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An internet friend suggested that I move from Europe to Shanghai and find accomodation with him. He's living there currently but is unsure where he'll be in a few months time (ie he has to leave his accomodation and find somewhere new).
He suggested I start emailing companies with a photo of myself and an introduction saying I'm looking for work. I don't have a degree but I might be able to do the TEFL (teach english to foreign languages) course in time.
The air fare to Shanghai is ~500 so I might be able to afford it, especially if a company is willing to help me with visa and setting me up. Other than that I am dead broke, but have a few months to save up (I just got a 2nd job).
I found that I can apply for a potentially HUGE loan using a website like Zola. However, if I get approved then I will spend the majority of this on a surgery I need to have done.
Why this is a good idea:
+ I want to learn Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Spanish. I don't care about having a career and working my ass off doing the same dumb shit my whole life. All I want to do is travel, learn languages, and get money from teaching and translating.
+ I trust the guy and would love to try living with him.
+ The pay is good (if I get a job) and the lifestyle seems healthy.
My other options:
Another internet friend has offered to team up and share accomodation with me in England, when I get chucked out of my current accomodation (rennovations).
We're thinking about "going to the cheapest part of England" to live. I would get another job like reception or elderly care, and then pursue a Spanish language degree in the Open University. (Whether or not I will succeed is a different matter of course!).
 
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On July 23 2010 05:40 NickC wrote:
+ I want to learn Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Spanish. I don't care about having a career and working my ass off doing the same dumb shit my whole life. All I want to do is travel, learn languages, and get money from teaching and translating.
How old are you and what background do you have in languages?
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I'm 26 and have no background in languages (British native). I learnt hiragana recently because I was considering going to do a brick university degree in Japanese, but decided against it.
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TossFloss
Canada606 Posts
You need a four year university degree to legally work in China. In some cities you may need 2 years of work experience. There are sketch ways of getting around this but I recommend you stay legit.
If you want to live like a professional language student then go to some university to get a 4-year honours degree (preferably something related to what you want to do) with a teaching option. Not some McTESL certification - get a teaching qualification that allows you to legally teach in public schools in your country (here you do 1 year of teaching college - some university programs do the 1 year teachers college as part of the 4 year honours program).
Do what I recommend and many opportunities will open up for you. You can work for international schools which will pay western wages and treat you very well. With a 4 year degree you may apply to work for your country's foreign service which will get you postings all around the world.
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All I can say is be very careful when looking for a job. There are so many bad English teacher jobs in Shanghai especially if you are not extremely qualified. Shanghai is also very expensive so you need to plan well.
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Learning 4 languages is ridiculous. Especially when you are already 26 (no offense), it might take you a life time just to master one of those languages (maybe except Spanish, which from what I heard, is actually pretty simple).
Chinese (mandarin) and Japanese are simple in grammar but complicated to write. As you spoke only English for the last 26 years , you will have a lot of problems with phonetics as well (for manardin, it would be tones; Japanese is slightly easier in phonetics but you will run into other problems). Russian is pretty complicated in grammar, for example with noun cases (think French) and you will find Russian phonetics to be a complete nightmare with a lot of consonants stacked together.
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On July 23 2010 07:19 zulu_nation8 wrote:
All I can say is be very careful when looking for a job. There are so many bad English teacher jobs in Shanghai especially if you are not extremely qualified. Shanghai is also very expensive so you need to plan well.
Shanghai is very expensive? I suppose that largely depends on your lifestyle...
When I was there with my grandparents, there was this breakfast place across the street from their apartment. The food was great, and all four of us ate a full meal for the equivalent of like $4 USD.
Even the more expensive stuff in the huge malls is the equivalent of "normal pricing" here on the East coast of the United States.
Taxis might cost you quite a bit, and idk about housing, but your standard material purchases and food will cost less than they do in the US. I don't know how it compares to Europe, but I'd imagine it's similar?
Also, I'd imagine if you're a native English speaker, then you understand English better than 75% of the teachers in China.
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Shanghai is the most expensive city in China to live in. Housing is very expensive.
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Fuck money problems...I never wana grow up.
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Housing is very expensive in Shanghai, but the rest is quite cheap.
If you don't have a degree, you have no chance to get a working visa. Even with a relevant master degree for my position, it was very hard because I didn't have the 2 years experience. So I had to make a fake CV saying I only had a bachelor, and that I worked 2 years after my bachelor (had to make fake work certificate as well). You can eventually work undeclared, it's very common for english teachers, but if your company is a big language center, they will not accept.
Also, if you wanna learn mandarin efficiently, you have to take classes at university. It's like every morning but requires a lot of personal work at home in the afternoon, so you won't have much time to teach english.
GL~
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learn spanish first then japanese then chinese..
