How much can I learn in 1 year?

Hi everyone,

I want to study in China for 1 academic year but I'm uncertain how much I will get out of it. I have taken about 2 years of Mandarin classes in Canada. I am still not able to hold a conversation and I know very few characters. In addition, I haven't taken classes in over a year so my Mandarin is a bit rusty. I want to go to a small school away from Beijing where I can study intensively for a year.

How much fluency can I gain in 1 year? How will I learn anything in the beginning if I can barely understand the teacher? Can anyone tell me their experiences? Thanks!

2 years and still can't do conversation? Nothing new and not your fault probably.

Will the situation here be better? How much will you learn?

For the answer see these:

My rant: Problems with the Chinese Teaching System (yours truly)

Of course there's the recent posts by Ryan on his wonderful blog about

Why not to study Chinese at university (in China)

Which was a great read considering it came right next to my birthday.

Looking through the comments many of whom come from old hands here in China that have their own blogs you'll find plenty of agreement. It will lead you to this one from Elizabeth in China who talks about the greatness of her schools

And of course this recent one Getting a Tuition Fee Refund from a University in China

It was these feelings that were the impetus behind getting this Chinese School in Beijing off the ground. (We focus on speaking primarily. You are not coming to Beijing so we are not an option anyway. Just another shameless plug. )

The most important for you to do is take charge of your learning and start utilizing all resources around you. You're in the right place for that at least.

Look at private schools. (Although I think a lot of them aren't very good, some of them are really great. When I can't accommodate students, they are often referred to good competitors. While maybe a lot of them (private schools/institutes) will have a similar situation as described in the previous links, a minority of them will have a really strong focus on what you're looking for and commitment to quality. You'll pay a little bit more for it though and some private schools won't be able to give you a visa. )

PS Even the best school won't get you anywhere without motivation and hardwork. No magic bullet without those two things.

How much fluency can I gain in 1 year?

Well, that depends on you more than where you study. There was a blog (by someone called Ryan) linked to above where he complains about not knowing how to read or write. This is an advert for studying at a proper University in China, as that's what they focus on.

Many Westerners then complain that they spend all their time just learning to write/read and can't actually hold a simple conversation. That's the opposite to the above problem.

So, in my opinion, you need to decide what your priorities are. If you want to learn both, then enroll at a decent University which will give you "tingxie" all the time and make you write out characters over and over, and expect you to look at the vocabulary, read it through, then read a text with no preparation at all. Impossible. But, unlike any sort of education I ever had in the UK, the way for me to survive at BNU (in Beijing) was to prepare the lesson *before* class so I was ready. And had pertinent questions.

I then met Chinese people (who spoke English) and practiced what I'd learnt. And tried to chat to food/market vendors. This helped with the speaking/listening part, which is missing from class.

Or ... if you just want to be able to hold a conversarion you'll probably need to hire a tutor (difficult to find a good one, and even so it's hard to motivate yourself as it's 1-1) or find a private language school which focusses on speaking/listening.

You say you've studied for 2 years already and can't hold a conversation. I hope that's not a full time course, otherwise you're screwed ;)

It is possible to progress well in China. Many (most?) people don't do as well as they could - me included - because we also did other stuff, such as sight-seeing, chatting in English, generally going out and having a good time. Hell, as far as I was concerned my 5 months in Beijing were part holiday, part experience, part language learning. As you can see, I dedicated a third of my time to learning Mandarin. It's not enough ;) Depends what your goals are.

Well, my situation was similar. I studied two years of chinese, but only 4 hours a week. It definitely wasn't worth the time. Before I got to china, I forgot all I'd ever learned.

In China you can make a whole lot of progress in one year. I went to an ordinary university and moved into a chinese host family. At university I started from the very basic level, but progressed fairly quickly. Chatting with the host family and chinese friends definitely helps a lot. Of course, there is also plenty of time to go out and travel. And probably sometimes every western person just gets sick of all those Asians and wants to sit with some other Westerners, talk in English and enjoy some decent beer.

But I think that should not conflict too much with adapting to a chinese lifestyle most of the time.

After one year I probably was at the upper intermediate level, holding everyday conversation was no problem...

If you look for a city, I really can recommend Dalian (Liaoning Normal University): clean city, good air, not too big, not too small, little accent and definitely not as many Westeners as in Beijing/Shanghai.

I have to disagree that the classes provide minimal learning.

I feel the classes in CHina were more rounded than western classes that seemed to stress writing skills and seem to have most tests just require memorization of characters and not use of pinyin, oral skills, listening or grammar. In addition the western classes when I took them back in the day emphasized traditional characters not used in the Mainland but good for Art History.

