Learning Chinese : BLCU, Tsinghua, Jiaotong ?? People who have been there please help

Hey all

I know this is not a very original thread and that similar ones have already been posted a little everywhere around the web but all the answers seem to be contraddicted at one point...

People who have been to a university in Beijing or Shanghai please help me (and alot of other people I think) and tell me if you really learned chinese in these places.

I have heard BLCU is just full of foreigners so you never practice your chinese but other say they gained a pretty good level after one year. Tsinghua is a prestigious univeristy but the language courses arent very well organised etc.

What do you guys think ??

Thanks in advance for your time and help,

Tom

People have different experiences. One guy goes to BLCU and ends up spending all his time speaking English with classmates, another gets off campus a lot and gets loads of Chinese practice. One guy thinks Tsinghua is disorganized, but another puts up with it because he wants to have Tsinghua on his CV. The choice . . . is yours!

tompernon:

There is another option.

You might want to try Beida's 对外汉语教育学院. Beida naturally has a much smaller foreign population than Beiyu, I can personally vouch for the quality of the instruction (I spent 3 semesters there '99-2000, when it was called the 对外汉语中心.)

Wherever you study, the key is taking what you learn in the classroom and getting away from the other foreigners ASAP and practicing what you learn with real non-student, non-English-learning Chinese people.

Here's a link in case you're interested:

http://hanyu.pku.edu.cn/info/

加油！

im on my 3rd week at east china normal uni in shanghai. so far, so good. i like the program so far (ask me again after i finish the sem, hehe). other students ive asked chose the school because it came highly recommended from other foreigners and its location was ideal. most of the advanced students ive talked to are either on their second sem or past their first year at the uni. they say they like it. they are a lot of foreigners in the uni dorm but mandarin is still the prevailing language of choice. you are most likely to be greeted by a ni hao than a hello when you see someone in the hallway. same goes for all the foreign student uni staff. they hardly speak english despite catering to foreigners. in china, ive realized its either sink or swim, learn or perish hehe

my friend in fudan also has a similar experience.

Hey jujubeans119,

I would like to ask you, how are the dorms at ECNU? double room, private room? do you have your own bathroom or do you have to share with the whole floor? And what are the prices?

Thnx in advance!

sorry! i just saw the question now. im now living at the dorms sharing a double room. details of the prices are here: http://lxs.ied.ecnu.edu.cn/envision/endom.htm. the accomodations are okay, there are ayis cleaning the public areas everyday. the amenities are basic as well, nothing fancy. except for the yellow water, i dont have any complaints.for the double rooms, you share a public bathroom and shower area. most of the students that got private rooms are located in a different building although i was able to talk to one girl who took a private room here. the private rooms have an ayi going in and tidying up the room daily.

so far i like it because my dorm is just across the mandarin language school building and gives me more time to snooze hehe.