Chinese Page

Kevin Munns

Chinese

And my advice about it

for what it’s worth...

Since I have been studying here for three years now, I thought it was about time I wrote something intellectual-sounding about learning Chinese.

A few things I hear a lot about learning Chinese, with a few words from me…

“I learned Spanish, French, Italian, Swahili and Timbuctooian, so I’m up for it…”

The difference between Chinese and other languages is that there is no alphabet. The words are, if you like, a series of small pictures.

“Forget all that funny chicken-feet food, I’m going to learn it here at home...”

I’ve mostly learned in China, but there are some reasons to stay in your own country and learn.

“All sounds a bit un-necessary to me, I’m just going to learn speaking and forget the writing…”

Given the agro of learning Chinese characters plenty of people try this.

“I’m going to kill two birds with one stone and relocate my job to the Beijing office”

Working and studying at the same time is something people do a lot, in all areas of life, I guess.

“I can’t be doing with all this poverty, I’m going to learn Chinese in Hong Kong…”

Nice idea, and if I could, believe me I would. Sadly, people from Hong Kong are famous here for having the worst Mandarin in China, and trained mainland teachers are in high demand over there, as I understand it. And it’s not the sort of place where you can try to pay a bit more than locals to get what you want. If you do that, you’ll go bust in weeks in Hong Kong.

“I’m going to get a job teaching English through the British Council and learn in my spare time…”

If you haven’t got any money and you want to teach English, then the British Council is a very stable and secure way to get into the country, with all the hassle of visas and bargaining with Chinese employers that goes with it. You’ll be teaching kids in a school, and not adults, but you won’t be shafted and left in a gutter one day, which is quite possible if you organise the whole thing yourself.

“I’m really motivated. I’m going to cut out some of the classes and get to advanced level in 6 months...”

Good luck. Sadly, only the Koreans seem to be able to learn the Chinese characters quickly, us poor Westerners are stuck with sitting it out through all of the levels.

This has several consequences. When you talk to someone in the street, and they teach you a new word for something, you have no idea how to write it down. Similarly, when you see a sign in the road, you have no idea how to read it, even if you have heard all the words before. And looking it up in a normal dictionary takes forever. (Almost all students have touch-screen entry electronic dictionaries.)

The result is that Chinese is very difficult at the beginning, but conversely becomes easier towards the end. This seems the opposite for most alphabet-based languages.

Another result is that writing and reading must be practiced every day. This is often very beneficial for other languages, but having a few days off from Chinese is usually a big disaster.

The end result is, I have found, that people who have learned a lot of languages before sometimes struggle more than those who are learning Chinese for a more specific reason. Not sure why, but completely different expectations might be one. You’ll be learning Chinese a good couple of years, for example, before you can look up a bus route and get on and off without any help from a Chinese person whatsoever. That’s certainly not true with European languages.

+ Some people are better at travel than others. Clearly, if you could be upset by living in a city of 10 million people without a single outlet selling cheese, then maybe China’s not the place. (Chinese people often hate cheese, by they way.) The least able to adapt seem to be the Japanese. The toilets in Japan might be spectacular, but that’s not good preparation for Chinese public toilets, especially when Chinese food hygiene probably means you are going to need them a lot.

+ I would very strongly recommend starting Chinese study at home, usually as an evening/weekend class. Progress will be slow, especially if there is only one class once per week, but gosh, at least you have some idea of what to expect when studying full time. Sadly, some discover that it’s just not for them. Better to find out early. Not least of all, if you use Chinese in your job later, you need to know how to combine keeping your Chinese up whilst working at the same time. An evening course while you are working back at home would be invaluable preparation for this.

- To list bad aspects is difficult, as I have mostly learned Chinese over here. But then maybe that’s the point, progress is unbelievably slow when learning back at home, especially while working at the same time. Needless to say, its obviously difficult to get exposed to the way people use their culture to communicate, which over here is quite different. Bargaining is one of the key language skills, and that’s got to be impossible to learn in the UK or the US.

