studying in qingdao

[Liza]

hey there all,

planning on spending my summer in qingdao to improve my chinese. Thinking of trying to find a tutor for 4 hrs a day and a homestay and not getting very far, any advice? and does anyone know if in qingdao the shandong accent is strong?

meant to be heading over in two weeks from UK and have nothing!

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Liza

[zippol]

Hi Liza.

welcome you to qingdao this summer.

i live in Qingdao,i can give you more infomation you concern

if you like,please add my msn,i'll tell you more

my msn is:yidao@dot-well.com

[mpallard]

AHHHHH, just wrote a long ass answer to your question and then lost it somehow.

OK, in short, I have been studying at a language school in Taiwan for 2 years now but next semester I have found a private tutor to teach me. I think this is the way to go. However finding a good cheap tutor requires Chinese language ability (I found that if the potential tutor could speak English they always wanted a ridiculous amount of money per hour and probably opportunities to practice their English).

To find a tutor I just put up some signs around the university and waited for people to email me. I got a huge number of responses. Some people were willing to teach me for as little as $3 US per hour while some wanted more than $20 (keep in mind this is Taiwan, China should be even cheaper). The point is that you can find people for cheap if you look. Also you should negotiate the salary on a monthly, not hourly, basis. This could bring the price down as well.

You also have to be carefull of people taking the job just because they think they will be able to speak a lot of English. I wrote my add in Chinese and then just ignored the English respones (this was a problem in Taiwan but then again Taiwan has a much higher English level than the Mainland).

Homestay: I have found homestays difficult to find (especially since I'm a male). However if you have a private tutor for 4 hours a day that's tons. I wouldn't worry too much about finding a homestay. If it happens it happens but really 4 hours of one on one per day is a lot.

I wouldn't worry about not having things set up beforehand. Just go to Qingdao, find a hotel for a few days and then start lookign around from there.

[mlomker]

Might want to touch base with this guy: http://paulie.nomadlife.org/

[Liza]

just want to say thank you all so much, wrote the thread then forgot on what website and have just found it with all your replies. thank you, have now bought the tickets so on my way east side, visa arrangments tomorrow, jet off on saturday, can't wait