Spanish will give you better understanding of words with a lot of vocals (a e i o u), in spanish they always sound the same they dont change like english words (meet that sounds like meat), this also happens in japanese, so if you have good pronunciation in spanish you will have good pronunciation in japanese.
I know English cause i lived 2 years and a half in the US when i was 6 so English comes natural to me, i have a hard time writing now cause i barely write in English but after some minutes of speaking it, my brain just adapts.. I haven't had luck trying to learn more languages i had French but I hated it and Korean is still hard for me cause i dont organize myself to learn it. the Best you can do is go to a country and live it and learn the language there but its very hard to get a real grip of what you are saying without classes.... GL anyways..
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On July 23 2010 08:20 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Shanghai is the most expensive city in China to live in. Housing is very expensive.
Oh, well compared to other cities in China, then yeah, it's expensive.
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On July 23 2010 12:06 HeadhunteR wrote:
learn spanish first then japanese then chinese..
Spanish will give you better understanding of words with a lot of vocals (a e i o u), in spanish they always sound the same they dont change like english words (meet that sounds like meat), this also happens in japanese, so if you have good pronunciation in spanish you will have good pronunciation in japanese.
I know English cause i lived 2 years and a half in the US when i was 6 so English comes natural to me, i have a hard time writing now cause i barely write in English but after some minutes of speaking it, my brain just adapts.. I haven't had luck trying to learn more languages i had French but I hated it and Korean is still hard for me cause i dont organize myself to learn it. the Best you can do is go to a country and live it and learn the language there but its very hard to get a real grip of what you are saying without classes.... GL anyways..
There is no way OP can learn 3, let alone 2 (especially if one is an East Asian language or Russian) languages if he is already 26. I'm not saying learn a basic level, OP wants to communicate and translate. It is already very difficult to understand, read, speak, and write a new language proficiently (a bit easier with Spanish because OP knows English) in order to get by day-to-day things if you don't start early.
OP:
If it is really your passion to teach in China, go for it. You will like it if you like it. Focus on learning Chinese (and focus a LOT because Chinese is pretty fuckin hard for Westerners to learn), you definitely won't have time for Spanish or Japanese or any other language.
If it is your passion to study/work in a foreign place and do translation work, it would be MUCH easier to go for Spanish. The learning curve for English-speakers is a lot less steep than something like Chinese/Japanese/Russian. You will find yourself improving much faster, getting results, and getting somewhere in life.
In the end, everyone's gotta do the most they can to make themselves happy. So go for whatever. The point I'm trying to make is that people don't know whether going for a certain goal of theirs will make them happy or not, or whether they can even achieve that goal. That's why you should really think things through before making a decision.
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I agree with ieatkids5. The OP probably doesn't actually know how difficult it is to learn a new language.
This is kind of odd. I am sure in Britain they teach a seconary language in school (French or German?). He must have at least suffered through some of those before.
Who knows? Maybe he is a genious.
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Keep in mind that teaching English in China pretty much requires that you know some Chinese. Not to mention that living there will be a pain in the ass if you don't know Chinese. I know people will say it's possible, but it's a lot harder, and you'll be like 100x more likely to get ripped off.
Chinese is probably the hardest language to learn in the world, maybe only rivaled by Arabic. It will probably take you at least a decade just to master the 5 tones. You'll have to invest a ridiculous amount of time, and if you're going to work as well, think of it as adding another full-time job.
I'm finishing up my summer here in Beijing, my first time actually living in China by myself. Since my ethnic background is Han Chinese, I can manage to speak the language at an acceptable level, which makes my life a hell of a lot easier. Reading/writing isn't too necessary, as you can always ask people if your spoken Mandarin is good enough.
As far as living expenses go, Shanghai should be slightly more expensive than Beijing. Keep in mind that the average Chinese college graduate makes about ~2000 RMB/month (that's like $300 USD). So although food/transportation here may be considered "cheap" by Western standards, it's definitely different when you consider how much locals make. Food will run you about ~40 RMB/day if you eat the cheapest fast food every day. 40 * 30 = 1200RMB. Commuting will probably run you another ~10 RMB/day, so there goes another 300RMB or so. Throw in rent, which is probably going to run you at least 3000RMB or so. This isn't even counting laundry, household expenditures, etc. China's a great place to visit, but actually living there and making a living is not easy.
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Getting a proper job in China is extremely difficult without a degree. All Chinese people have this weird mentality that education > everything else, and yes, that includes being white.
Also, as mentioned numerous times already, don't expect to just pick up the language casually, Chinese is much harder to learn than Japanese (since you claim you have some experience with it), though not impossible, getting around less populated parts of Shanghai with only English (where you will inevitably live due to monetary reasons) will be difficult.
