Help researching chinese schools/cities for language immersion
August 28, 2016 5:40 PM Subscribe
I'm starting to do preliminary research on spending 1-2 years in China studying Mandarin. I'm looking for any recommendations for schools to look into, or places that would be great to learn Mandarin in. Snowflake details within!
This research is still preliminary because I probably wouldn't actually go until late 2017 or early 2018...I'm doing research now largely to get a sense of how much I will need to save, but it's also just fun to think about!
I'm currently a low-intermediate/intermediate student of mandarin, and I think by the time I went I would probably be high-intermediate, crawling on advanced. My emphasis has been much more on speaking/listening than reading/writing... in fact, I abandoned writing entirely and don't really want to learn it (typing of course is fine), and do want to learn reading, but I've deemphasized it. Any program I go to will have to be down with that. Oh, and age might matter... I'll be in my early 30s.
My thought is that since I have a while, instead of just plopping myself down in one place for 1-2 years, I would try to find good schools in interesting cities and spend 4-6 months at a time in them. This has the benefit of letting me see more of China, as well as get exposed to different teachers, students, and Mandarin-speaking individuals.
So first: are there any schools that you rank highly? While city matters a lot for me, if there are some schools that are that good, I'd definitely want to spend some time there! So I welcome any recommendations on that front. I'm a very diligent student, though, so any fairly hardcore programs are fine with me...
I'd really prefer to not go to Beijing (air quality concerns) and am indifferent towards Shanghai... my fear with these two cities, air quality aside, is that they'll have a lot of foreigners, and a lot of Chinese people who speak english. And I figure that if you go to slightly smaller cities, you'll get a less "cosmopolitan" experience, and more Chinese. Open to thoughts on that, though!
As far as cities, here is what I was thinking...
- would love to get some regional diversity
- would love to get some linguistic diversity. Now, this one is tricky... I do want to learn Mandarin. However, there are a lot of regional accents! I sort of hate the obsession with the Beijing accent... I would love to spend time in a place where everyone spoke Mandarin, but in a non-Beijing accent. My reasoning is that I've seen a lot of stories by people who only had exposure to "neutral" Mandarin, and then struggled to understand...actual human beings. My goal is to be able to watch most shows, most movies, interact with people speaking Mandarin...so I want to make sure I get as much exposure to regionally accented Mandarin as possible!
- cities with a minimal number of foreigners and english speakers. Obviously my mere presence sort of contradicts this, but I know how tempting it is to find a couple people who speak your own native tongue instead of getting out there...
- cities where it won't be impossible to interact with native speakers. This is fairly open ended, and most cities may be adequate, but I guess what I mean is... being in the suburbs of some tier 3 Chinese city will probably make it pretty hard to meet Chinese speakers. Being in a more vibrant tier 2 city that has a university or two, some sports, whatever it is, will probably make it easier. As a naturally somewhat shy person, I just know that I'll need a good way to force myself out of my comfort zone... I imagine the language school could help with this
- safe/clean. seems likely for any school, though.
Any suggestions??
This research is still preliminary because I probably wouldn't actually go until late 2017 or early 2018...I'm doing research now largely to get a sense of how much I will need to save, but it's also just fun to think about!
I'm currently a low-intermediate/intermediate student of mandarin, and I think by the time I went I would probably be high-intermediate, crawling on advanced. My emphasis has been much more on speaking/listening than reading/writing... in fact, I abandoned writing entirely and don't really want to learn it (typing of course is fine), and do want to learn reading, but I've deemphasized it. Any program I go to will have to be down with that. Oh, and age might matter... I'll be in my early 30s.
My thought is that since I have a while, instead of just plopping myself down in one place for 1-2 years, I would try to find good schools in interesting cities and spend 4-6 months at a time in them. This has the benefit of letting me see more of China, as well as get exposed to different teachers, students, and Mandarin-speaking individuals.
So first: are there any schools that you rank highly? While city matters a lot for me, if there are some schools that are that good, I'd definitely want to spend some time there! So I welcome any recommendations on that front. I'm a very diligent student, though, so any fairly hardcore programs are fine with me...
I'd really prefer to not go to Beijing (air quality concerns) and am indifferent towards Shanghai... my fear with these two cities, air quality aside, is that they'll have a lot of foreigners, and a lot of Chinese people who speak english. And I figure that if you go to slightly smaller cities, you'll get a less "cosmopolitan" experience, and more Chinese. Open to thoughts on that, though!
As far as cities, here is what I was thinking...
- would love to get some regional diversity
- would love to get some linguistic diversity. Now, this one is tricky... I do want to learn Mandarin. However, there are a lot of regional accents! I sort of hate the obsession with the Beijing accent... I would love to spend time in a place where everyone spoke Mandarin, but in a non-Beijing accent. My reasoning is that I've seen a lot of stories by people who only had exposure to "neutral" Mandarin, and then struggled to understand...actual human beings. My goal is to be able to watch most shows, most movies, interact with people speaking Mandarin...so I want to make sure I get as much exposure to regionally accented Mandarin as possible!
- cities with a minimal number of foreigners and english speakers. Obviously my mere presence sort of contradicts this, but I know how tempting it is to find a couple people who speak your own native tongue instead of getting out there...
