Hmm so then I wonder how the smallest schools are? On the application I said my first choice was a tiny school in Tamsui called Alethia university (founded by Mackay). They advertise themselves as the only mandarin program in Tamsui (tamkang uses the Taipei campus)
I don’t know how anyone can get very far without learning the written language. There are so many phrases, puns, idioms that you’d have to know written Chinese to understand.
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I’d not doubt that literacy helps with learning Chinese, however bear in mind that there are plenty of native Chinese speakers that are not literate: including most old age pensioners in rural China, most speakers under a certain age, some overseas Chinese etc. Just out of curiosity, do you have an example item of spoken language that would not be possible to learn without the written language? (Not saying that there aren’t any, but just am curious to know which ones)
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There are too many examples to name. I’d say as a native speaker of course it’s possible to be fluent since there are blind and illiterate people. Illiterate people would still have some limitations in being able to understand more complex topics though just as they would in English.
So for examples take any number of common Chengyu 憤世嫉俗, or 眾所周知. Or likewise how trending news stories tend to get abbreviated like 陸配. How would they know 陸 is 大陸的陸 and 配偶的配。
As a non-native speaker who has not grown up in a Chinese speaking environment you’d be relying on having enough chance encounters with context to be able to understand. Or relying on people to explain it to you in a way that does not reference an understanding of characters in the first place.
So I’d counter that and say, show me a non-native speaker that speaks fluent Chinese, above the level of a child, without knowing Chinese characters.
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Let’s be specific when we discuss literacy:
- More or less being able to read printed Chinese characters: important.
- More or less choosing the right Chinese character when typing. Somewhat important.
- Being able to read hand-written characters: unimportant.
- Being able to handwrite characters: unimportant
Most universities will focus a lot on handwriting characters. For me, that would be a waste of time. And personally, I also don’t care to recognise each character independently, as long as I can recognise almost all characters in typical sentences.
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How do you fill out forms then?
I guess this would be a prerequisite to number 4
My spoken Chinese was fluent to a workplace level before I learned to read. I’ve worked in Chinese only workplaces for about the past five years. Only in the past year or two has my reading got good enough to read a newspaper though. This is because I am totally self taught and didnt bothered with characters at first.
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I’ve heard good things of a smaller school near da an park. Not sure if they offer visas though.
For me personally i wouldn’t expect the schools to be too different. Basically just want to avoid overly regimented ones that don’t let you speak, pile on home work and overly rely on tests.
I don’t think you need to devote time to writing characters over and over either, but at least understanding the basics of stroke order and using the handwriting function on a phone or tablet is the fastest way to look up a character.
And you do need to write for filling out forms so it helps to be able at least know your basic information.
I’m sure there would still be many concepts that would go over your head though. Chinese speakers are very visual and I encounter everyday where someone is asking which character and they describe it visually with it’s components/radical.
I’m a non native Chinese speaker - mostly illiterate in Chinese - and I spoke Chinese as the first language at home for more than ten years. My spouse at the time didn’t speak any English. Whether or not my level is above that of ‘a child’ probably would depend on what you would call a child’s level though. Right now I am just about keeping up with my eldest kid on that front. Thanks for the examples, I guess yea, as I already know, I will probably never progress to much further without learning to read and write.
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I type them on my phone and then copy from that: if I have to. There often are kindly little old ladies nearby to write them for you in most contexts though. 
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I’m not worried about visas only if the fellowship awarding body considers the Program as reputable
If you are not worried about going to a school that gives visas then the ma fan goes down a lot. I’ve been to 2 language centers. Neither had tests or attendance requirements, less class time, generally more laid back but i didn’t find the teaching to be as good either and there was quite a lot of english spoken (maybe because it was a lower level) but it was still alright. All of these schools are basically just going through a course book anyway.
I put my best effort into learning to write characters but they are simply too hard to memorize. No where near worth the amount of effort you need to put in be able to write them. As for writing forms well in class i had to copy most things from my phone so i’d just have to do that again no big deal. Learning to read and type is a lot easier.
