Job Discussion Forums

[pelsaert]

Hey Guys.

Firstly, I realise this might be an old topic but I couldn't find any significant posts in the past, so I'm giving it a shot.

I'm a recent graduate planning my first ESL venture to Taiwan soon. I was wondering if anyone has stories / advice about learning Mandarin. I actually did a semester of Mandarin in college (in Australia) a few years back, but I didn't find the environment great, plus it was hard to timetable. That said I've always wanted to go back and learn Mandarin. I'm thinking about taking an intensive course for a few months at one of the universities and teach on the side or in evenings, before moving to more 'full time' ESL teaching.

Does anyone have any advice or stories about how they've gone learning
Mandarin? Any thoughts on striking a balance between making money and studying?

It would be somewhat helpful for me to decide on a course of action in advance, because lots of the university programs require significant advance booking.

P.S. I have the rather ambitious goal of fluency in a few years

Thanks in advance,
Thomas

[CWanders]

I've been carrying out a similar plan to what you've described. I teach a full time buxiban schedule (24 hours/week) and take 10 hours of Mandarin classes/week at ShiDa (http://mtc.ntnu.edu.tw/).

If you're serious about learning Mandarin (and not just taxi and food vocab) classes are a must. I came to Taiwan 9 months ago and met lots of people who hoped to just "pick up" the language. None of them have.

However, I've found working full time and taking classes to be exhausting. And, when you're constantly exposed to germ-ridden small children daily, exhaustion = near constant illness.

I strongly suggest applying for the many government sponsored scholarships for studying Mandarin: http://www.studyintaiwan.org/taiwan-scholarship/taiwan_scholarship.htm
Then, you can tutor (illegally) on the side for pocket-money. Once you're enrolled in a program, it's harder to apply for scholarships, as many of them are designed to attract students to Taiwan.

Alternatively, I'd suggest working a lot of hours for a year while saving as much as possible, and then taking a year of the intensive (3 hours/day) classes at a program like ShiDa'a Mandarin Training Center. The tuition itself is incredibly cheap, it's mainly living expenses that you'd need to save for.

Or, a less intensive, but ultimately slower method of approaching studying, is to take classes through private institutes like TLI (http://www.tli.com.tw/) or CEC (http://www.wcla.org.tw/)
I was pretty unimpressed by TLI and feel that the quality of instruction offered by universities' Mandarin training centers is much higher. But, they offer more flexible scheduling and I have heard of some people having success with private tutoring.

Anyway, just my thoughts on the subject of balancing teaching and studying.

[pelsaert]

Thanks for the reply, CW.

Yeah, I've been concerned about how difficult it must be to balance an intensive university course and full time work. I'm impressed that you manage it! congrats!.

I'm really tempted to try the full time buxiban / intensive university idea, despite the warnings

I've been leaning towards taking private TLI tuition (or maybe just finding a good private tutor) for ~10 hours per week while teaching full time and saving. I guess I should be able to learn to speak fairly well doing that, and then in a year or two do a full-time intensive course aimed at learning characters / grammar.

Have you made much progress with your current schedule? I'm thinking you might still be able to save plenty of money that way - you're obviously not going to have any time to blow your cash on booze or computer games!

[SEndrigo]

Hey man,

Let me just tell you as a guy who speaks five languages and is on the way to learning his sixth (Chinese)...

Chinese is not a language you can hope to pick up, as CWanders pointed out.

I'm actually pretty good at learning Chinese characters, as I know Japanese, but even at that, it doesn't take the place of good old fashioned work ethic.

But even besides work ethic...what it really takes is making Chinese a part of you. What I mean by this is that it's not even enough to take a Chinese course at ShiDa or TLI and be forced to do homework. It literally has to BECOME a part of you.

When you wake up in the morning, you gotta be thinking in Chinese. When you look at your furniture, you have to be thinking about how to say "sofa" in Chinese. When you talk to people, you have to engage them in Chinese.

There has to be a very good reason for learning Chinese, or you won't.

I saw people all the time in Japan who had been there for 15+ years and couldn't speak a lick of Japanese. Nothing against them, it just wasn't important for them.

So I think that's the key, when learning a language, you have to have a passion for it, and have it become a part of you

Anyway, regarding TLI, I've actually enrolled to study 3 hours a day at TLI in Taipei...I'll be there in two weeks so I can let you know what I think about it once I get there.

[SEndrigo]

By the way Thomas, fluency in a few years is very attainable...I've been learning Chinese for a few months now and I know hundreds and hundreds of characters...of course knowing Japanese also helped me, but learning the pronunciation of Chinese characters is another story...

Especially because in Chinese literally everything sounds the same at first

You gotta love it though, IMO Chinese is hands down the most logical language in the world...

[markholmes]

[jotham]

For me, there is no training better than making friends with a native speaker who doesn't know English (and has little interest in learning it.)
I learned Korean through an intensive year and a half course (6 hours a day) before arriving in Korea. Though it gave me a solid base, it didn't render me a fluent speaker (or listener).
I also find that doing language exchanges with natives who speak English doesn't work. You end up practicing what Korean or Chinese you already know and using English to get around the hard obstacles you have yet to master because it's convenient and doesn't waste everyone's time.
Not only that, native speakers familiar with English syntax will recognize that syntax when applied to Chinese and give you the mistaken impression that you're communicating in Chinese better than you really are. Your English-ignorant friends won't. They will be your best barometer of real progress.
I've observed this in both Korea and Taiwan.

[Tiger Beer]

For those learning Mandarin, was it much easier or more difficult than say Korean or Japanese?

I've heard grammar is REAL easy with Mandarin, but how about mastering a tonal language.

[SEndrigo]

I don't know Korean but I do know Japanese...I'd say learning Mandarin has its own set of difficulties. I don't think one is more difficult than the other.

I'd say listening to Japanese is way easier, because there are no tones. But Chinese grammar is easier. In Japanese there are less characters overall, but each one has 3 or 4 readings, whereas in Chinese there are more characters used but each one usually only has 1 reading.

Let me just put it this way...neither one is easy, but learning them is something really rewarding.

For me, I prefer Chinese over Japanese...but I am sure other people have different opinions about this.

[SEndrigo]

[jotham]

I think that conversing in Chinese (after getting the tones down) is the easiest of the languages because the grammar is most similar to English. I converse pretty well in Chinese (and could at one time in Korean), but it seems easier to be chatty in Chinese. And don't fret about the tones; it's only an issue at first...and there's only four.
Japanese and Korean grammar are very alike. As I'm learning Japanese, I find that though the vocabulary is easily at my disposal when talking with people, I often have to pause and ponder a while for the correct phrasing and grammar (while my listener awaits) � which was the case when I was learning Korean as well. But then again, my Japanese speaking is still unpracticed.
From a reading point of view, Korean might have an advantage in that it employs a strictly phonetic alphabet. But the grammar still renders it troublesome. I wouldn't say that Chinese reading is difficult per se, but rather time consuming: once the characters are grasped, I still find it easier reading than Korean.

[ghost]

[TaoyuanSteve]

[ghost]

[markholmes]

I just want to clarify that my original comment was taken out of context by SEngrigo. What i said was: