Another question about chinese school

[bingunginter]

Hi all,

I decided to go to china to learn chinese before I begin my undergraduate study in usa in fall 2007. I plan to go from jan 07 to aug 07. My goal is to gain fluency in chinese + reading&writing if time allowed by the end of this short period of time . I have some basic in chinese mostly by self studying from new practical chinese reader textbook 1 to 3, watching chinese movie and listening chinesepod religiously, etc. I need some recommendation of a good school or university to attend. I don't really care about the location or weather condition as long as it can fit my budget. I only have about $4000-$5000 for everything.

Any suggestion would be very appreciated.

[mrtoga]

My (admittedly biased) suggestion:

Use my company to go to one of ten universities around the northeast. The budget you suggest would comfortably cover tuition and accommodation in a double room for the eight month period. Of course other expenses like air flights and travel around China during off-semester increase the cost considerably.

For a real Chinese university immersion program I would suggest Jiamusi University. Please take a look at this link for more details:

http://www.hyccchina.com/english/araq/jiamusi.htm

Hope it is useful

[Qingdao Frank]

Hello

On money terms as long as you avoid Beijing then there should be no problem with 4000-6000 lasting you 6 months . But you would really want to live in a controlled manner.

If you can aviod starbucks and suffer a bus ride in at least equal measure for every time you take a taxi then you will get by. Aim for 4000 Y a month and if you break it just go over a little.

Have freinds in Beijing, but I am biased towards Dalian and Qingdao. These are the two cities I have lived and and both are nice places to live and I reakon the two of the better places to study in China. Possibly a bit boring after 3 months but if you can find a few good freinds then there is enough. Now into my second year in Qingdao.

mrtoga sorry to miss your reply on another thread. At present I am teaching A-level Maths and Physics to chinese rich kids in Qingdao. I think that actually we have contacted before perhaps. Do you know anyone called sabrina particularly well?

[mrtoga]

Hi Qingdao Frank,

Yes in actual fact I do - although she is in Beijing and I am now living in Dalian (as you may know as you seem to know so much about me). I am intrigued, as I thought I only knew one person in Qingdao, and he is not called Frank neither is he a student. Hmmm

I will send you a PM to get to the bottom of this mystery......

As for your comments above, pretty much spot on, although personally I think there is more to keep foreign students interested in Dalian - Qingdao strikes me as a great summer town but possibly rather dull in the winter. Also do they not speak a bit funny over there? I know I was struggling to understand folk up in Yantai recently.

[meljames21]

hi bingunginter,

i am currently in Beijing studying Chinese at a really good small language school. although some other people recommended avoiding Beijing, i think it is a great place to study Chinese, and it is certainly possible to do within your budget. beijing is great because it is both an international city where you can find almost any western food/conveniences you may miss, but it also has a very chinese soul. here you've got all the famous sites- great wall, forbidden city, temple of heaven, summer palace. with the olympics coming soon, the city is changing every day, and the government is really focusing on improving it. you also have the advantage of being in the city considered to have the most standard mandarin spoken. last but not least, you've got china's best universities here, with tons of other foreign people studying chinese too- great for making friends.

i've been in beijing studying chinese for about a year now, and i've studied at 3 different language schools (beijing university and 2 smaller schools). the small school i came to most recently (1 month ago), is by far the best. the class sizes are really small (my class has 3 people). the teachers are great, the school is in a very central, happening location in beijing, and i love the other students here. you can find out more about it on the website, www.chinaledu.com.

as for your budget... the price of the program if you lived with a host family is about $4000 for 5 months (1 semester) i think. living with a host family is really the best way to learn chinese in my opinion. that would give you about $1000 for spending money, which is totally doable in Beijing if you don't spend a lot of money on taxis (ride the bus or a bike, or the subway instead) or on expensive western food. (if you are living with a host family, you can eat most of your meals with them for free anyways). so you would have about $200 US per month, or 400 yuan per week, which i know i could live on here. it would be tight, but you could do it. anyways that's what i think! hope this helps

[mr.stinky]

if you want to learn decent chinese, but yet avoid the awful accent of beijingers,

ELCEC in kunming is a nice private school. i recently 'transferred' from yunnan normal

and am quite pleased.

http://en.elcec.com/newEbiz1/EbizPortalFG/portal/html/index.html

small class is 5000 rmb/semester (20weeks) at 18/hours per week, or you can go

for the minimum of 10/hours at only 3600/semester.

the school is on the top two floors of a hotel, student accomodation is cheap:

900 rmb/semester for 4-person room, 40 rmb/day for a two person room, or private

room for 50 rmb/day. (prices per person)

if you prefer to rent an apartment, you can find a flat to share for 350-500 rmb/month

or can rent your own place for as little as 400/month.

[mrtoga]

In reference to the above post about homestays, from all the anecdotes I have heard it seems they rarely work out well. We have had one regular poster on here who had a bit of a nightmare experience. Personally I would not recommend them unless you knwow the family in advance.

[Xander]

Another option: Harbin

I am currently in Harbin, which is a rather big city north of Beijing. I also studied at BLCU, but found the classes too big, and Beijing too expensive. I am now in Harbin, and I am really happy.

So here is what I did, might give you an idea.

Rent a nice, sentral apartment in Harbin for 1300 RMB a month, asked to nice Chinese Harbin Institute of Technology to live with me for free. Some people warned me that living together with Chinese is really difficult. Stealing, dirty rooms, not showering and so one might be an issue. But HIT is a really good Uni in China, so they have a lot of decent students. They live in one room, I live in the another room and we also have a kitchen, and living room. I ditched the classes at HIT because I found the classes of fifteen people to big, and found to really great tutors, for 60 kuai an hours. My tutors are both qualified teachers, therefore the 60 kuai. There is also a Korean School in Harbin, where they have really small classes 2-3 people. The Korean school is really cheap, so you don´t have spend a lot of money for tuters, your choice. I am really happy now, and compared to Beijing my Mandarin is improving really fast.

Why you should chose Harbin.

Living expenses are pretty low, including tutor hours or tuition fee at the Korean School or HIT.

Very few foreigners, mostly Russians. But if you feel the urge you can find English speaking people. Rather few though.

Food. They don’t have all the foreign restaurant you find in Beijing, but there is one really good shop, that has most(all) of the western stuff you need to buy.

Weather. I love the Harbin weather, not as sticky and hot as in Beijing. The air in Harbin is not as polluted as in Beijing. The winter is said to be really cold, but I am rather have it cold than hot. I am Norwegian.

I wil be back in one week if you have any questions.

[mrtoga]

Glad to hear all is well for you Xander!

I am interested which shop you are referring to that has all the western stuff you need. Is it one of the Carrefours or somewhere nearer to HIT?

Do come down to Dalian when you are free.....

[Xander]

Hi,

everything is fine. Also thanks to you and Mr. Wang. Li laoshi is really good, thanks for introducing her to me. Also thanx for all the other stuff you guys helped me with. Even living with my roommates is no problem whatsoever.

The shop that has a lot of western stuff, is on the 6 or 7th floor of this shopping center that has all the expensive western clothing don’t know the name of the shopping center though. I think it is right next to the 大世界商店。You can buy Plum Pudding in that shop, so you can have a proper English Christmas dinner.

Hope everything is going well in Dalian!

[ChineseinChina]

Hi Bingunginter,

I can chip in with another rather biased suggestion and suggest that you do consider

giving a university program in Dalian a try. Your budget could quite likely fall short in Beijing/Shanghai leaving the Dalian/Qingdao/Harbin second tier cities as the most suitable

Main Pros: (1) Dalian is by and large a home of standard Mandarin, besides 4-5 localised words everyone you speak to (apart from fruit sellers coming in from the country) will speak mandarin with you. (2) Its a modern and dynamic city with several nice beaches and parks. The city is accessible with car jams only during the 5-6pm rush hour. (3) Foriegn expat community is vibrant enough without swamping you. (4) Beer is 10Y at many good bars.

Main Cons: (1) There are only about 12 good bars and clubs (not neccasarily a con but there are many more in Beijing/Shanghai) For some people they want more after 3-4 months (2) Bit cold in winter (though not any colder than Beijing)

Chinese-in-China ( www.chinese-in-china.com ) now has programs with two universities in the city and our own private language school. One 19 week semester of University study (March-July) including accommodation in a nice apartment with your own room is only

US $2049 .

Could be what your looking for. Best of luck either way.