Unable to handwrite Chinese well - possible to do Chinese-taught degree?

[barashkov]

Hey,

 

For those studying a Chinese-taught degree in China, do professors generally let you do alternative assessment if you can't handwrite? Like type instead of handwrite? Or allow you to have a dictionary or iPhone in the exam? (I noticed that some posts on the forum suggest some professors allowed students to write in English, for example)

 

I am able to copy out characters if I see them but would not be able to write most characters from memory. (so I would probably be ok if I had a dictionary or iPhone in the exam cause then I could copy out the characters I need)

 

I have passed the computer version of level 6 of the HSK but I don't think I would be able to learn the handwriting by September this year (I have applied for a Chinese-taught law degree at Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and I kind of feel like it would be a waste of time to learn to handwrite all the characters seeing as I can already read and type fluently.

[kdavid]

This is going to vary widely, and will also depend on your degree.

 

If you're doing Chinese language, no. If you doing engineering, maybe. And that's just for coursework.

 

If there's a written-exam component, however, I doubt you'd be able to get away with this.

 

The good thing about writing is that if you're doing it often, it'll stick. You could get up-to-speed with 1000 characters fairly quickly. Then you could just write in the pinyin for what you can't recall from memory. In context, this may suffice.

 

Good luck!

[imron]

One thing that learning to write by hand will do and that you have perhaps overlooked, is help you understand your lecturer's handwritten notes on the board more easily.

 

I would say it's very much worth your time purchasing a book like this and spending the time to go through all of the exercises.

 

You'll start to get a feel for how to write characters and how characters (and character components) are abbreviated when writing.

 

I doubt you'll be able to use an iPhone in an exam.

[Angelina]

You should try to learn how to write by hand.

When it comes to the exams, it depends on your specific university, degree, and course. With some courses the students are not required to write anything by hand. You should ask people who attended the same courses you are planning to select. Usually master's degrees courses in the humanities involve writing a paper and doing a PPT (PowerPoint presentation) and the grade is based on both your PPT and paper, plus attendance and class participation.

Unfortunately, I think law degrees prefer closed book exams. Especially when you study civil law where lawyers are supposed to memorize legal texts.

My university has four types of courses according to the main form of evaluation:

课程论文、课程考查、课堂团卷、课堂开卷.

If you are not confident in your handwriting skills, avoid 课堂团卷. It means there will be a closed book exam where you will probably be asked to write by hand.

You can check this when selecting your courses. Maybe your degree will have too many 专业学位课 with 课堂团卷 and you might be forced to choose one of them because of grade requirements. When it comes to law, I am afraid this will happen in China. Maybe you should ask people at your program about 团卷 exams before you start your degree.

[anonymoose]

I did a degree in medicine at Fudan University. From my experience, you must certainly be able to write, and write quickly, in Chinese. You will not be allowed a phone and you are unlikely to be allowed a dictionary in the exam. Whether or not you can answer in English depends on the tutor marking the exam. In some cases they will allow it, but some don't. So unless Jiaotong University is different, I would start doing intensive character practice now, or forget about doing the degree.

[shuoshuo]

No, generally you will not be allowed to use a phone or doctionary. Depending on the leniency of the university however, foreign students might be given extra time for exams, or if you speak to the teacher they might be willing to give you additional information e.g. essay questions that will pop up in the exam, which will give you time to prepare for it prior to the exam.

Mind you, these have never happened to me, my friends at other unis have told me about their experiences. In some cases, if you fail an exam (due to language issues) the teacher might be kind enough to let you re-do the exam at a later date or let you re-do the exam or part of the exam as homework. Other teachers might just let you pass (60 pts) if they know you have tried very hard and your grade is close to 60 but not 60.

Sorry, I'm writing in point form coz I'm tired.

That said, leniency is usually given if you are one of the only foreign student in your class. Schools with foreign students doing Chinese courses are quite lenient with us.

However, if you're in a school with a high HSK or language requirement, and these days unis aren't as lenient as they were before...chances are you will have to study very hard. No excuses. If other international students are doing it and doing well, you will be expected to do just as well.

Expecting to type instead of write is RIDICULOUS. There is no such thing at this day and age. Literacy in a language is defined as being able to read and write, and not the ability to read and type. You will have to grab a pen and start practicing.

For the first year, concentrate on passing your exams. Even if you spend the whole semester studying for the exam. Eventually you will get the hang od it. But you will need to put in the effort.

Angelina - it's 闭卷 and not 团卷. That said, you're right, most exams are closed books exams, so it's just better to learn how to write.

[Angelina]

This is the perfect example to show what will happen to your Mandarin if you don't practice handwriting like me.

If we can draw a rough parallel, it's like typing English all the time and relying on spellcheck, which will leave you with terrible spelling. I always make 'spelling' mistakes in Chinese.

I personally have never taken a 闭卷. So even if you don't have any closed book exams (probably impossible if you study law- check with them now), your Mandarin will suffer.