- cities where it won't be impossible to interact with native speakers. This is fairly open ended, and most cities may be adequate, but I guess what I mean is... being in the suburbs of some tier 3 Chinese city will probably make it pretty hard to meet Chinese speakers. Being in a more vibrant tier 2 city that has a university or two, some sports, whatever it is, will probably make it easier. As a naturally somewhat shy person, I just know that I'll need a good way to force myself out of my comfort zone... I imagine the language school could help with this
- safe/clean. seems likely for any school, though.
Any suggestions??
Response by poster: I'd definitely be down with Taiwan. I have been studying mainly simplified characters, but if I knew I was going to Taiwan I could blitz on the traditionals... thanks for the heads up. Taiwan does sound pretty awesome -- everyone I know who has visited or lived there really enjoyed it!
posted by wooh at 6:15 PM on August 28, 2016
posted by wooh at 6:15 PM on August 28, 2016
Seconding perihare, most people I know who have done this went to Taiwan, in part because the visa situation is simpler for US citizens. A few went to Beijing, and I don't know anyone who has gone a more rural route.
Southwestern China is beautiful, but the Sichuan accent is rough going.
posted by asphericalcow at 9:14 PM on August 28, 2016
Southwestern China is beautiful, but the Sichuan accent is rough going.
posted by asphericalcow at 9:14 PM on August 28, 2016
Response by poster: What makes the accent rough going? Is it that they are using a lot of words/grammar from a dialect, or just that it's a heavy accent?
posted by wooh at 10:00 PM on August 28, 2016
posted by wooh at 10:00 PM on August 28, 2016
I myself am also learning Mandarin and have also been thinking about where I might move to develop my Mandarin! I currently do a bunch of fieldwork in Henan every year, which has a super heavy regional northern accent. Some of my Chinese friends that aren't from the area tend to wrinkle their noses and laugh at the "low-class" accent, but I kind of like it. Zhengzhou is a fairly big city but I wouldn't say it would be the easiest to deal with at first.
Many Mandarin speakers I know have a REALLY difficult time understanding the Sichuan accent. It's actually more of a dialect, with different grammar and vocabulary. That being said, most people didn't speak to me in Sichuanese because they knew I obviously wouldn't know what they were saying. A friend of mine also recommended I move to Chengdu and learn Mandarin since he finds the accents there really pleasant. Also the food is SO GOOD, it might be worth it.
Two other cities I've been considering are Dalian (up north, in Liaoning) and Xiamen. Both have good pollution rankings and have some great local cultures. In Dalian the Mandarin is pretty similar to Putonghua I think, though. I find the Xiamen accent in particular really nice and easy to understand, but apparently some people now associate it with scam artists??
One last area might be Kunming which has its own dialect and also has a ton of ethnic diversity.
Good luck! Maybe we can memail, coordinate a meetup and bumble our way through China sometime :)
posted by thebots at 11:41 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Many Mandarin speakers I know have a REALLY difficult time understanding the Sichuan accent. It's actually more of a dialect, with different grammar and vocabulary. That being said, most people didn't speak to me in Sichuanese because they knew I obviously wouldn't know what they were saying. A friend of mine also recommended I move to Chengdu and learn Mandarin since he finds the accents there really pleasant. Also the food is SO GOOD, it might be worth it.
Two other cities I've been considering are Dalian (up north, in Liaoning) and Xiamen. Both have good pollution rankings and have some great local cultures. In Dalian the Mandarin is pretty similar to Putonghua I think, though. I find the Xiamen accent in particular really nice and easy to understand, but apparently some people now associate it with scam artists??
One last area might be Kunming which has its own dialect and also has a ton of ethnic diversity.
Good luck! Maybe we can memail, coordinate a meetup and bumble our way through China sometime :)
posted by thebots at 11:41 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh! I thought of one last place: Wuhan. I've met a lot of great people from there, they speak Southwestern Chinese and the food is great. Wuhan University is also a delight and it was really easy to get around the city. Not too many foreigners though from what I could tell!
posted by thebots at 11:44 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by thebots at 11:44 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I studied basic / early intermediate Chinese at a branch of the private Taipei Language Institute in Taiwan a couple of years back. The criticism I heard from other students and one tutor there of the university courses was that the class sizes were too large, the teaching style was quite old-fashioned and they were focussed more on formal reading / writing. Consequently TLI often had students from the university courses doing extra conversation classes so they could get by in normal life.
The downside of the private language schools though is you can't get a study visa for them, which means using a tourist visa then every three or six months (depending on your nationality) going for a weekend outside Taiwan to get a new visa / landing visa. Especially outside Taipei there are also fewer takers for the more advanced group classes, which can push up the course price.
posted by kerplunk at 8:32 AM on September 2, 2016
The downside of the private language schools though is you can't get a study visa for them, which means using a tourist visa then every three or six months (depending on your nationality) going for a weekend outside Taiwan to get a new visa / landing visa. Especially outside Taipei there are also fewer takers for the more advanced group classes, which can push up the course price.
posted by kerplunk at 8:32 AM on September 2, 2016
« Older I'm Trying To Remember A Movie Title | What was this compilation of children's poems and... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by perihare at 6:13 PM on August 28, 2016