EPTChinese traditional characters: worth learning? - Page 4
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
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520
United States2822 Posts
I think Traditional is definitely worth learning, and you won't have a hard time if you really are as serious about Chinese as the OP suggests you are. | ||
ZeaL.
United States5955 Posts
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
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iloahz
United States964 Posts
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Matoo-
Canada1397 Posts
But all that rationalizing doesn't matter anyway because after reading this thread and before doing all this math I decided to learn both fucking forms at 100% even if it cost me twenty years of studying instead of two for the very reason mentioned by Physician above: because I can. On a more serious note thank you everybody for the answers, it was quite instructive especially since it didn't become a stupid mainland vs overseas thread too much. @ Physician: Of course I do learn pinyin. It would be really hard for me to pronounce the characters properly and type them on my french keyboard if I didn't know their pinyin and tone. Actually, I think quite a lot of children here in France begin chinese lessons by learning only pinyin. I don't really dig that and I started with characters right away but I believe that's common practice. I'm really not interested in neither calligraphy nor seal script though. I'm also really not interested in kung-fu. That might sound out of place but some time ago I looked up chinese lessons in China and like 90% of the websites advertising for them offer kung-fu training as well. What the fuck seriously? Not that I would've signed up for any of them anyway but that's just ridiculous. By the way does someone have an idea about where to learn chinese seriously? Like universities and stuff. I'm going to China this winter between like Dec. 20 and Jan. 10 and I'm going to use it to scout for proxy hatch locations probably around BJ or SH. I like HK but it's probably not the best place to learn mandarin, sadly. | ||
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Orlandu
China2450 Posts
On November 03 2009 02:36 Matoo- wrote: By the way does someone have an idea about where to learn chinese seriously? Like universities and stuff. I'm going to China this winter between like Dec. 20 and Jan. 10 and I'm going to use it to scout for proxy hatch locations probably around BJ or SH. I like HK but I don't think it's the best place to learn mandarin. Beijing is supposedly the best place to learn Chinese because the way Beijing people speak is considered the standard way, and they don't really have a local dialect of their own like most places in China. However I've come to strongly disagree that Beijing is the best place to seriously learn Chinese, because you have a lot of foreigners in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, and a lot of the Chinese there can also speak at least some English. Not to mention those are both very modern cities and not the best examples of what China is truly like. Therefore, it's harder to really immerse yourself and it's surprisingly easy to get by speaking English. If you go to smaller cities, especially those in the south, you'll find it much easier to become truly immersed and you'll be forced to speak a lot more Chinese, whether you like it or not. The downside is of course that many locals have and speak their own dialect, and especially in the south many people that know Mandarin well still pretty much suck at speaking it and drop a lot of their "h" sounds and pronounce characters like 十 incorrectly. However this is not much of an issue, because within a university everyone speaks Mandarin and most teachers speak very clearly, and you are always taught the Beijing way of speaking. Even outside of a university, people still speak Mandarin very frequently, especially if they're speaking with a foreigner. Also, regardless of the university that you go to, you're pretty much going to be using the same textbooks as they all pretty much come from 北京语言大学 (Beijing Language and Culture University), so the classes really don't differ that much from university to university usually. So I think that the university is far less important than the actual location, and the best location depends more on the kinds of things that you're looking for. The bigger cities like Beijing are definitely a lot more fun than most of the smaller cities in terms of things to do, so keep that in mind too. Anyway, if you're looking for schools in Beijing, then you really have a lot of options. Peking University (Beijing University) is obviously a good choice, Beijing Language and Culture University is good, Tsinghua University (Qinghua University) is good, Beijing Foreign Studies University is good (and is also one of China's top universities for foreign languages, so many of the students there speak English and other foreign languages very well), and there's a whole lot more that would be pretty suitable too. As for Shanghai, I really don't have many suggestions because I'm not as familiar with the universities there, but I'm sure there's quite a few good ones there too, you just have to look around some. Just don't feel like you HAVE to go to those cities to seriously learn Chinese, because some of the southern and smaller cities offer some experiences that places like Beijing and Shanghai can never offer to foreigners, and in many ways can really be better for someone that's really serious about learning. However that's definitely up for debate. Hope this helps. | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
