Learning Chinese in one year

[telebreathe]

Hi everyone ,

 

I'm Berk and from Turkey.I will apply to Chinese Government scholarship when applications are opened by Ministry of Edu in Turkey.If I be accepted to scholarship , I will study Business Administration in Chinese language.So this scholarship covers preparatory year too

 

At the first year , student will take Chinese preparatory lessons.I'm confused about this language.

 

Can anyone learn Chinese in one year ? After that preparatory year then studying undergraduate program and taking lessons in Chinese.

 

Could it be logical manner ? I do not have friend to ask that situation.

 

I know there may be difficulties during preparatory course.

 

By the way students must get HSK 5 (180 or above in total 60 or above for each subject

[HerrPetersen]

Going from zero knowledge up to hsk 5 in one year is very ambitious. Most people won't be able to learn that much in just a year. Even if you are able to do so, you won't be able to attend courses in Chinese at university.

[Shelley]

I think 1 year to reach HSK 5 and start a university course in chinese is very ambitious and probably not possible, but I wouldn't want to say don't try, but also don't be disappointed when you don't succeeded.

[somethingfunny]

I think it's possible, just very difficult.  It would take a huge amount of dedication.  I passed HSK 5 from zero knowledge in two years while working and with only two classes a week, and I passed fairly comfortably. 

 

It will depend on how much time outside of class you commit to studying, how driven you are to be the best in your language class and where you live and how much interaction you get with the locals to practice your Chinese.  Your biggest difficulty without a doubt is going to be committing the required number of characters to memory in that space of time.  If you started taking classes now where you live then it's going to be a lot more realistic.  And when you get to China, you won't be travelling around or hitting bars every night, you'll be studying.

 

Also, passing HSK 5 and attending classes in Chinese are two completely different things.  While you might pass HSK 5 in one year, I very much doubt you'll be able to understand graduate level classes after one year.

[ZhangKaiRong]

@somethingfunny

"Also, passing HSK 5 and attending classes in Chinese are two completely different things.  While you might pass HSK 5 in one year, I very much doubt you'll be able to understand graduate level classes after one year."

 

I fully agree. HSK5 is managable in one year, at my school most foreigners passed the exam in 10 months (of course, this included a lot of self-study and cramming HSK5 mock exam types). However, at the end most of them could barely speak in Chinese, and had significant problems pronouncing syllables or using tones, and tingli was also a major weakness for them. I also have doubts how deep could they memorize the characters... At the moment they struggle during classes as they don't understand what the teachers say. However, in some schools, if a class has an English version of the course, they can pass the course according to the English version's requirements, but they still need to attend the Chinese language classes.

[roddy]

I think you can get to HSK 5 in a year, but don't think for a minute classes will be easy - you're still going to have plenty of learning to do. 

[anonymoose]

People do this regularly. After one year of chinese, you will be nowhere near good enough to really follow a degree course. The people I know who did this had difficulty understanding the exam papers, let alone being able to write answers in Chinese. Fortunately for them, invigilators often helped translate the questions into English, and allowed answers written in English. Had this not been the case, then it would have been certain failure.

 

They did reach a fairly reasonable level of competency five years later though - not exactly fluent, but equivalent to what you'd expect after about 6 months of studying French.

[somethingfunny]

 

 

They did reach a fairly reasonable level of competency five years later though - not exactly fluent, but equivalent to what you'd expect after about 6 months of studying French.

 

Shhh!  If you don't say it out loud, we can pretend it isn't true.

[mouse]

 

 

not exactly fluent, but equivalent to what you'd expect after about 6 months of studying French.

 

Reading that made me feel sick. It's undeniable, though.

[somethingfunny]

I met someone who spent a year learning German and would confidently say they were fluent.  They then spent a year learning Chinese and confidently said they would never be fluent.

[Flickserve]

Reading that made me feel sick. It's undeniable, though.

I do wonder from an experimental point of view whether it be true for me as well. (Not the sick bit!) Unfortunately, I don't have much interest in talking to French speakers. So I will just stick to Chinese.

[stapler]

I recently hung out with some Frenchmen and some Chinese who can speak French fluently. The conversation was totally incomprehensible. Then, in the few moments when the Chinese speakers started speaking Mandarin, it almost felt like people were speaking English! That rush of comprehensibility! Like manna from heaven. As far as I'm concerned French is a nightmare

[NotChinese]

I passed HSK4 in one year.

 

It wasn't the most difficult thing, though I was the only person in my class who achieved it. I did study quite a lot in my free time.

 

In hindsight I could maybe have done HSK5 but it would have taken a berserk study routine for the whole year. I would have probably hated it and, even if I passed, it would have been weak and not at all reflective of my real Chinese ability. I mean, even at HSK4 I feel like a bit of a fraud.

 

I say I feel like a 'fraud' because my speaking is nowhere near as good as my reading, writing and listening. Though, in terms of academic potential, with that skill-set I could shift over to my area of interest (physics) and it would probably be fine in Chinese. Just don't ask me to do any presentations, heh.