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Marin Brickle
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Guilin is where I spent my own budget study abroad in China. Nestled in the ancient Karst mountains of Guangxi province in the south of China, it's a veritable Eden for language learning. Guilin has a larger population than the city of Washington, DC -- however, it a small city by Chinese standards, and it's relatively unknown compared to the giants of Shanghai and Beijing.
Located just a few blocks from Guangxi Normal University is the Chinese Language Institute, a highly-acclaimed Mandarin school run by two American brothers, that has taught everyone from college students to UN ambassadors. It's a great option for language learners of any age.
Maintaining a low cost of living is the responsibility of the student, but very doable. You are there to learn Chinese, though, and Shanghai delivers again, with some of the best universities and language schools in the whole country. With tons of language schools to choose from and language exchanges throughout the city, it'll be easy to learn Chinese and stick to your budget.
If you're still in college, you can either directly enroll in one of these genuinely world-class universities, or take your pick from our list of study abroad programs in Shanghai and tailor it to fit your budget. The CET Program is especially good -- and did we mention CET executive director Mark Lenhart has contributed his thoughts on the importance of language study on Go Overseas's articles before?
According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) scale, it will take English speakers 88 weeks (2,200 hours of active learning) to reach native/bilingual Chinese proficiency. Chinese is one of the 5 languages which is most challenging to learn for native English speakers.
Japanese and Korean speakers may have an advantage here, since these languages evolved around each other and are both character-based languages. But no one has a huge advantage: even speakers of other Asian or character-based languages will still need to put in the hours to learn Chinese.
Usually, students who study the Chinese language after one year can reach HSK 4 level certificate. On the other hand, students who go to Chinese classes every day and spend 4 to 5 hours studying can reach HSK 5 level certificate. It usually takes students a year and a half to reach HSK 6 because the gap between HSK 5 and 6 is pretty big.
But "Chinese" actually refers to a family of languages, of which the most widely spoken are "Mandarin" and "Cantonese". This has many new potential Chinese learners asking themselves: Mandarin vs. Cantonese, what's the difference? And which one should I learn?
In this article, we'll be tackling the differences between Mandarin and Cantonese and the dialect you should learn. We'll also guide you towards the best way to learn Chinese.
The two most widely spoken dialects are Mandarin and Cantonese. They both use the same characters and learning one makes it much easier to learn the other ... but the pronunciation is completely different.
In fact, the differences between the two dialects is that they are so significant, that it's been hotly debated whether or not they should be considered separate languages rather than simply two dialects of an umbrella Chinese language. The two are not even mutually intelligible by native speakers of either.
Mandarin is now the official language in China and Taiwan and is used by most of the Chinese schools, colleges and universities, as well as their TV programs, movies, and radio stations. Mandarin is also one of the six official languages in the United Nations. Even Hong Kong schools have begun switching from Cantonese to Mandarin education since around 1997 (when China regained its sovereignty from the U.K.).
This means that Mandarin can be understood even China as well as Hong Kong, Macau and Canton (the main regions who still speak Cantonese), and more and more Cantonese speakers are learning Mandarin nowadays.
As we covered above, Mandarin is easier to learn in regards to both writing and speaking. Cantonese is seen to be more difficult because it has from 6 to 9 tones, each of which signify different things (while Mandarin only has 4 tones). In addition, because of its greater prevalence, it is easier to find Mandarin study materials than Cantonese study materials.
And since all of the Chinese dialects use the same written characters and a grammar similar to that of Mandarin, it is not unreasonable to attempt to learn both Mandarin and Cantonese, as long as you gain a strong grasp of the characters first!
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Any language is challenging to learn, and Chinese languages are no different. But it's absolutely doable if you choose the right language learning tools, create a study plan, and commit to it, consistently learning over a long time.
I recently took a sabbatical to learn Mandarin, the official language of Mainland China. More specifically, my goal was to pass HSK 6, the last level of the official Mandarin examination administered by the Confucius Institute, an agency under the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (1).
I was told it usually takes foreign students in China 3 to 4 years to pass HSK 6, but I could not afford to take that much time off work, so I decided to experiment with fast learning techniques to get there in 1 year or so. The journey ended up being more bumpy than anticipated but it worked.
Why Mandarin Chinese specifically? It is already the most widely spoken language in the world and it is becoming more and more ubiquitous as demographic, socio-economic and technological trends are pivoting the centre of the world economy to Asia.
I moved to Chengde, a town 3 hours north of Beijing close to the border with Inner Mongolia. I had been preparing this move for months and saying that I was excited would be a massive understatement. The weather was brutal (-15 Celsius), living conditions far less comfortable than in Hong Kong but I was happy, feeling very lucky to have the opportunity to immerse myself in the oldest civilization of the world and study a new language that had the possibility to open new life-altering horizons.
As I was finishing the official learning curriculum and getting ready to take the HSK 6 test, a new issue came up: Hong Kong was not willing to let me take the exam (2). I had to move, again. I sought the help of my native country, France, but they were still paralyzed by the virus. Luckily, after a while, a university in the south of Thailand agreed to take me in. The only condition was that I had to complete another 5 weeks of quarantine, across Bangkok and Hong Kong. In December 2020, I relocated to a small island next to Phuket where I continued to study online.
(2) There are two ways of taking the HSK test: paper-based and computer-based. The computer-based test is identical to the paper-based test. The only difference is that the questions are presented on the screen and you are required to submit answers through the use of a keyboard and a mouse. It was created for people who cannot hand-write Chinese characters but can read them and write on a computer using a pinyin interface. The majority of foreigners stick to computer writing and do not learn how to hand-write Chinese characters as it requires years of consistent practice. To facilitate testing during the covid period, Beijing also created an online version of the test that you can take from home under remote camera supervision. Unfortunately, as of end of 2020, Hong Kong did not have computerized testing centres: they were 35 km away in Shenzhen, the sister city on the other side of the still closed mainland border. Hong Kong was not willing either to run and supervise remote online tests to accommodate foreigners.
The DLIFLC teaches 17 foreign languages in Monterey, California. Most enlisted students take its immersion courses to go into military intelligence jobs, while federal employees from other agencies, such as the FBI and National Security Agency, also go there.
Chinese Instruction A Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center instructor shows Chinese language students a tea-tasking ceremony as a way to immerse them in the culture. Share: Share Copy Link Email Facebook X LinkedIn WhatsApp Download: Full Size (174.08 KB) Photo By: Patrick Bray VIRIN: 181001-O-ZZ999-300
Liu said the key is to link your interests with the language so you can stay motivated and keep up with the pace. The school incorporates extracurricular activities such as cooking days, storytelling of legendary warriors and heroes, and there are immersion trips to places like a local Chinese market to get the students to appreciate the culture.
I've read the thread on 學 vs. 學習 and I have a slightly related question. In English, the words "learn" and "study" are somewhat interchangeable, but also fairly distinct, in that there is a distinction between the meaning of the words learn and study, with the implication that one studies something in order to learn it, and that one who has learned something has in a way completed studying it. I'm am guessing the same distinction can be made in Chinese, and I'm wondering how that is done.
In summary, I think learning/學 is a more inclusive term (as is often the case in Chinese when there is less characters) that does have a passive quality about it, although you still have to make a conscious effort if you want to learn something. Therefore I am inclined to say that learning is the generic term you use for acquiring knowledge or information.
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