Chinese level at PKU

[Jake13Kick]

Hi everyone, I've been reading a lot of posts in the forum and they have helped me enormously. Thanks for that. I hope someone can help me with my question. I wanna apply for the csc scholarship, I have the hsk4 level but I plan to study intensively during this year in order to reach hsk5, though I'm afraid I won't be able to attach the hsk5 certificate to my application. My question is: does Peking University (my first choice) offer these one year Chinese language courses, taking into account that I wanna apply for a master's in communication (or radio and TV) taught in Chinese? Or does the fact that I only have hsk4 automatically excludes me? As beida is so popular and high ranked, I'm afraid I won't get the full scholarship. Actually, Chinese is my only problem in this field, as I have great grades at uni, good recommendation letters and so on. Should I still try to apply for this master?

And do you know if they provide students with recommendation letters? I have heard of some unis that don't...

Thank you in advance, and I hope I'll be able to post in the forum as a helper in the future

[艾墨本]

First of all, why would you want to do a Master's degree that is taught in Chinese with only HSK 4. HSK 5 is still not enough. You should be able to pick up a random textbook in your field and be able to read it (with a dictionary) at a decent pace, otherwise you are not going to get much out of the education. HSK 6 plus practice consuming material in your field would be necessary to be successful.

 

As a hypothetical to help you understand my point: What are you going to do when you attend a lecture, your professor writes important bits on the board in sloppy handwriting and then expects you to read 100 pages and then write a 2000 character response by then end of the week all while making sure you incorporate that important information that he wrote on the board but that you couldn't read? And of the stuff you could hear and understand, you couldn't keep up in your notes since you write characters too slowly and your brain can't keep up translating into your native language while writing notes and listening to the lecture?  Do you get the picture I'm painting? Because this is what happened more than a few of my classmates that just met the requirements.

 

That said, the scholarship only requires an HSK 5 but there is also the Confucius Institute Scholarship which offers a 1+Master's program: one year of language training and then the two or three years for your Master's degree. My personal recommendation is to pass HSK 6 before starting a master's degree that is taught in Chinese. This is not to say HSK 6 is enough, but it certainly is the bare minimum. If you were to study Chinese full time for the next year and a half, you should be able to reach that goal.

 

You can always apply, and depending on which country you are from (there are different quotas for different countries) you will probably get it, so long as you meet that HSK 5 requirement. But being accepting into PKU is another aspect of the challenge you face. As they are very competitive, they likely have requirements that exceed that of the basic scholarship requirements.

 

Going to PKU is a great opportunity, but a great opportunity will take hard work and persistence for it to be made worthwhile. Hang around on these forums, I'm sure you'll find all the support you need to get from HSK 4 to 6 over the next year and a half.

[Jake13Kick]

Hello. First of all, thanks for the sincere answer. To be honest, I know that my language abilities are still far from being able to attend master lessons taught in Chinese, but I was planning to apply for these 1-2 years of previous Mandarin learning and then start the Master. The csc scholarship offers this option right?

 

Even though I reached that hsk6 level, I know it'd be really hard. But I still want to do it. I'm completely aware that, right now, it's impossible for me to attend Chinese taught lessons on my field, but (as I was planning to do) I think that one or two years of intensive Mandarin learning would help me a lot. I'm really interested in the language, and went from zero to hsk 4 in 5 months, studying myself and asking for friends to help. Do you think is possible to make it this way? 

 

Thanks again for your answer.

[anonymoose]

19 hours ago, Jake13Kick said:

zero to hsk 4 in 5 months

 

That's pretty impressive, if true.

[Jake13Kick]

26 minutes ago, anonymoose said:

That's pretty impressive, if true.

It's true. I arrived to Guangzhou thanks to my university scholarship in October with zero Chinese. I started hanging out with Chinese people and suddenly discovered how much I liked the culture and the lifestyle, and I started learning the language with them. I became extremely interested. I came back to my country in February and discovered these hsk test (which, in my opinion, have little to do with actual communication), but I decide to study for hsk 3 as a way of motivating myself towards a goal, as I hadn't "studied" till then. After learning hsk 3 materials, I realised that I could "try" the hsk 4 vocabulary list (which seemed huuuuuge and scary) but I did it, and got my certificate in July. 

I am not bragging at all, I know hsk4 is nothing. I still have years and years ahead of learning, but I just wanted to say that with the proper amount of work it's not impossible. To be honest, I can't count the hours I've been studying characters and grammar, listening, reading,etc. Most of the time I'd wake up at 6 just to study, it's been a huge effort, but it's all interest I guess. I don't feel studying Chinese is a painful task. I enjoy it. And the more I know, the more conscious I am of the things I still don't know.

[C0ckerel]

On 10/14/2018 at 12:06 AM, 艾墨本 said:

the Confucius Institute Scholarship which offers a 1+Master's program

 

Do you know where I could find more information about this? Haven't been able to find it online.