice re model, price plan (contract or PAYG), where to buy in China etc?

I'm far from being a Smartphone Guru, but bear in mind that if you buy it on the mainland it will come with mainland software. Also, it can be annoying to try to download the English version of an international app once you get to Harbin and find that the Chinese version gets installed on your phone instead. This happens even if you have changed the operating system language from Chinese to English.

There are workarounds, but they can be a little clumsy.

[tominchina]

An android phone will get you by with more choices overall particularly in China, but I have been using a second hand iphone 4GS that I bought unlocked from the US before I came for about $300-400 USD. I believe coming from Austrailia you should be able to find an 'unlocked' one online in your area cheaper than that since they've been legally available as unlocked for longer in Austrailia than in the US. Then you'll be able to slip in a chinese SIM card when you get here. Most places in China that you buy the SIM card have a "mini" SIM cutter so that it will fit in. I've used pleco and the ability to cut and paste into pleco from an SMS has been really valuable in helping to fill in the gaps on a text message that I didn't fully understand, also being able to review my flashcards while on the bus has been a great time saver. good luck.

[ZhangKaiRong]

@StChris

Don't worry about the bookstores, amazon.cn is pretty convenient, and a lot more cheaper than offline bookstores! You order your books online, two days after you can pick it up (cash-on-delivery). I bought some novels and textbooks a month ago, and saved 42 RMB, so I guess it shouldn't be a problem in Harbin.

You should avoid mainland Android smartphones, the Android on them is different from the international versions. Moreover, you can't use Google Play Store to download apps. which is a big drawback, using the different kinds of appmarkets in China is 麻烦.　I recommend you to buy a phone in Australia. Buy an unlocked one with Android 4.0, their hardware should be okay. BtW Pleco's system reqs are not so high, my old ZTE Blade handles it well, so if you just want to use Pleco, check e-mails, surf on the net, a cheaper one should be also fine. The free edition of Pleco is good enough, but the paid add-ons make it an awesome application, it worths to spend some USD on additional Pleco dictionaries and features like the flashcard system.

100 RMB is a reasonable price, at least in my town (much smaller than Harbin, also in Northern China). 150 is also OK, since you're a native speaker. But you can't work in China with a student visa (well, at least you can't work legally)

About the 东北口音, it's not that hard... I have a lot of friends from different places all over China, and dongbeihua is the easiest dialects, understanding 南方口音, especially 四川话 is much more difficult. My girlfriend is from Harbin, she always says that her her Chinese couldn't be standard, but actually she speaks the most standard putonghua among my friends.

[skylee]

I've used pleco and the ability to cut and paste into pleco from an SMS has been really valuable in helping to fill in the gaps on a text message that I didn't fully understand

Couldn't the Google Translate app do the same? (I am not saying that Pleco is not good or anything (and I don't have much need for Pleco anyways). It's just that I have just installed Google Translate in my phone and am finding its ability to translate Italian webpages into English fanscinating. I have also tested its SMS translation (English -> Chinese) and it looked fine.) Sorry for going off-topic.

[andysun731]

@PBolchover

Dongbei has 3 provinces. The accent in LiaoNing is the strongest, JiLin and Heilongjiang are lighter than LiaoNing. Most Harbiner speaks nearly standard Mandarin.

[StChris]

I was actually already in China when I wrote the OP, and arrived in Harbin yesterday (sorry, should have made that clearer). So I'm going to have to buy a phone here in China, whatever the disadvantages. I had read something about not being able to use the Google Play Store, but the info was already a couple of years old, so I assumed that it might be working again now. Will it still be possible to buy apps (like Pleco) from Chinese sites, even if it is more 麻烦?

I've heard a lot about this Pleco, so want to try it out, but I can't see anything about it that's going to revolutionise my learning to be honest. The most useful feature to me would to be able to see a character (in a book or in the street) and be able to write it into my phone and look up the meaning and pronunciation. I've used a flashcard program in the past and, although they seem useful, I find that they grow very quickly into these monsters which end up eating all of your study time (but maybe I was putting in too many new entries per day).

I might try buying some books online later, but for now I'd like the opportunity to take a quick look through them first to see if they're suitable first, so I'll make a trip to those bookstores in Beijing once I'm setlled here. One of the disadvantages about self-study is that your abilities are all over the place and don't easily fit into defined levels.

I thought 100 RMB for tuition seemed reasonable. A Dongbei woman I met on the way up here recommended that I tutor a bit and said I'd get at least 100 an hour. Just 5 hours of that a week would give me 2000 a month, which would be enough to cover both my study fees and rent. I managed to save enough in Australia to not have to work at all, but I want to save as much of that money as I can for when I make the move back to Europe.

From what I can tell after just a day here, the accent seems pretty clear. I met some strange accents/dialects on my way up here, but usually could just about work out what they were saying. In Nanning they had a strange way of saying 手机, and I was almost tripped up a couple of times in Guilin (ironically when they were saying a version of 你中文说得很好). I made the mistake when studying Thai of living in a place where the language was very different from the standard, and I hope to have avoided that pitful with Harbin.

One last thought regarding using English while I'm here. I was originally planning on avoiding speaking, reading, writing and listening to English completely for the time I am here (hardcore, I know), but I recently had an in depth conversation with a guy from Shanghai about the Opium Wars (conversation here meaning him speaking very quickly, with me nodding and "hm"-ing occasionally) which has made me reconsider. You see, if I had no previous knowledge of Chinese history and had to rely on my Chinese language abilities alone, I would have been completely lost in that situation. But because I had already read a bit about this in an English language history book, I was able to use that knowledge in tendem with my Chinese to (just about) hold my own in the discussion. I'd like to know what view you guys take in the periods where you're really trying to immerse yourself in Chinese. It seems to me it might be useful to quickly read through a couple of English books, on say Daoism for example, just before attempting to tackle that subject in Chinese. Or maybe I'm just looking for excuses to give my brain a rest from Chinese. Any thoughts?

Thanks for all the replies so far, btw.

[abcdefg]

I had read something about not being able to use the Google Play Store, but the info was already a couple of years old, so I assumed that it might be working again now.

Cannot access it from mainland China. At least sure I can't.

Have read about using a foreign SIM card to purchase from Google Play, but I have not tried that approach.

[ZhangKaiRong]

You can access Google Play Store from mainland China (though there are some unavailable apps due to the location restriction), if your Android software is not the mainland Chinese one. There are some second hand shops, where you can find phones from HK or Macau, thanks to the grey import, these ones have Play Store.

You can download Pleco from pleco.com, you don't need Google Play Store to install it, and you can find the apks for other apps as well on the internet. The problem is that the facebook app, twitter app, youtube app, etc. doesn't work on the Chinese Android, even if you are at places without internet censorship. But if you don't need these stuffs, go for a good Huawei/Oppo/中兴 phone, they are quite cheap but the quality is satisfactory.

[andysun731]

If you have a TV, you can watch the news channels and you will find that the accent in Harbin is almost standard. Don't watch episodes on TV, most of them are ridiculous recently.

About the cellphone, I remember that in 中国移动, there are quite a few kinds of cellphones which you can get for free if you pay hundreds or thouthands 元 telephone expenses first.

As a local here, you can ask me about anything of Harbin. I'm very glad to help people who are interested in Chinese. Sometimes I help foreigners not living in China with Mandarin practice through Skype on weekends.