- Lastly, the more I speak English, the less I remember Chinese. Not difficult to see why that’s a bad aspect of studying back at home, and a very good reason to go to China.

- I don’t think this is a very good idea for learning Chinese, however. Chinese simply requires so much attention and memory, and it must be impossible to have enough energy left at the end of the day to give your best hours to sorting out the minute differences between characters that is needed. Not only that, but daily practice is even more crucial than it is in other languages. In my opinion, and anyone with a half-decent job will have short periods where they are just snowed under with work. I think working and studying Chinese is best left until you have already reached the level you want, and you just want to keep it going at the same level in your spare time.

- Lastly, Chinese people are geniuses at forcing you to speak English even when you try to insist on practicing Chinese. It’s a very long time before your Chinese is so good that they are too embarrassed to speak to you in English and can only make their point easily in Chinese. If you were already at that stage, you probably wouldn’t have read this page all the way down to here. Given that, it’s best to give up the idea of ‘learning on the job’.

- The disadvantage, from the point of view of learning Chinese, is that you are a very expensive person to have around in a Chinese school. You can expect to be working very very hard indeed. If you have time off at all, then you can also expect some cleverly organised office arrangements which mean that other teachers can easily sit and chat to you in your ‘spare time’. No, they won’t be teaching you Chinese for free. Obviously, learning Chinese in this environment is a challenge at best, at worst impossible.

- Given that the salary for being an English teacher is very comfortable by local standards, the obvious answer is to teach part-time. The difficulty is the visa. A school will only go to the trouble, and cost, of getting you a visa if you are full time.

This all makes enrolling at a university, on a student visa, by far the most convenient way in and out of the whole situation. The disadvantage, of course, is the school fee. The advantage is that afterwards all your education is included, you get a residence permit which means you can come and go as you please, and, depending on the course, enough spare time to get some teaching in.

You may have noticed one glitch - that teaching in this situation is illegal. Now, whether or not that is an advantage or a disadvantage is merely a matter of opinion…

While we’re on the subject…

I know this is not the topic of the page, but it seems like a good place to mention some things about teaching English.

On the minus side teaching English on a tourist or student visa carries the obvious risk of deportation. However, given that almost all of the teachers I know are teaching illegally, and they are in short supply here in Chengdu, I hardly think it’s in the interest of Chinese people for stories to pop up of foreign teachers without the correct papers being led onto airplanes in handcuffs. My view is that if you keep it to yourself and don’t go blabbing it around then no-one says anything. You’ll soon be teaching the kids of Government officials anyway, and before you know it the back door is wide open.

There is one big advantage of working illegally. You can chop and change jobs as much as you like. This turns the table of market forces back on the owners of teaching schools, and they have to look after you, at least a little bit, or you will bugger off. This is totally untrue if they provide your working visa. If you want to change jobs you have to find a new company, then go home, as I understand it, to apply for a new visa with the new company in their embassy in your own country. That stacks the market forces well and truly in their favour, and how on earth that can be described as a stable job is beyond me.

There are a few other important points about teaching English. Firstly, companies like to see a CELTA certificate. However, it’s unlikely that you will use any of the skills that you learned on it, at least not if you are teaching English on the side to companies that organise ‘oral courses’. The last thing they want is someone dissecting the past conditional imperfect for an hour to paying customers. I did a really good CELTA course, at International House in London, to the cost of over a thousand pounds. So far, the classes in which I used the stuff from the CELTA amount to 100 pounds in earnings. Not much of a return when you think about it. If I did it again then I would do a cheap internet CELTA, and whether the certificate looks a bit fake or not, who cares. Once you’ve been teaching for a few months, experience counts for far more than training anyway, and becomes irrelevant.

Lastly, Chinese people can be surprisingly prejudiced, which a lot of the time is just pure racism. To teach English you really need to come from one of the six native-speaking countries. This is sad, because Chinese people’s English is so bad, that frankly most people could help them out. This aspect is just snobbery, to be honest, but it does make it difficult for Germans and Dutch people to get a job, which really shouldn’t be the case.

One difficult point is people from the US, UK, etc whose parents come from China. We know full well that they are American, etc, through and through, but Chinese talk about how they have ‘Chinese blood’, and for some bizarre reason this means that their English can’t be very standard. Very sad, and, like I say, based almost entirely on racism, of one variety or other. If there is one piece of good news, it’s that black people who come from the US or the UK don’t seem to have any problem finding work. Thank-goodness for small mercies.

+ Living in China is cheap. Since Chinese takes a long time to learn properly, low living costs is a big plus. Not only that, but native English speakers really shouldn’t have any trouble making ends meet. Teaching might be illegal on a student visa, but as long as you don’t brag about it, no-one cares.

+ Learning at a university in China will mean you will be taught using Chinese characters very early, and lose the pinyin, roman letters, quicker too. Since this is the thing that most Westerners struggle with, this is another big plus of studying in a university over here.

- People who teach Chinese, however, tend to be very, how should I say, Chinese. It seems to be much how my parents experienced school nearly 60 years ago. The teacher will talk. You will listen. You will respect the teacher. If you have to ask questions it probably means you are stupid or you weren’t listening. Needless to say, this doesn’t suit everybody. As a result, I have learned most of my oral Chinese by myself. I’ve usually had a tutor, or a language partner, most of the time. Of course, all this, then, depends on your own effort and motivation, which everybody has different amounts of. It’s not surprising that people sent by their parents to study here don’t usually do very well.

- Another small drawback is that the number of foreigners in China is still not big, even now. Therefore, there are enough Professors of Chinese around to use them to teach foreigners. Can you imagine that happening in a language school in Tottenham Court Road in London? I doubt it. The result is that they sometimes aren’t aware that ordinary people don’t know half of the vocabulary that they do, and if you tried to use it while negotiating the price of bananas you’re not going to get anywhere. Once again, sorting this out takes your own initiative, and is a very poor aspect of the education programmes in China.

- One last negative is one that’s not very easy to talk about. As ever, even though it will upset people, I’ll say it anyway. You have been warned:

When boys come to China, it’s like being a celebrity. Some boys seem to enjoy this aspect more than others, but either way there seems to be no end of Chinese girls hanging around and trying to cling-on for whatever reason. Age, good or bad looks, seem to make no difference. Actually, this gets quite tedious after a while, but not at the beginning.

Why should this be listed as a bad point?

I’ve never really asked a Western girl what she makes of all this, but whether it’s related to this or not, not many seem to stay for long periods of time. Unfortunately it’s not often the same in reverse. Chinese boys, lets face it, are pretty damn skinny. Having a girlfriend with shoulders twice as wide as yours takes some nerve. Not only that, but the tall, slightly handsome boys (who are educated enough to speak English) have Chinese girls throwing themselves at them.

An American girl last semester told me she was really worried that Chinese girls (ie, my girlfriend) are just trying to steal our money. She’d missed the point. 1. They try to steal Chinese boys’ money as well. 2. Even if they are, most Western boys don’t care, since they’re worth every penny.

Like I said, not easy to read, but in my opinion it’s a big, unspoken, factor in people’s experience of living in China, especially for young people.

- Firstly, there is a big difference between Mandarin Chinese and most people’s local language, (dialect). Dialects are pretty strong here in Sichuan. Our Vocabulary teacher summed it up by saying that if he gets in his car and drives 2 hours out of Chengdu, when he gets out he already can’t understand what ordinary local people are talking about. I can certainly confirm the difficulty of talking to my girlfriend’s family, from a city 3 hours away, famous for having unitelligable local language. Why is this important? Foreigners who learn ‘Chinese’ by ‘making friends with and chatting to local people’ inevitably end up learning something which sounds more like a farmer talking rather than a businessman. Fine while you are buying fruit in your local market, but won’t cut it on a business trip to the next big city. Some people think learning in Beijing might be better, but think again. People outside Beijing can’t stand people from the capital coming to their town and trying to ram Beijing dialect down their throat.