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Probably a lot easier with an APRC too.
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So for examples take any number of common Chengyu 憤世嫉俗, or 眾所周知. Or likewise how trending news stories tend to get abbreviated like 陸配. How would they know 陸 is 大陸的陸 and 配偶的配。
I’m pretty confident that there are plenty of illiterate Vietnamese speakers of Mandarin as a second language who know exactly what lupei means. It’s pretty common in the spoken register.
I think you are underestimating the ability of illiterate native speakers to process and figure out phrases from the written register. Taiwanese storytellers use semi-literary language to tell complex stories about the Three Kingdoms period. The audiences included many illiterate people in the past.
I do agree that it might be harder for a second-language learner. But that is because most of us are from highly literate societies and have received text-oriented educations. Our ears are poorly trained so we learn mostly through our eyes to the detriment of our spoken Mandarin. Reasonable people can disagree about this of course. I personally have long felt that my excessive reliance on the written language has and continues to impair my ability to speak and understand Mandarin
So I’d counter that and say, show me a non-native speaker that speaks fluent Chinese, above the level of a child, without knowing Chinese characters.
I’m afraid I can’t produce her for inspection, but I once met an American woman in China who had lived in Beijing for decades and spoke insanely good putonghua as well as actual Beijing dialect (the latter according to a native Beijinger). She told me that she was completely illiterate in Chinese, having made a conscious decision from the beginning not to learn the written language. She was far above the level of a child and probably far better than I can ever hope to attain.
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I actually know that one. Or I presume I am correct when saying that it means mainland spouse?
In the context of their lives yes there is a higher chance they would understand this.
Illiterate people can speak but that doesn’t mean they are completely fluent in all topics. You are still missing out on a huge portion of Chinese since so much is dependent on the characters.
Homophonic Puns
Just think about Chinese New Year, why are there fish on decorations? That character on the door is upside down but you wouldn’t know why. You’d be completely lost on word riddles.
Internet Slang
歪果仁 - making fun of foreigners inability to pronounce tones
草泥馬
米國
More news examples
虐童 nue tong
食安 - shi an
以巴 - yi ba
俄烏 - e wu
Since the office was brought up, I have a recent example I encountered. Head office in the States sent me the name of a supplier in Pinyin that we couldn’t work with because of a violation. I looked up the website and it was the same name and pronunciation but completely different Chinese characters. If I couldn’t read Chinese, I’d be wasting time trying to get this company to prove they are a different company with a different name.
All of the homophones you listed are understood without the characters.
“The word for ‘fish’ and the word for ‘leftover’ sound the same in Chinese”. Hey look, we understand the pun without even using Chinese. Seriously, I understand English homophone-based puns without seeing them written down, why would I need to understand the characters in Chinese to get them in Chinese? Certainly, characters help with the ambiguity (literally why Chinese is never going to not have characters — too many homophones compared to other languages), but not knowing them doesn’t prevent me from understanding if I know that there’s two words that sound the same but mean different things. That’s literally how homophones work.
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I agree, someone hearing 陸配 for example for the first time will have to learn it just like any newly heard word, by extension from similar words (maybe a bit easier in Chinese than most languages), from context, by asking, etc. I don’t see how Chinese is really any different in this regard. That’s not to say learning the written language doesn’t have benefits for language learning or in general, it greatly does IMO.
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You just explained why by choosing not to learn characters means your understanding of the language will always be limited compared to others.
I have yet to see this mythical fluent Chinese speaker capable of having advanced conversations which do frequently involve Chinese idioms. I don’t even know why you would do that to yourself. It would be so much harder to learn 成語 without actually understanding characters.
You might be able to guess fish and leftover are the same, but I’d highly doubt you’d know that hui4 in the phrase 自慚形穢 means dirty/filthy. For all you know it could be 繪 or 彙。
You wouldn’t know what it meant until someone hopefully explained it in simple terms to you.