To say that Beijing is bad for learning Chinese because of the foreign presence is very false imo. As long as you're not in Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent Shanghai, anywhere in China is still not as "international" as you'd think. I personally think Beijing would be great, mainly because there's not so much English present that you couldn't learn Chinese, but also it's a big city with a nice juxtaposition of tradition and globalization, something that is lacking, I fell, in HK and Shanghai. | ||
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Orlandu
China2450 Posts
On November 03 2009 04:22 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: I also want to point out that the conception that Beijing doesn't have its own dialect is false. It is simply the Beijing dialect that was integrated largely into Standard Mandarin. If you grew up learning Chinese in Beijing, there is a 99% chance that another Chinese person can identify you as from Beijing, because we do still have a very distinct way of speaking. To say that Beijing is bad for learning Chinese because of the foreign presence is very false imo. As long as you're not in Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent Shanghai, anywhere in China is still not as "international" as you'd think. I personally think Beijing would be great, mainly because there's not so much English present that you couldn't learn Chinese, but also it's a big city with a nice juxtaposition of tradition and globalization, something that is lacking, I fell, in HK and Shanghai. That's true, my point was just that the Chinese that foreigners learn is what is spoken commonly in Beijing, whereas in many, if not most, other Chinese cities, there's also a local dialect that differs quite a bit. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't a dialect of it's own, just that that's one advantage of learning in Beijing as opposed to elsewhere. And also, I didn't say that Beijing was bad for learning Chinese, not at all  Just that contrary to what many will say, it isn't necessarily the best place. There's no arguing that Beijing holds more English speakers than most Chinese cities, and that most Chinese there are far more in touch with English and other international things. So, it's not as easy to immerse yourself there as it is in many other cities. Again, that's not to say that Beijing is in any way bad; in fact, it's one of my favorite Chinese cities, and I've been to quite a few. But there's no denying that cities like Beijing and Shanghai are quite a bit different than your typical Chinese city, and you'll find a much, much larger foreign presence in the form of both people and businesses in these cities. Again, that's not necessarily bad. But it's not the experience that everyone that's learning Chinese is looking for. Anyway, I'm just relating my own personal experiences, and it has been my experience that when I was in Beijing, I spoke and saw far more English in a shorter amount of time than I ever did in any other Chinese city while being in some of those other cities for longer periods of time. This is also an experience that most people I've discussed the issue with have shared as well, and so I think it's a very relevant point to bring up.Regardless, Beijing is a great place  | ||
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MK
United States496 Posts
Tsinghua and Beida are great universities and have, ofc, great teachers. But still you are too crap for now to learn at this kind of level so I guess you can first join a random Chinese class and then, decide. | ||
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MK
United States496 Posts
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
活而活力之活而活的有活感谢于护盾电池 | ||
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MK
United States496 Posts
Btw, yeah, Fudan is pretty good too. Still, Beida and Tsinghua are the top. (and HK is the richest) | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21244 Posts
On November 03 2009 13:32 MK wrote: The Shanghai World Universities Ranking is from where ? Tongji or Fudan ? Are you referring to the one by Jiaotong? | ||
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MK
United States496 Posts
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tarpman
Canada720 Posts
On November 02 2009 14:55 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: 圆 Is that a person standing in a room? | ||
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Orlandu
China2450 Posts
Most Chinese people probably aren't aware of that because they aren't the ones that take these kinds of classes, but the programs from university to university are very, very similar in terms of what is actually taught. When you're Chinese you don't get the same experience as a foreigner does (even if you're an ABC), and that's something that really should be accounted for. I can see just from the previous few posts that a lot of importance is placed on what schools are famous or well-known, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have anything more to offer to a foreigner learning Chinese. For example, I know people who have spent a long time studying at Shandong University, Peking University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, as well as universities in Shanghai. Some students have been to all of those and/or