- Another aspect is that people from different areas really do use the Chinese characters for communicating, even orally sometimes. I’ve lost count of the number of times a shop owner has tried to write a character in the condensation on a freezer to explain his point, and when Chinese people talk to each other they often compare similar words with one character the same, to make sure the meaning is clear to the listener.

- Lastly, being unable to read Chinese is not like a Spanish tourist not being able to read English in London, but actually like a British person being unable to read or write at all in London. This has a big impact. To research a route and get the bus without being able to read or write is almost completely impossible, unless you have someone Chinese with you. Needless to say, most foreigners you see in China are either walking for hours everywhere, or are being led round by a guide/friend/girlfriend/hanger-on etc. “Like being led round by a nurse” as someone abusively said to my girlfriend once, when we were holding hands. Learning some local dialect won’t change this too much.

Not only that, but in Hong Kong, as in Taiwan, the characters they use are different. About 25% of them are old-style, or more complicated basically, than the equivalent characters from the mainland. Believe me, learning the easy ones is enough of a job, don’t give yourself a thrombosis trying to be a hero.

OK, I’m going to be completely honest again, and yes, some people will like it, but some people won’t. You have been warned again:

Americans are really confident students, and are generally really good at learning oral Chinese, much much better than most of the East Asians.

However, when they first arrive in China, having studied a little bit in the USA, they have an astounding level of over-confidence, and an unshakable belief that they are more able than all the other students. The result is, on several occasions now, I’ve met Americans who have put themselves in completely inappropriate classes, and sadly have performed shockingly in the end-of term tests, and stand out in the class as being totally incapable. The truth is, they are just as good as all the others, and they are motivated, but their unbelievable confidence just means they are in the wrong group.

Chinese reading and writing takes time, and there aren’t any shortcuts, unfortunately.

When you ask the Koreans, by the way, about why they are so good at writing, they deny having studied any before, say that Koreans have no advantage over others in learning Chinese, and leave the only conclusion that they must be some kind of advanced genius super-race, or genetically predisposed to learning Chinese from birth. Liars. Almost all Koreans learn some Chinese characters at school, and their entire language is based on it, even if they do have a phonetic system for writing it down now. They’ll beat you in the HSK exam, but don’t worry, even with a white face you’ll be the one talking the arse off the fruit seller to get bananas cheaper than them.

“There’s nothing like ‘being in the country’ for getting stuck into a language… ”

I have enjoyed being at University in China but there are both advantages and disadvantages.

Wow, that was one hell of a rant, even by normal standards...

I have studied at a few different places since starting, so it might be worth writing a sentence of two about them, with a couple of links…

My very first classes were at SOAS, on a Saturday morning. This was a very mixed bag to say the least. The good aspects were that great feeling that I was going back to University again, meet new people, get a library card, etc etc. Another was the big choice of classes, which if you signed up early meant a lot of flexibility. The bad side was that all of the students gave up. Of 24 at the beginning (2 classes of 12), only two people were left to start the third unit. And that was the end of that.

My stroke of luck at SOAS was being put in the class of Weisan Hu, the wife of David Su, who runs the Meridian Chinese Studies Centre. Although a small school, David Su has really cracked how to teach Chinese to Westerners, and nearly three years after leaving his course, I still rely on the core grammar that he taught using his TDR approach, even now. For anyone living in the London area, this is a must.

After travelling for a while, half in China, I went to BLCU in Beijing. I had a great time, and have written a separate page on it. Click here for my BLCU page, or click above for the website of the University.

