Studying Chinese in Beijing this summer!!!

baideni
April 15, 2010, 11:07 PM posted in General Discussion

Dear fellow Chinesepod users, I need your advice and suggestions.

Starting next month, I will be studying Chinese in Beijing for the whole summer. These classes will count towards my degree back home in Canada. My university offers four different levels of Chinese classes and I am currently finishing my level 2. In order for me to graduate in time, I'll need to take Chinese level 4 next year. So basically, this summer I have to cover all the material we would see in level 3!!

Now I kind I need helping finding a strategy for getting the most out of my learning experience in Beijing. I know that learning a language is a slow process but do you guys have any suggestions or ideas on the approach I should take to learn a lot of Chinese in only three months?

Any help would be really appreciated,

Denis

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pretzellogic
April 15, 2010, 11:21 PM

don't know what is covered in your various levels, or how much Chinese you're talking about in a level 3 during the summer. If I had to guess at your requirements, it would be that you're talking about a 2 semester program over the summer, where 1 semester = 16 weeks @ 3 hours per week. So it sounds like you're talking about 96 class hours worth of Chinese for a summer. You didn't say how long this summer program in Beijingis, but if its 8 weeks, then you're going to need to do 96 hours of Chinese in 8 weeks, so thats about 12 hours a week. At 5 days a week, you're talking about 2.5 hours a day.

The above is just for LEARNING new Chinese, not the necessary review/study/consolidation/exercise time. There should also be time to speak, since you're in Beijing. Add 3 hours per day for that. so you're up to 5.5 hours per day, 5 days per week.

Looks like a full time job, so just go to 8 hour days studying Chinese. Doable, but you'd really better be focused on your studies.

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baideni

Hey pretzellogic, thanks for the reply. I apologize for not being specific with the classes details. You are right, our level 3 in Canada is 2 semesters of intensive Chinese, 8 hours a week so thats roughly 96 hours a semester.

The intensive program I registered to in Beijing is actually 30 hours of class time per week. I am staying there 12 weeks so thats over 360 hours of chinese in one summer (haha I can count). So thats 360 hours in 3 months versus 192 hours a year (2 semesters) in Canada.

And yes, this will be my full time summer job. I really need to spend the time learning and practicing. Besides putting a lot of time in to it, do you think there is a way for me to be more efficient?

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pretzellogic

Yeah, I would try shadowing (thanks Simonpettersson). I've done it the way Professor Arguelles recommends, and it gets you to the point of pronunciation and speaking clearly pretty efficiently. But man, it is intense! it's a challenge to do shadowing for 15 minutes, let alone an hour,, but I understand you can get good at it and move up the efficiency curve. Even better, you can start with cpod lessons on shadowing right now to start moving up the efficiency curve.

I agree with zhonge below as well. Practice speaking with every Chinese where it makes sense. Avoid other foreigners, as it's too easy to fall into English. One suggestion is that taxi drivers typically don't know a lot of Chinese, so take taxis if you can afford it. Avoid tourist spots, since that's where English speaking Chinese hang out. .

http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Shadowing

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baideni

thanks, I'll look into that

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pretzellogic

One more thing. If you haven't already shelled out the bucks for an iPod Touch or iPhone, I would recommend you do so. An iPod Touch is a very handy tool all around, but especially handy for shadowing with cpod lessons, and using Study Arcade as well.

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zhonge
April 15, 2010, 11:33 PM

If your current level allows it, my suggestion would be to try to quickly make friends that don't speak English and go out socializing with them, whilst avoiding spending too much time with English speaking folks. This tactics did wonders for my listening skills in particular.

Oh and also - If you haven't really spent time in China before, you'll be surprised at how much worse your Chinese is than you thought it was... But don't be put off!

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baideni

Hi Zhonge, thank a lot for answering back to my post. I've been to China before and I already know that my Chinese is really bad. Last time I went, I wasn't really motivated in learning a lot, all I wanted to do was travel around and have a good time.

However, this summer my objective is to learn as much as I can. I remember last time I had a hard time practicing with people my own age because they wanted to improve their english. Maybe I should spend more time talking with the elderly. On top of that, english is my second language so I guess I could use that as an excuse not to use it.

My problem with chinese is that we learn so much in textbooks and I hardly have the chance to put it at use.

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baideni
April 15, 2010, 11:48 PM

Hey pretzellogic, thanks for the reply. I apologize for not being specific with the classes details. You are right, our level 3 in Canada is 2 semesters of intensive Chinese, 8 hours a week so thats roughly 96 hours a semester.

The intensive program I registered to in Beijing is actually 30 hours of class time per week. I am staying there 12 weeks so thats over 360 hours of chinese in one summer (haha I can count). So thats 360 hours in 3 months versus 192 hours a year (2 semesters) in Canada.

And yes, this will be my full time summer job. I really need to spend the time learning and practicing. Besides putting a lot of time in to it, do you think there is a way for me to be more efficient?

Profile picture
baideni
April 15, 2010, 11:55 PM

Hi Zhonge, thank a lot for answering back to my post. I've been to China before and I already know that my Chinese is really bad. Last time I went, I wasn't really motivated in learning a lot, all I wanted to do was travel around and have a good time.

However, this summer my objective is to learn as much as I can. I remember last time I had a hard time practicing with people my own age because they wanted to improve their english. Maybe I should spend more time talking with the elderly. On top of that, english is my second language so I guess I could use that as an excuse not to use it.

My problem with chinese is that we learn so much in textbooks and I hardly have the chance to put it at use.