more. They all used the same textbooks. They all learned the same things. Going purely by the university, those in Beijing and Shanghai would be expected to have become much better at Chinese than those in Shandong and other places, however it was actually the opposite that was true. Those in Shandong learned Chinese much quicker and faster because of the outside environment. In fact I asked someone who had studied in all three cities where he felt he learned the most, and he said without a doubt Shandong, specifically for the reason that it's much more immersive there and you HAVE to see and speak Chinese much more than you do in Beijing or Shanghai. And so he became quite fluent in 6 months, whereas other students spent a year or more in bigger cities and were nowhere near his level. Of course there are other factors at play that cannot be ignored, and maybe this student in particular was a special exception, but the situation is interesting nonetheless. Those of you that insist that Beijing is hands-down the best place to learn Chinese, let me ask you why, exactly? What reasons do you have? And this isn't an attack or anything, but I'm well aware that most of the people replying here are Chinese or at least not foreigners to Asia, and thus most likely have not ever been in any of these programs and learned Chinese in quite different ways than most foreigners would. So I'm just curious what some of your reasons are and whether or not people really know much about what it's like for a foreigner to learn Chinese or if they're just going off of what they think they know. I think a discussion like this is beneficial to the OP, however it seems very few people here actually have the personal experience that the OP might end up going through. Remember, if you're Chinese, your experiences are and always will differ greatly from that of a foreigner in China, and you can't forget that. This is of course all assuming that he's only going to learn Chinese. If he's getting some kind of other degree as well, then that changes things and universities in Beijing and Shanghai would be a very obvious first choice. Just don't make the mistake of automatically equating a good school with a good Chinese program for foreigners. And just a disclaimer: it sounds like I'm really putting some pressure on Beijing and Shanghai, and that I believe that these are bad places. That's not the case, I believe that these are great places, both for learning Chinese and just for visiting in general. It's no secret however that many people have their biases, especially for a city like Beijing (I have a bit of bias for Beijing myself, as much as that may not seem evident in my posts). I'm simply trying to be objective about the situation and offer some information that I've picked up and learned from others to help the OP make an unbiased decision. | ||
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Pieguy314
Canada262 Posts
no. By your description a man standing inside a room should be "qiu4" or 囚 which means "imprison" | ||
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knadolny
3 Posts
Also I began studying the traditional characters than moved to simplified. If you want to learn both then do it. It will only help you, but traditional is not a must on the mainland (except for karaoke songs from Hong Kong and Taiwan) The Chinese government is thinking of going back and complicating the characters. If you study traditional now you might be a step a head. Now to your question: Where to study Chinese in China? I studied at Beijing Language and Culture University. I met my wife there and would not trade that experience for the world, but there are a few things to keep in mind. When you study in Beijing you need to have personal initiative to get out there and make Chinese friends. Many people just hang out with expats and their fellow "foreigners" in Beijing. Your Chinese will not improve your Chinese if you speak English all the time. That said I studied in Beijing and became immersed in the language and culture while in Beijing. I just hung out with Koreans, Japanese and Chinese who could not speak English. Famous schools for learning Chinese are worthless. If you tell me you studied Chinese at Peking University that means nothing. Their program is not so great from what I hear. There are many foreign universities that run Chinese learning programs at the famous universities in Beijing. This does not mean you're signing up for this program though. The price tag will tell you whether it's Chinese run or American run. Whether you study in Shandong, Chengdu, Harbin, Beijing, or Shanghai is all up to you. What do you want out of your time in China? Beijing is definitely a cultural hub with Shanghai being a financial/economic hub. If you want the hustle and bustle go to one of those cities. (all cities are basically bustling in China, but some more than others). As with anything in life, you will get out of China exactly what you put into it. You can find an alcove of foreigners in almost any city in China. At the same time you can also find a billion Chinese people all over the country. I loved my experience in Beijing, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for you. I hope this helps. Sorry to all the Taiwanese, HKers, and traditional Chinese learners that my book (see link) is in simplified Chinese. I'm considering a traditional Chinese version and will make one if I get enough demand. Cheers, Kevin www.capturingchinese.com | ||
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