After that, I came to Sichuan, to try mixing teaching with learning independently. Doesn’t work for long though, I found. You end up losing your way a bit, and importantly, with no-one else to compare with, you lose track of what your strengths and weaknesses are. You really need to participate in a class of people roughly at your level. So…

… after six months I enrolled at Sichuan University. I started in 2009, and am due to finish in 2012. The programme at Sichuan Uni might be a bit old-fashioned, but the selling point here is Chengdu, not the university. Beijing gets on your nerves after a while, but I could live here (almost) forever. The food is so good I started to get fat again. In Chengdu you can live for almost nothing, and when you miss home, there are plenty of Western places to provide your comforts. That’s what I realised was important, since Chinese takes years, I’ll have to get used to being here for a while. I have also written a page about the uni, for good measure…

Well, that got that off my chest anyway. At least I can write what I like at this point, safe in the knowledge that no-one managed to read all that dross down to here…

But I’m still not finished.

Oh my goodness, he’s still going…

I’ve got cash, I need a quick intensive course to fit in with my career plan.

1. Start with an evening / weekend course at home for at least 6 months or a year to find out what you’re getting into.

2. Go to the Intensive School of Study (30 hours per week course) at BLCU in Beijing for at least one, but preferably two years. That’s years, not semesters. Remember, even after one year of doing this, with no English teaching on the side, you will still need an interpreter when you do important business.

I’m broke, but I really want to learn Chinese properly.

1. Still start with an evening course at home, you will be much better prepared for the big change in environment which will hit you in China.

2. Settle in for the long-haul. Find a city that you like here in China, and get ready for a full course from scratch, which takes about 4 years mostly. After travelling in 2007, I decided that Chengdu in Sichuan, or Kunming in Yunnan would be great places to go and live. I’ve spoken to a few others that found these places very friendly for foreigners as well.

3. Get a (reasonably) real CELTA certificate from somewhere, and set yourself up for some illegal business on the side. Don’t get in with the ‘Expat Chillout Nightclub Crowd’, as you’ll piss your wages up the wall (literally) in no time.

4. Clearly to get all this going you need to have a teeny bit of spare cash in the bank, mainly for your school fees, but if you leave home with all your school fees in the bank you shouldn’t have any major problem.

Has he finished?

No. Cash Considerations

· School Fees are your biggest hit. BLCU Intensive School was huge, 20,000 RMB per semester give or take, and then my accommodation was about 13,000 on top. I spent about 100 RMB cash per day as well. I honestly can’t remember what I bought for that, but none-the-less that’s what I got through. Clearly, for two years of that, you are going to need some savings.

· Here in Sichuan it’s a lot more pedestrian. The school fees are 8250 RMB per semester, although the class hours are a lot less, obviously. I don’t know what the student dorm costs, but the rent outside can be pretty cheap. I pay 1200 RMB per month for a 48sqm place inside the first ring-road. My girlfriend did help me with the bargaining for this though, which involved hiding in a fire equipment cupboard for half-an-hour to pretend we weren’t interested, which I’m sure made a difference. Despite my efforts to be more frugal, I still get through about 2000 RMB per month on food and bits and bobs. I still have no idea where it all goes… The above doesn’t include some things, like flights home, visa fees, and the 1400 RMB I spend on a new bike when it gets stolen, which so far has happened three times.

· Teaching English, for a good candidate, should get you between 120 to 150 RMB per hour here in Chengdu, Sichuan. I know that a lot of native speakers are very strict about 150 RMB per hour now, and they still get plenty of work. However, you can learn a lot about doing business in China while negotiating with / getting shafted by the owners of teaching schools. The things to watch out for are huge travel distances, which they will happily tell bare-faced lies about, and giving ‘oral classes’ to people who can’t speak at all. They need a textbook, and all the skills that a good CELTA course could ever give you to teach them. As long as you view being ‘done over’ as part of your education though, you’ll be fine.

I wish I’d never asked now...

Yes I am. Summary. What I would do if it were up to me…