Need advice on finding a chinese tutor

[百變星君]

I've been in Beijing for a while now, and it seems that most of the conversations I have in chinese revolve around how much "this" costs or what I'd like to eat for dinner. Occasionally it gets better than that (hurrah for BJ's taxi drivers), but not often enough for my impatient mind. I think I've advanced enough that I need a real challenge to improve further.

I guess I've limited myself by befriending a lot of Chinese who speak some english (sometimes it seems a like a tug of war between which language to use; I kind of wish my native language wasn't english sometimes), but I can't always hand select my friends based on how useful they are for language learning. I don't wish to burden my friends by asking them to spend hours patiently explaining 成语 to me or explaining my grammar mistakes.

I think I need a conversation tutor that can help me get practice on some more difficult topics, like history, or science, or maybe even cooking(?) But I'm not quite sure how to go about it. An ad in the newspaper? Randomly going up to people on a college campus?

Does anybody have any suggestions based on experience? I'd much rather find a college student who doesn't speak a word of english. I think that way I can avoid getting stuck in some useless language. Of course, if I found the right kind of person, I'd only be too glad to pay them well so that they'd stick with it.

I definitely think I'm suffering from a "language learning plateau" and I need a good strategy. Am I the only one with this kind of problem? 请多帮忙啊！！！

[roddy]

First question is: Do you need a language exchange partner, which is just someone you chat to in a mixture of Chinese / English, or do you actually want a teacher who you pay to exclusively teach you Chinese?

If it's the first, then you can try sticking an ad on here (Here's one cry for help), or thatsbj.com, university noticeboards if you are near universities. Ideally look for someone who is either a teacher or student of languages - they'll have a much better idea of how to deal with a non-native speaker.

If you are looking for a teacher, do the same, but watch out for students who reckon teaching Chinese to foreigners is an easy way to make some spending money - try and find someone with a bit of experience / qualifications and you'll make a lot more progress.

Roddy

[Graham]

The answer is quite simple. You need to manoeuvre yourself into situations which cater for locals. If you like cooking, for example, you should look for a cookery course (for locals) or pop over to the nearest cookery school. If you like history, you should join local historical tours of Beijing on your own. The idea should be to put yourself in a situation where you are forced to use your chinese and where you are likely to find plenty of people with similar interests, so that you can dump those who are using you to practice their english. Of course, it helps if you have the initial basic vocabulary of your chosen interest or have enough chinese to wing it if you are trying something new. I don't believe that getting a Chinese tutor is the answer, necessarily. Sometimes jumping in at the deep end is far more fun - Good luck!