Learning Chinese in Rural Australia - A Challenge and a half!

sharni
 December 13, 2007, 06:18 AM posted in General Discussion
Hi I am very very much a newbie - my boyfriend and I are moving to China next year (Shanghai or Beijing) to teach english. I am excited but we are both living in the 'bush' in Australia and feel so isolated when it comes to learning the language. I hope this will help!
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wildyaks
 December 13, 2007, 06:34 AM

Welcome both of you. This should help. It's a great place to learn Chinese and to help each other stay motivated.

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AuntySue
 December 13, 2007, 09:21 AM

Hi Sharni, I'm on the NSW Central Coast which isn't exactly out bush but it might as well be, I think it's an Asian-free-zone so it's almost impossible to find anyone who knows any Chinese without making a 2 hour journey to Sydney. You can learn Chinese this way, you just have to be more creative. Listen to the podcasts, over and over and over again, and don't try to speak until you've done a lot of listening. If your Internet connection is good enough, get onto Skype and make some language-exchange friends in China, preferably from a Mandarin-speaking area. You can do it all in the bush if you have Internet use, really! It's not much different. Even if Internet access might be difficult, so long as you've got some, there's lots of resources. And you've got each other, which is a lot more than I had, so don't worry, go for it, you'll be fine, and good luck!

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jennyzhu
 December 13, 2007, 11:30 AM

which neck of the woods are you?

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zacmoose
 December 16, 2007, 11:57 PM

Hi sharni, I am from Newcastle and have just come back from living in China for 2.5 years. Even just learning basic Chinese you will be able to get by easily, and be way ahead of most of the foreigners in my experience.