Alan Li Posted February 12, 2015 at 10:09 PM Report Posted February 12, 2015 at 10:09 PM Are there anyone studying business Chinese? Can you kindly answer 2 simple questions: What do you want to achieve? What is your biggest struggle? Very keen to know your thoughts! Cheers Alan Quote
ZhangKaiRong Posted February 13, 2015 at 01:23 PM Report Posted February 13, 2015 at 01:23 PM My goal is to achieve a good self-confidence when handling Chinese clients. I don't really have any problems in my daily life using Chinese, I can handle meaningful conversations, however I'm not too familiar with business terms from my field of work (M&A, finance, accounting). My biggest struggle is to find relevant teaching materials, since most of the so-called "business Chinese" books I've bumped into were really bad, mainly their vocabularies were very shallow. I started to read business news, articles, and materials published by financial consulting companies (big4, McKinsey, BCG), and these were proved to be quite helpful - but still a long way to go in order to achieve the proficiency I have in everyday situations. 1 Quote
ouyangjun Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:08 PM Report Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:08 PM I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I believe the only way to study business Chinese is to have a strong base of functional Chinese. If you can speak fluently and are pretty proficient in reading... just read financial news or pick up a business book, etc. The business Chinese I found the easiest to learn is financials. The reason financials are so easy is becuase it is universal to every company. Best resource I've found to learn the financial vocab is native newspaper/magazine business articles. After financials the next easiest I found were standard manufacturing terms... Stuff that any business that does manufacutinng has, or things that most of them have (operations, productivty, Lean, assembly, welding, etc.).. The most difficult are very specifc technical terms as it relates to your specific companies expertise... The more specific and detailed you get... the harder it gets. I've found the only real way to learn business Chinese is to immerse in the native language content and have lots of interaction in meetings with the techncial experts (be it finance or engineering). 1 Quote
Alan Li Posted February 14, 2015 at 05:02 AM Author Report Posted February 14, 2015 at 05:02 AM Thanks for answering my questions ZhangKaiRong! Sounds like you are in accounting/finance industry. I am a qualified CPA and government auditor myself Can you send me a quick email so we can keep in touch? My email is liymy023@gmail.com I am keen to compile some teaching material for people like you, I'd love to get feedback from you. Cheers Quote
Alan Li Posted February 14, 2015 at 05:12 AM Author Report Posted February 14, 2015 at 05:12 AM Thanks Ouyangjun. I was wondering whether learning Chinese has benefited your career/business in someway? I have been thinking of teaching people business Chinese online, but I think it would take a beginner forever to reach that level. I have been living and working in Australia for nearly 10 years, I still make mistakes when using English. I'd love to have your contact details to keep in touch. You can find me on Twitter - alanmli or gmail (see the post above) cheers Quote
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