Chinese University courses without writing

[Kees Stijne]

Does anyone know of any Chinese language university courses for foreigners where you do not have to learn how to write the language, but just read, speak and understand?

[roddy]

No, but you could probably still get quite a bit out of a course, just not handing in homework or doing exams. 

[kouch]

@Kees Stijne If you are going as language student, you will have to attend the writing course.

But if you are not, sometimes universities can be flexible. 

Last year in Renmin I was an exchange student and I couldn't attend all the Chinese courses so I asked to attend 3 only, and they were ok with that.

What is the reason why you don't want to attend this course ? 

You will have to do a lot of writing in the other courses anyway, except maybe the oral one.

 

 

[AaronUK]

While language writing can be considered arbitrary - not connected to the speaking of the language itself, I have found that there are so many similar sounding words in Chinese that learning the characters helps me understand them in my head. 

 

What is your reason for wanting to avoid writing? I understand not wanting to write Chinese characters and only use computer pinyin input as that is much easier. 

[ChTTay]

It's worth learning rudimentary writing, how characters are formed and basic structures. Even if you don't intend on ever writing by hand, it's still a part of learning the language. 

 

In practical terms, how can you do any homework without writing anything down? Practicing textbooks structures etc  all use gap fills. 

 

Depending on your level the writing at University courses isn't much. It's essentially filling in gap fills and writing short paragraphs up until about intermediate level. The advanced classes were doing essays at Tsinghua. 

 

Its likely teachers will let let you use a tablet or computer to write your stuff then just email it to them or just print it out and give it to them if they aren't that flexible. 

 

If your speaking/listening are much much better than your reading and writing, they let you split levels at Tsinghua but you wouldn't get a certificate (doesn't matter much as it's not a HSK or anything). 

[Flickserve]

I think the OP needs to clarify whether attendance is an exchange or a fulltime course year course at the University.

 

I cannot think any self respecting University would offer a fulltime course without a writing component. Whether the students actually learn to write is another matter...