Studying Chinese in China

MagicToaster

Ok... I've gone over this in my head for too long now... I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna go to China and study Chinese.

I've been looking at some universities on the web, but they all claim to have "The best language curriculum in China", they all look about the same when you compare them though. So, this is where I'd like some help; does anyone know of a good university in which I can study Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and English?

Also, is there anyway I can do this for free? Scholarships, mob hits, grants? How did you go about doing this without getting into a horrible debt cesspool.

To anyone who can shed any light on this, I'll be forever thankful.

furiousNU

The best place to go to study Mandarin is in Beijing because the language environment outside of the classroom is the most conducive to helping you improve your accent. There are a lot of good schools in Beijing, Beijing language and culture university, Tsinghua university,Beijing capital normal university and many many others.

If you really really want to study Cantonese and Mandarin at the same time, you have to study in the Guangdong province. There are a lot of decent schools in Guangzhou, South China Normal Univeristy comes to mind along with Guangdong University of Technology and Guangzhou University.

Personally, I don't think it matters that much where you study, your experiences all depend on what sort of teacher you get which can be extremely variable. When language students are outside the classroom, most tend to hang out with other foreign students and speak english because that is the easiest thing to do, versus speaking chinese 24/7. So what I'm trying to say is that ensuring you get good teachers is more important than just considering the general language environment. However, I have no idea how good your chinese is or how much of a "cultural" experience you are looking for, so I would say stick to studying in big cities in the northeastern part of the country if your chinese isn't that great because more people in those cities speak english. If you want more of a "cultural" experience, you'll have to get away from the northeast and go further west or down south.

I personally studied at Yunnan Normal University for a few months and was lucky enough to have fantastic teachers. This is not a top rate university nor is it in a wealthy province, but because I choose the right type of class and was lucky with what teachers I got, I don't regret studying there versus studying in Beijing. if you can choose what type of classes you can take, try to get at least one one on one class, it will force you to work on your speaking skills and will be great for your chinese in general because the teacher will be able to focus on helping just you.

As for paying for the whole experience, the only scholarship I know of is the one you get by doing really really well on the HSK. I think this scholarship pays for you to do summer language study at some school in Beijing(not quite sure about all the details). Things aren't that expensive in China (I could get dinner in Yunnan for less than 1 US dollar, Beijing's a little more expensive), the most expensive thing would be housing and/or tuition. Try to find the cheapest housing you can and if possible live off campus.

Thanatos

You should be aware that while they share the same writing system, Mandarin and Cantonese have less in common than some different languages. It's not going to be like trying to pick up Italian and French at the same time.

Japanese also has a largely different writing style, including the kana (which are relatively easy). Really, you can learn to speak three languages poorly, or one language well, unless you are some kind of serious language savant.

furiousNU

Thanatos wrote: »

You should be aware that while they share the same writing system, Mandarin and Cantonese have less in common than some different languages. It's not going to be like trying to pick up Italian and French at the same time.

Mandarin and Cantonese sound VERY VERY different, they require completely different accents. Cantonese is especially hard to learn because the differences in tones are very subtle in comparison to mandarin. The reason why people want to learn Cantonese is because Guangdong and Hong Kong are where a lot of foreign businesses are located. You can definitely opt to learn both at once, especially if your mandarin is decent, but it would be difficult because you'd be essentially learning two languages that sound nothing a like.

MagicToaster

Yep, I'm aware that these languages are all totally different... but seriously, you don't have to be a prodigy to learn 3-4 languages at the same time. It's a matter of how interested you are in doing this, the skill you have and the dedication you apply to learning them. Lot's of people at my house have done it, I bet I can too!

Unearthly Stew

Can I ask how much experience you have with Chinese already? I know there are government fellowships that require you to serve a couple years for the US govt. after you finish. If you have some experience already you can apply to clscholarship.org. They offer a full ride for a ton of different languages without a service requirement. Sadly the due date was the 14th, but it's something to keep in mind if you're looking to go later down the road as opposed to, say tomorrow.

MagicToaster

I studied some Mandarin and even less Cantonese, as opposed to Japanese, which I studied for some 6 years. But I've forgoten the little Chinese I knew.