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On July 23 2010 12:59 teh leet newb wrote:
Keep in mind that teaching English in China pretty much requires that you know some Chinese. Not to mention that living there will be a pain in the ass if you don't know Chinese. I know people will say it's possible, but it's a lot harder, and you'll be like 100x more likely to get ripped off.
Chinese is probably the hardest language to learn in the world, maybe only rivaled by Arabic. It will probably take you at least a decade just to master the 5 tones. You'll have to invest a ridiculous amount of time, and if you're going to work as well, think of it as adding another full-time job.
I think some of this information is inaccurate. I live and teach English in a Chinese city, and am required by contract not to use any Chinese in the classroom. I have teaching assistants who translate for me - as I teach a lot of young students and low-level classes. In more advanced classes, even this wouldn't even be necessary. Myself and most of the teachers in this city started our jobs with no Chinese at all. It simply isn't an issue. In an highly westernised place like Shanghai, it should be even less of an issue.
On the downside, Chinese is pretty hard. I think the difficulty of the tones if overrated if you take the time to learn them early on and ask what's the tone for each new word. The big problem is that there are so very few words which sound anything like their English equivalent, which is a big difference to European languages. Also, unless you are prepared to invest the huge amount of time and effort that is needed to read the characters (i.e study at university and work hard), you are left without anything to reinforce it. You don't find newspapers or novels in pinyin.
Finally, don't assume that teaching English is going to be some cushy job while you cruise around doing what you like with oodles of spare time. Most entry level jobs will work you damned hard, or screw you around or both. Though there are some who get lucky - see if your friend can sort you out.
Good luck!
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
yea teh leet newbs post is really informative . well acutally im not that sure about the rent part but it seems about right. ffffff how do people survive like that like even if ur splitting rent with some ppl maybe 1000-1500 per month and if ur salary is 3000 so ur left with 1500 then like you said around 40 for meals everyday then maybe wanna spend a bit on other stuff so ur left with only a few hundred rmb every month.
wtf
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17050 Posts
To address Russian, some of the sounds in Russian aren't found in Spanish or English languages. Russian grammar is also quite different from Spanish (and even farther away than English). If you've ever had any training in Latin it'll probably be easier, but Russian declines absolutely EVERYTHING, so if you're not used to declension, you're gonna have a ton of fun trying to express something in Russian.
As for Chinese, the grammar structure is probably even more different, but there aren't any special conjugation or declination rules (actually I don't think you have to conjugate much in Russian either, which is good. But in Mandarin there is absolutely NO conjugation). Tenses are pretty difficult, as intended meaning and tenses are generally dealt with by particles appended to words.
Reading and writing Russian is infinitely easier than reading/writing Chinese. The Cyrillic alphabet isn't difficult to learn (and a lot of it may seem familiar if you're familiar with greek). Chinese has no alphabet, so you'll have to memorize each character individually. There are cases of being able to deduce the pronunciations of certain words by the pronunciation-bit in each character, but it's not foolproof (for example, 上 is pronounced shang4, but 让 is pronounced rang4).
The tones and phonemes found in Chinese are also very dissimilar to anything in Western European and Germanic languages. For example, the difference between 新 (xin1) and 星 (xing1) is hard for westerners to duplicate. Some consonant-vowel combinations are also quite difficult. Many people have trouble with words like 睿 (rui4).
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white ppl in general have trouble with
r, q, x, z/zh, s/sh, c/ch, -n/ng, probably a few more...
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17050 Posts
On July 24 2010 02:05 Cambium wrote:
white ppl in general have trouble with
r, q, x, z/zh, s/sh, c/ch, -n/ng, probably a few more...
s/sh isn't that terrible (it appears in a lot of Western languages as well), but sh/x is just depressing.
EDIT: There are also different levels of difficulty with the 'r' sound. R followed by a/e/o are the easiest. I find people have a lot of trouble with 'ri' and 'rui'. It's sad and amusing at the same time.
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TossFloss
Canada606 Posts
On July 24 2010 01:03 alffla wrote:
yea teh leet newbs post is really informative . well acutally im not that sure about the rent part but it seems about right. ffffff how do people survive like that like even if ur splitting rent with some ppl maybe 1000-1500 per month and if ur salary is 3000 so ur left with 1500 then like you said around 40 for meals everyday then maybe wanna spend a bit on other stuff so ur left with only a few hundred rmb every month.
wtf
3000 is for a western standard bachelor or single-room apartment in the Beijing business core (Chaoyang district and Dongcheng district). Many locals either live in employer provided housing, with roomates, or in housing on the outskirts of the city and spend hours a day commuting on the subway lines.