In China classes vary greatly between schools, and even between professors. Some classes will be the Lecturer lecturing at top speed through 2 chapters a class ignore questions. Others the Professor would interact with the class, have numerous testing examples to make sure the class was understanding the material.

Some things depended on the country compostion of the class. Those classes that were 90% koreans seemed to shun asking questions and/or a slower pace to the class. (What can I say, most Koreans seemed like workaholics to me, exception those in the 4 year degree program who were ironically Party animals).

Other classes that were more mixed I felt students were able to give direct feedback. One thing cool about the Chinese classes is that teachers were usually open to after class feedback on techniques and suggestions of activities to do in class (skits, group work etc.)

That said you will have to make learning Chinese your priority when you're here and you can make great progress with speaking, learning phrases and improving your listening ability. You have to put yourself in situations to interact with Chinese people (soccer teams, english/Chinese corners) and you will find a great improvement. (Make sure you go to a capital city or the Northeast to get a good accent among the normal residents.)

Good luck,

SimoN:)

P.S. Most schools will let you sit in on some classes before you start them. If you are able to do this (Traveling before hand, teaching..)I would advise it.

I didn't see the last post when I was writing mine, but you can't imagine how many classes don't give you tingxie,

They breeze through the chapters, assume that you will have the motivation to learn 30-50 words a night without classroom motivation. It doesn't happen.

In Chinese classes your whole grade is usually based on the final exam. If you make all your classes give you a 5 min tingxie, dictation quiz, it will help with the motivation for the class. I was always looking to get one better than my friend and classmate at the time Matt whose chinese was good. I would get 17 /20 to Matt's 16/20 and it would be the biggest achievement.

If you don't have this "encouragement", it is very easy to get behind in learning characters.

Have fun,

SImon:)

if you are really concern about chinese language... you can really be very good in chinese in one year.. for example my friend , he understand nothing about chinese when he first came here.. but during the first 6 months he didn't speak any of his OWN language we are from indonesia and everyday he studies a lot.... and during the 10 months study he got 8 on HSK level and speak very good mandarin... that;s it.. so if you are really focussing on mandarin you have to study on or out of the class.. from monday to friday and speak less of your own language , that would very help ! and also do read or remember the lesson that you have study in the day after the class and on weekend you can do whatever you want ! hahahaha... that's it and hope this help !

regards

marcell

Thanks for all your replies. I have not been studying full time for 2 years. I only took 2.5 hours of classes a week and not even for the whole year. I want to stay away from Beijing to reduce the temptation to speak english to other foreigners. I'm definitely planning to work hard and learn as much as I can. I will be quitting my job for this so I need to make good use of my time and money. I want to attend a university and learning characters is important for me.

Are there different levels of classes at the universities or is everyone grouped together? I'm still worried I won't understand the teacher when i first start.

The 'how much can I learn' question is a bit difficult to answer, as it ranges from virtually the entire language for obsessive-compulsive linguistic geniuses, to virtually nothing for the lazy and linguistically challenged. The only meaningful answer I can think of it 'a hell of a lot, if you want to'.

Universities will have different levels. You may well have trouble understanding the teacher at first whatever level you are in, but it's an in-at-the-deep end thing. You'll get there soon enough.

Hey another point,

If you want to make sure you are slotted into the right level you need to choose a university with a sizable foreign student population to accomodate that. Smaller programs may not have the flexibility.

Just because they have a lot of foreign students doesn't mean they will have a lot of english speaking foreign students. Nanjing Normal has a lot of students but most are from Korea. (talk about classmates to challenge you) . The compostion of students varies between schools a lot and you can ask the admin about the percentages of students and how many levels they have for first year. Nanjing university had 2 sections of students, Nanjing normal had 8 or something around the time I was studying there. I have heard Jiaotong is a good school in Shanghai, but Shanghai has more english temptations than BJ. Good luck with your choice and be sure to ask the University officials questions like these.

have fun,

Simon:)

Similar to you, I also studied a bit before going to China, but that was primarily self study (with some help from a Taiwanese friend). So on taking the entrance test at BNU they placed me in the third level (102). I attended one class at that level and immediately dropped myself down to level 2 (101).

Even then, the first day was me just sitting there not understanding a word. They expected me to know the chinese for stuff like "exam" "pass percentage" "homework" "mid term" "revision class" "page number" etc, which I didn't know at all.

You soon pick them up. Other students who have already studied "properly" will help you understand what you're meant to do when doing homework, and what the hell stuff like 把字句 means For me, the answers were all quite easy, it was the questions I didn't understand at first!