Are you ready? Are you sure you want to be memorizing characters? You can start an intensive handwriting training over the summer, it is possible IF you want to do it.

[barashkov]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

 

I can see that most people think I would unlikely to be able to get away without learning the handwriting. I will have to consider learning the handwriting if I still want to take this course.

 

It is not out of laziness that I am reluctant to learn the handwriting. I think that time I spend learning the handwriting is time I lose doing other things: improving my law-related vocabulary in Chinese, reading speed in Chinese, grammar, doing internships in China, etc.

 

I was wondering is there anyone else out there that got to a high level of Chinese and then learned to handwrite fluently afterwards?

 

I have also received some questions via PM, which I thought I would answer here additionally for other people’s benefit:

 

“Are you following a master's degree? Why did you choose JiaoTong University instead of for instance Fudan in Shanghai, as JiaoTong is mainly an engineering university?”

 

 

I applied for a Master's degree in Economic Law at Shanghai Jiaotong starting September this year.

 

I choose Shanghai as Shanghai Government Scholarship seemed to be the only substantial scholarship available to me. (I am an Australian citizen) (I am not including the scholarships which are very hard to get like where the course has only one scholarship for whole cohort)

 

I made my decision based on the fact that I think the best three universities in Shanghai would be:

1) Fudan

2) Jiaotong or ECUPL (not sure which is better for law)

 

I wrote to all three unis to ask questions about the program offered.

 

Fudan replied that foreigners are no longer able to apply for Chinese-taught law degree there, they must apply for the English-taught LLM. I'm not sure whether this is because they think we can't handle it or they want to make us do the English-taught one to raise revenue (I think it costs something like 150,000RMB a year)

 

JiaoTong were generally helpful and seemed to suggest that I could get the master's degree with only 1-1.5 years of classes though they were silent on the issue of whether I could be exempted from handwriting.

 

ECUPL was not very response to my emails. They seemed to suggest I would need to attend 3 years of classes.

 

I think Peking University, Tsinghua and CUPL-EU School of Law are other options to consider if you are eligible for a scholarship there or can pay the fees. I think Peking and Tsinghua you have to attend classes for 2 years whereas CUPL-EU School of Law only requires one year of classes, though I think their program is only half-Chinese taught though I guess it could be 100% Chinese taught if you choose only Chinese-taught electives. However, they did not respond to any of my emails to them, even the ones written in Chinese. That’s a really bad sign for me (despite it being common when corresponding with Chinese universities)

 

“And for your question, I've been told by chinese professors that being able to handwrite is a must, specially for exams. But, how did you manage to reach HSK6 without learning how to write?”

 

 

As for HSK6, in China there is the option to take all the HSK tests on computer so I have done a lot of reading to build up my character recognition. I do not learn characters or words in isolation, I always learn them in context. On average I probably went through at least 10 past exams for HSK Levels 3-6 and checked every character/word I didn’t know using Pleco’s OCR. I would then write out the pinyin and English meaning in a notebook. I would never review the notebook, I just think the process of writing it should help me learn it.

 

This last week in an effort to adapt these methods to be more conducive to learn the handwriting as well, I am now writing out the word in Chinese characters in my notebook, followed by the pinyin and English meaning (only the one which is relevant in the context I learned the word). For those who think that it is not possible to get to a high level of Chinese without learning the handwriting, I am now reading textbooks in law and there are not that many new words per page usually (usually between 0-10). I have no doubt that the ability to handwrite would improve my character recognition but as indicated earlier unless I find a way to do volume reading and learn the handwriting at the same time (as I am trying to do now), I think there is a trade-off in the short-term.

[Flickserve]

A slight change of perspective is all it takes. Learning to write is a necessity of the course and most courses have something that a student would rather not study. Statistics is something that immediately springs to mind. I guess you can catch up pretty quickly if you are reading a lot. One day, you will look back and think "yup, learnt to write Chinese and it is very useful".

It's ok for somebody like me with minimal aims not to be able to write. You have a far higher target so you need the whole package.

[edelweis]

#8 Let me guess who asked    does it start with an A?

 

Thanks for sharing the info, let us know how it goes...

Are you practicing writing the characters like their printed form, or are you aiming for a more cursive/faster handwriting?

[barashkov]

Ideally, I definitely would be able to handwrite, but I also think I need to get some more work experience in the legal industry soon as I already have two law degrees (which were taught in English) and very little work experience. So my resume is starting to look unbalanced.

 

On that note, for those of you who have studied a degree in China, have your universities been willing to approve your internships or part-time work? I really don't want to work illegally, but I heard that it's legal to do an internship or part-time work if you get the approval of your university.

 

@edelweis: yes, I'm practising cursive handwriting as I have learned the stroke order when I started learning Chinese and from learning characters when I learned Japanese (though I was at a low level when I stopped learning Japanese).