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TossFloss
Canada606 Posts
On July 24 2010 02:10 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 02:05 Cambium wrote:
white ppl in general have trouble with
r, q, x, z/zh, s/sh, c/ch, -n/ng, probably a few more... s/sh isn't that terrible (it appears in a lot of Western languages as well), but sh/x is just depressing. EDIT: There are also different levels of difficulty with the 'r' sound. R followed by a/e/o are the easiest. I find people have a lot of trouble with 'ri' and 'rui'. It's sad and amusing at the same time.
Just hire a tutor. If you have the will to learn you can master syllable pronunciation in a year.
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17050 Posts
On July 24 2010 02:14 TossFloss wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 02:10 Empyrean wrote:On July 24 2010 02:05 Cambium wrote:
white ppl in general have trouble with
r, q, x, z/zh, s/sh, c/ch, -n/ng, probably a few more... s/sh isn't that terrible (it appears in a lot of Western languages as well), but sh/x is just depressing. EDIT: There are also different levels of difficulty with the 'r' sound. R followed by a/e/o are the easiest. I find people have a lot of trouble with 'ri' and 'rui'. It's sad and amusing at the same time. Just hire a tutor. If you have the will to learn you can master syllable pronunciation in a year.
Mandarin was my first language so I don't really worry about it 
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TossFloss
Canada606 Posts
On July 23 2010 12:59 teh leet newb wrote:
Keep in mind that teaching English in China pretty much requires that you know some Chinese. Not to mention that living there will be a pain in the ass if you don't know Chinese. I know people will say it's possible, but it's a lot harder, and you'll be like 100x more likely to get ripped off.
Almost all the foreign teachers I know who have lived in China for 2+ years can at best understand and use basic survival Chinese, but cannot hold a conversation and are otherwise illiterate. Schools do not want you to use Chinese in the classroom which may be explicitly stated in your contract.
Chinese is probably the hardest language to learn in the world, maybe only rivaled by Arabic. It will probably take you at least a decade just to master the 5 tones. You'll have to invest a ridiculous amount of time, and if you're going to work as well, think of it as adding another full-time job.
I masted the 5 tones after two years of living in China; that is I can speak and intuitively differentiate tones when listening. I agree that Chinese is a hard when compared to European languages, but it is not as difficult as you are making it out to be.
As far as living expenses go, Shanghai should be slightly more expensive than Beijing. Keep in mind that the average Chinese college graduate makes about ~2000 RMB/month (that's like $300 USD). So although food/transportation here may be considered "cheap" by Western standards, it's definitely different when you consider how much locals make. Food will run you about ~40 RMB/day if you eat the cheapest fast food every day. 40 * 30 = 1200RMB. Commuting will probably run you another ~10 RMB/day, so there goes another 300RMB or so. Throw in rent, which is probably going to run you at least 3000RMB or so. This isn't even counting laundry, household expenditures, etc. China's a great place to visit, but actually living there and making a living is not easy.
So after further networking and a year or two of resume experience you should easily be finding jobs that pay 10,000-20,000 RMB depending on how many hours you want to work.
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On July 24 2010 02:14 TossFloss wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 02:10 Empyrean wrote:On July 24 2010 02:05 Cambium wrote:
white ppl in general have trouble with
r, q, x, z/zh, s/sh, c/ch, -n/ng, probably a few more... s/sh isn't that terrible (it appears in a lot of Western languages as well), but sh/x is just depressing. EDIT: There are also different levels of difficulty with the 'r' sound. R followed by a/e/o are the easiest. I find people have a lot of trouble with 'ri' and 'rui'. It's sad and amusing at the same time. Just hire a tutor. If you have the will to learn you can master syllable pronunciation in a year.
Honestly, if you work hard at it, you'll learn the language. My high school added a Chinese class two years ago (or three? I don't remember) and quite a few people who had never heard Chinese before took it. Today, I can talk to some of them using some basic vocabulary, and not only do they understand me, but some of them are pretty damn good with their intonation.
EDIT: Of course, after you spend all your effort learning Mandarin, you have the issue of being in Shanghai. A lot of people there speak the Shanghai dialect, and while they also can speak and understand Mandarin, the occasional cab driver or someone will try to rip you off if you can only speak Mandarin.
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TossFloss
Canada606 Posts
On July 24 2010 02:25 DTK-m2 wrote:
EDIT: Of course, after you spend all your effort learning Mandarin, you have the issue of being in Shanghai. A lot of people there speak the Shanghai dialect, and while they also can speak and understand Mandarin, the occasional cab driver or someone will try to rip you off if you can only speak Mandarin.
People try to rip each other off all the time. It doesn't just happen to us foreigners. Chat up the cab driver with some small stalk. Ask about his family and let him know how much you enjoy China, he'll be less likely to cheat you if you try to establish a connection. But as always be guard. Know the route, distance, expected time; and know to spot fake currency.
Most people in Shanghai speaks Mandarin. You will have no problems practicing your Chinese while living in one of China's most economically developed cities.
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EPT
